Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

Gmail was always a gateway drug for the greater Google ecosystem. When it launched in 2004, Gmail stood out by offering then-wild amounts of storage for free. Despite few updates to its design in two decades, it now boasts 2.5 billion users and is the largest email service in the world. And—like so much of the tech industry—Google is betting that email will sell you on its next big bet: AI. Starting today, Gmail will begin rolling out three new AI services that will significantly impact the way use your inbox. Gmail’s new AI features Two of the services require a $20/mo subscription to its Gemini AI service, while the third will come to all users, free. (And yes, you …

TikTok agreed to settle a landmark social media addiction lawsuit just before the trial kicked off, the plaintiff’s attorneys confirmed. The social video platform was one of three companies — along with Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube — facing claims that their platforms deliberately addict and harm children. A fourth company named in the lawsuit, Snapchat parent company Snap Inc., settled the case last week for an undisclosed sum. Details of the settlement with TikTok were not disclosed, and the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. At the core of the case is a 19-year-old identified only by the initials “KGM,” whose case could determine …

Burberry, the brand best known for its iconic checkered pattern and fashionable trench coat, announced Wednesday that it may cut around 1,700 jobs worldwide in a major cost-reducing effort. The news comes as British luxury brand reported a staggering 117% drop in annual profits, or around $87.8M (£66m), over the last financial year. Burberry employed about 9,300 people across the world last year, meaning the cuts could take out about 20% of the brand’s workforce. In a statement on the company’s website, CEO Joshua Schulman said Burberry is not looking to make any major store closures, and explained that the cuts will primarily come from the group’s head offices…

If you enter a query into Quili.AI on January 31, your question won’t be answered by a large language model, but instead by residents from the Chilean community of Quilicura. The project aims to replace artificial intelligence with “analog intelligence,” to both highlight the environmental impact of AI, and to get people thinking consciously about their AI use. “We’re inviting people to have a day without AI,” Lorena Antiman from Corporación NGEN, an environmental organization focused in part on protecting Quilicura’s wetlands, says while speaking through a translator. Corporación NGEN spearheaded the project. Instead of going through a data center, each pr…

Below, Judd Kessler shares five key insights from his new book, Lucky by Design: The Hidden Economics You Need to Get More of What You Want. Judd is an award-winning professor of economics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His research and writing have been featured in leading media, such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Scientific American, and Harvard Business Review, among others. For his work on organ allocation, Kessler was named one of the “30 under 30” in Law and Policy by Forbes. He has been researching market design for the past 15 years. What’s the big idea? Life is full of hidden markets quietly deciding who gets what—and…

The average person changes jobs every two years and nine months, according to a survey by the career advice website Career Sidekick. If you work for 40 years, that translates to about 15 jobs—and 15 resignations. While the conversation can feel difficult, it’s important to be thoughtful about how you say goodbye, says Melody Wilding, author of Managing Up: How to Get What you Need from the People in Charge and human behavior professor at Hunter College in New York City. “A lot of people boomerang back to a company, team, or manager in a fairly short time,” says Wilding, who is also a contributor to Fast Company. “Having strong relationships with leaders and colleague…

Meta is working to make its apps better for boomers. This week the company announced new UX features designed to deter scammers and make Meta’s apps safer for older adults. Scammers today use all kinds of tricks to part people from their money, like soliciting personal information under the guise of fake government benefits, brazenly pretending to be customer service support, and chatting up unwitting people in the comments section of a real business’s social media page to lure them to another page. New features for older users Meta says its new in-app warnings are meant to combat that type of behavior, and will be triggered by suspicious activity. On t…

On May 11, media entrepreneur Byron Allen announced a deal to buy a majority stake in BuzzFeed—the millennial-favorite news site that closed its Pulitzer Prize-winning news division in 2023. Allen is swooping in as savior of the 20-year-old publication, which otherwise would have had to file for bankruptcy as a result of its shrinking revenue. Allen will replace founder Jonah Peretti as CEO of BuzzFeed; Peretti will become president of BuzzFeed AI. “Our vision is to build on the iconic foundation of BuzzFeed and HuffPost by expanding into free-streaming video, audio, and user-generated content,” Allen said in a statement announcing the deal. “As of this moment, wi…

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. For years, banks have known their customer experience needs to catch up to the digital expectations set by tech and retail giants. Now, with AI dominating the boardroom agenda, the temptation is to bolt on yet another tool and call it transformation. But real progress doesn’t come from piling on more tools—it comes from using AI to intelligently orchestrate smarter, more connected customer journ…

Most F1 cars can reach speeds of well over 200 mph, but the newest automobiles in the F1 stable go much much slow. Built from 400,000 Lego pieces, the life-size Lego cars can drive 12 mph—not bad for a bunch of plastic bricks. To mark the start of a multiyear partnership, the Danish toy maker created 10 drivable, full-scale Formula 1 cars that debuted at the Miami Grand Prix. The racing series’ 20 competitors, including speed demons Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc, drove the Lego cars at Sunday’s prerace Drivers’ Parade for millions of fans watching from the grandstands and on television. The “big build” cars took Lego builders a collective 22,000 hours ove…

In its early days, the odds seemed good that YouTube was destined for failure. After a false start as a dating website, it wasn’t clear whether the company could cover the cost of streaming video content, or avoid the fate of Napster, which was sued out of business for copyright infringement. But after getting acquired by Google in 2006, and deciding to share ad revenue with creators a year later, YouTube went on not only to survive, but also to revolutionize the entire media ecosystem—from “double rainbows” to the “Ice Bucket Challenge.” In 2024, YouTube took in $36.3 billion in ad revenue, and today it is the most-watched video provider in the U.S.—not just among s…

Los Angeles Lakers guard Bronny James quietly debuted a new logo for his signature shoe during last week’s game against the Cleveland Cavaliers: a lowercase b (for Bronny) that features a 9 (for his jersey number) inside the letterform. The logo appeared on a bright pink pair of James’s father’s shoe, the LeBron Witness IX, but there was another logo on the shoe that was notable: a backwards Nike Swoosh. Since debuting in 1971, the Nike Swoosh has become one of the most iconic brand logos of all time. Still, Nike designers have occasionally had some fun with it by breaking brand guidelines and flipping the logo around. Though there’s no formal rule for who gets…

I was a latchkey kid. Most afternoons, I came home to an empty house, let myself in with my own key, and figured it out—homework and snacks. There was inherent trust from my parents that I’d figure it out, and everything would be alright. You learned fast. If you got stuck, you improvised. If you were scared, you got practical. If you needed help, you decided whether it was “worth” bothering anyone. And if you were the oldest—if you were parentified—you were given responsibilities without guidance, expected to “just know.” Thirty years later, I’m watching middle managers experience the exact same thing. We hand them keys instead of house rules, responsibil…

Branded is a weekly column devoted to the intersection of marketing, business, design, and culture. Costco has been on a good run lately. The beloved big-box club chain has been winning new fans for its no-nonsense stand on continuing its DEI policies, with comparable store sales up 6.8% in its most recent quarter. But as Costco shoppers know, its in-house Kirkland Signature brand, which includes everything from underwear to frozen pizza, has long been the discount club’s not-so-secret weapon. Kirkland marks its 30th anniversary this year, and in what’s shaping up to be a challenging economy for consumers across the board, it’s poised to become more important than ever. …

Amazon is rolling out a new feature in hopes of retaining, or perhaps attracting, new Prime members. The tech giant announced Wednesday that Alexa+, its AI-powered assistant, is now available for free to all Prime members. Last March, Amazon began offering an “early access” preview for the new voice assistant that saw an “inspiring” response, with tens of millions of customers requesting access, according to a statement. The company has revamped its legacy Alexa product to handle more complex interactions—offering examples of how users can engage in “deep conversations” with Alexa+ that may be ongoing over the course of potentially several days, as the technology …

The news cycle is seemingly always full of OpenAI stories. The state of various investments from fellow tech giants like Nvidia and Microsoft, the competitive landscape between other big AI players like Google and Anthropic, and, of course, the more existential questions surrounding the direction of artificial intelligence and its impacts on society. For its new Super Bowl campaign, OpenAI is focusing on a simpler narrative: how ChatGPT helps people build things that have real-world impact. The company will roll out a 60-second national spot during the big game, but it has also made three regional ads, which are debuting exclusively on Fast Company. The regional s…

Microsoft’s cloud computing and artificial intelligence business helped deliver $70.1 billion in sales and boosted profits by 18% for the January-March quarter, a dose of relief for investors during a turbulent time for the tech sector and U.S. economy. The company reported quarterly net income of $25.8 billion, or $3.46 per share, beating Wall Street expectations for earnings of $3.22 a share. The Redmond, Washington-based software maker posted revenue of $70.1 billion in the period, its third fiscal quarter, up 13% from the same period a year ago and also beating Wall Street expectations. Analysts polled by FactSet expected Microsoft to post revenue of $68.44 billion …

Every friend group has one person who’s always running late. If you can’t think of one, chances are you’re that friend. Now, a newly launched app called Lately is here to help you stay on time for everything from meetings to dinner plans. Created by developer Erik MacInnis, Lately sends users timely nudges—30, 10, and five minutes before it’s time to leave. As the self-acknowledged “late one” in his friend group, MacInnis tells Fast Company that the idea for Lately struck during a fishing trip gone wrong. He had assumed it would take 20 minutes to get there, got sidetracked by replying to emails, left five minutes late, and the drive ended up taking 30. “When I ar…

Venmo is getting its first full app overhaul since its inception in 2009, and it’s addressing some major UX issues that have made using the platform feel like the digital equivalent of flipping through a phone book. When Venmo was launched, it was a breath of fresh air in the finance space. It stood out for its social network-style approach to bill splitting and rent requests. Since then, though, Venmo’s aspirations have far outgrown its app interface. In the first quarter of 2026, PayPal (Venmo’s parent company) shared that Venmo’s total payment volume was up 14% year-over-year, marking its sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. According to Alexis So…

We used to argue whether design was about aesthetics or about functionality. But in 2025, those conversations seemed downright quaint. Simpler debates for a simpler time. Now we’re wondering if craft can survive the age of AI, and if we’ll ever escape the politicization of every brand and object again. For the December episode of our podcast By Design, I discussed these trends and more with Fast Company senior editor Liz Stinson. We were joined by some of our brightest friends in the industry who shared their biggest own moments in design for the year, including Paola Antonelli (senior curator at MoMA), Cliff Kuang (FC Design’s first editor and senior staff d…

February 1 was National Change Your Password Day, a well-intentioned reminder that, ironically, highlights everything wrong with how we think about security in 2026. Here’s the truth: if you spent the first day of the month dutifully changing “Summer2025!” to “Winter2026!” across your accounts, you didn’t make yourself safer. In fact, you might have made things worse. Decades of Bad Advice We’ve spent decades teaching people the wrong lessons about password security. Add a number. Throw in a special character. Change it every 90 days. These requirements were etched into our collective consciousness, repeated by IT departments, enforced by login forms, and inter…