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Imagine this: One day, you won’t have to waste hours of your life doing your most arduous, least favorite forms of shopping. You know what I’m talking about—buying Christmas presents for distant aunts, getting supplies for your kid’s birthday, ordering groceries for dinner. In the near future, you’ll empower your AI agent to tackle the task, then off it will go, identifying the right items, comparing prices and—most impressively—making the purchase for you. Within hours, a tin of your aunt’s favorite biscuits, the correct number of Peppa Pig plates, and a bag of groceries will arrive at your doorstep. We’re not quite there yet, but experts say that this future is …

On May 20, 2025, the Food and Drug Administration announced a new stance on who should receive the COVID-19 vaccine. The agency said it would approve new versions of the vaccine only for adults 65 years of age and older as well as for people with one or more risk factors for severe COVID-19 outcomes. These risk factors include medical conditions such as asthma, cancer, chronic kidney disease, heart disease and diabetes. However, healthy younger adults and children who fall outside of these groups may not be eligible to receive the COVID-19 shot this fall. Vaccine manufacturers will have to conduct clinical trials to demonstrate that the vaccine benefits low-risk g…

Early this morning, the House voted 215–214 to pass a sweeping budget reconciliation bill with provisions that include a cancellation or phaseout for just about everything that was in the Inflation Reduction Act. The measure, which now heads to the Senate, is being described by clean energy and environmental groups as a monumental betrayal of the country that will cost jobs and increase electricity bills. But during the floor debate overnight, the energy parts of the bill were an afterthought to higher priority issues for members of both parties, such as tax cuts, revisions to Medicaid, and a desire to support or oppose the agenda of President Donald The President…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Based on our analysis of the Zillow Home Value Index, U.S. home prices are up just +0.2% year-over-year between January 2025 and January 2026. That marks a deceleration from the +2.6% growth rate a year earlier—though national price growth has recently stabilized, ticking a tad higher from a low of -0.01% in August 2025. In the first half of 2025, the number of major metro area housing markets seeing year-over-year declines climbed. That count has since pretty much stopped ticking up. 31 of the nation’s 300 largest housing markets (i.e., 10% of …

When Luis von Ahn, Duolingo’s CEO, sent an internal memo about AI last year, he didn’t expect it to go viral—or to ignite a firestorm about the future of work. Now he unpacks what he got right, what he got wrong, and what the backlash taught him about the real limitations of AI. It’s a candid reckoning with hype, growth, and the surprisingly complicated promise of technology in education. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company, Bob Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top business leaders navigating real-time…

The state of Indiana is no stranger to underdog stories. Hoosiers and Rudy, two of the most iconic underdog sports films ever made, both take place in the state, and both are based on true stories. Hoosier nation now has a trilogy. Indiana University’s football team had been a Big Ten doormat for as long as the conference had existed. Then, athletic director Scott Dolson hired Curt Cignetti as head coach, and Cignetti embarked on the greatest turnaround story in modern college sports. In just his second season, he led the Hoosiers to their first-ever national championship, defeating the University of Miami Hurricanes, 27-21, on Monday night, and completing a perfe…

Early in my career, a colleague and I made a shared commitment one summer to eat healthier. Salads. Smoothies. The full routine. Like many well-intentioned plans, our discipline began to fade after a few weeks. Eventually, we introduced what we jokingly called Grease Wednesdays, a weekly cheat day as a reward for all our good behavior. Every Wednesday, one of us would head out to grab fast food, and we’d hide away in a small boardroom to indulge in our shared lack of nutritional discipline. At first, it was just the two of us, chatting with laptops closed and fries on the table. And then coworkers began peeking into whatever boardroom we were in, curious about the…

For all the advances in data science, artificial intelligence, and behavioral assessments, one hiring ritual remains stubbornly unchanged: the job interview, where candidates are still subjected to awkward brainteasers about golf balls in airplanes, forced to disclose their “biggest weaknesses” to amateur psychologists, asked whether they would keep working after winning the lottery, or made to present to silent panels who seem less interested in evidence of competence than in observing how gracefully applicants endure a mildly humiliating social experiment. Despite decades of research showing that traditional interviews are only moderately reliable predictors of perf…

The bill that brought the government back online last month ended the shutdown with an unexpected catch that could crush an entire industry. A hidden provision slipped into the bill just before it passed has nothing to do with the federal shutdown and everything to do with hemp—the version of cannabis that’s grown as a food, a fiber, and, in recent years, as the active ingredient in an array of sodas, gummies, and snacks crafted to give people an alcohol-free buzz. Hemp is legally defined as a variety of the plant Cannabis sativa L. that contains less than .3 percent of the most common form of THC, the psychoactive compound from marijuana that gets people high. In…

If you saw a group of millennials out on a Saturday in the mid-2010s, they were most likely wearing leggings—the uniform of that era. And there’s a good chance they were Lululemon’s Align leggings. Ten years ago today, Lululemon’s designers developed a new material called Nulu that was buttery soft, thin, and stretchy. It put them into a $98 pair of leggings called Align. The fabric proved so irresistible that women started wearing the pants right out of the yoga studio and into the rest of their lives. On the newly launched Instagram app, you would see twenty- and thirtysomethings wearing the pricey leggings out to brunch, or for school pickups, or on long flights. S…

Raquel Urtasun is the founder and CEO of self-driving truck startup Waabi as well as a computer science professor at the University of Toronto. Unlike some competitors, Waabi’s AI technology is designed to drive goods all the way to their destinations, rather than merely to autonomous vehicle hubs near highways. Urtasun, one of Fast Company’s AI 20 honorees for 2025, spoke with us about the relationship between her academic and industry work, what sets Waabi apart from the competition, and the role augmented reality and simulation play in teaching computers to drive even in unusual road conditions. This Q&A is part of Fast Company’s AI 20 for 2025, our roundup…

Batteries are powering a significant shift in how we go about our daily lives, ranging from the devices we carry to electric vehicles and energy storage systems. Batteries play a critical role across key sectors from data center infrastructure, military, and microgrid applications to consumer electronics and more. But as demand surges, so does end-of-life material that needs to be managed. Beyond serving as compact energy sources, batteries also represent a domestic source of essential critical minerals. To fully realize their value, it is crucial to close the loop at end-of-life by recovering these minerals and strengthening the supply needed to support a rapidly exp…

Our honorees in the new tech visionaries category are executives who applied new thinking to pressing problems. One is working to take cellular broadband places it’s never gone before. Another aims to make the tech industry less dependent on the risky business of mining rare earth materials. And the third is applying AI to the thorny challenge of defending against ever-smarter missiles and drones. Abel Avellan, CEO, AST SpaceMobile For sending cellular broadband to space Founded in 2017 by chairman and CEO Abel Avellan, AST SpaceMobile has launched six of its BlueBird satellites into low Earth orbit, with plans to have 60 more in orbit by the end of 2026. The goal is t…

Starbucks Corporation has announced that it will lay off 300 corporate employees in the United States. The layoffs represent the third round of job cuts that the coffee chain has initiated in the last 15 months. They come as the company is in the midst of efficiency and cost-cutting measures under the leadership of CEO Brian Niccol, who assumed the role in 2024. Here’s what you need to know about the latest Starbucks layoffs. Starbucks to cut 300 corporate jobs in the U.S. On Friday, Starbucks confirmed that it was cutting 300 corporate jobs in the United States. The news was first reported by CNBC. The job cuts will not impact the majority of the comp…

Most teams respond to communication problems by adding more meetings. Another weekly check-in to keep everyone aligned. Another “quick sync” because the email thread got messy. Another call because half the team left the last one with different interpretations of what had just been decided. The meeting load grows. The communication problem stays. That is because what looks like a communication problem is usually something deeper. It shows up as surprises that should not have been surprises. As decisions relitigated by people who were never comfortable with the outcome. As confusion about who owns what. As uncertainty that everyone feels and nobody names. In ot…

Scott Adams, the creator of the uber-popular and satirical comic strip Dilbert, has died. He passed away on January 13, after announcing his diagnosis of metastatic prostate cancer last spring. He was 68. On Tuesday morning, the cartoonist’s former wife, Shelly Miles, shared the news of his death during a livestream on X. Miles read from a statement that Adams had prepared himself for the occasion. “I had an amazing life,” the statement said. “I gave it everything I had. If you got any benefits from my work, I’m asking you to pay it forward as best you can. That is the legacy I want. Be useful. And please know I loved you all to the very end.” Dilbert was fi…

Yes, it’s that time of year again, when most of the U.S. “gains” an extra hour of sleep as we “fall back” from daylight savings to shorter days, colder nights, and standard time. This Sunday, November 2, at 2 a.m local time, we will turn back our clocks to 1 a.m—and that will last until March 8, 2026 (when we will once again usher in daylight saving time). Although getting an extra hour of sleep sounds like a win, here’s what really happens to your health when the clocks change. Darker nights disrupt the body’s natural clock Darker evenings actually disrupt our body’s natural circadian rhythm, our mood, and our metabolism, according to Dr. Zaid Fadul, CEO …

U.S. officials rejected a push to establish a global AI governance framework at this week’s United Nations General Assembly, despite the plan enjoying broad support from many world nations, including China. At a Security Council debate on Wednesday, Michael Kratsios, the director of the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy, said that Washington “totally” rejected all efforts by international organizations to “assert centralized control and global governance of AI.” The meeting marked the first time that all 193 UN member states have been able to weigh in on AI governance. It comes after an August 2025 UN resolution—which members unanimously endorsed—urgin…

Right now, criminal and state-sponsored hackers are intercepting and storing encrypted data they cannot yet decode. Likely targets include everything from corporate secrets and medical records to legal agreements and military communications. Why would these actors bother to steal data they can’t read? Because they are betting on developments in quantum computing that will eventually let them crack this encrypted data wide open. This isn’t a fringe theory. The NSA (National Security Agency), NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), and ENISA (European Agency for Cybersecurity) are all treating this “harvest now, decrypt later” scenario as a live threat th…

Omnicom said on Monday it will lay off more than 4,000 employees and fold several well-known advertising agency brands after its $13 billion acquisition of rival Interpublic Group. The advertising industry faces a serious threat as artificial intelligence reshapes creative production and tech giants such as Meta make it easier for businesses to churn out ads at scale and speed. Omnicom’s high-stakes acquisition of Interpublic Group, which was completed in November, aims to regain momentum in this shifting landscape, as it contends with fierce competition from French ad giant Publicis and UK’s WPP. The company said creative agency DDB, founded in 1949, and crea…

NBC recently debuted a new show: Stumble, a comedy about a former cheer coach leading a team of misfits. Some earlier reviews of the show, which premiered on November 7, called it “hilarious” and “full of sharp writing.” But the new sitcom, starring Kristin Chenoweth, Jenn Lyon, and Taran Killam, has audiences chuckling at more than just cheer squad antics. It also makes narcolepsy, a serious neurological disorder, into a recurring joke. Narcolepsy, a chronic condition that can lead to major challenges for sufferers, takes center stage in the show as a character named Madonna (Arianna Davis) has the condition. Due to the disorder, Madonna collapses without warning…

The hype train on corporate purpose keeps steaming down the tracks. I have written about it before and tried to be positive. But I feel the need to be more constructively critical. If everyone has been convinced that they need to have a corporate purpose, let’s at least have it be a useful one. I try to contribute to that goal in this Playing to Win/Practitioner Insights (PTW/PI) piece. And as always, you can find all the previous PTW/PI here. The hype train The articles and books on corporate purpose just keep coming. For example, in the past month alone, Harvard Business Review published four pieces on purpose (one, two, three, four). And the books keep coming, w…

For 20-year-old Mayank Yadav, riding a crowded bus in the summer months in this western Indian city can be like sitting in an oven. That makes it a treat when he steps off and into a bus stop outfitted with sprinklers that bathe overheated commuters in a cooling mist. “Everyone is suffering from the heat,” Yadav said. “I hope they do more of this across the city.” Rising heat is a problem for millions of people in India. In Ahmedabad, temperatures this year have already reached 42 degrees Celsius (107 Fahrenheit), a level usually not seen for several more weeks, prompting city officials to advise people to stay indoors and stay hydrated. And yet, coping with t…