Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

At Google, AI is reshaping employees’ titles and how they work. Last month, Google Cloud’s senior director and chief evangelist Richard Seroter told Fast Company that software engineers have turned into product engineers, or architects, as they move away from manual coding to directing teams of AI agents. It seems that AI also changed how Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, works, too. “I just think the CEO job is not that complicated,” Pichai said when asked how close AI is to replacing him as a CEO during a recent interview with The Verge. “There are aspects of it where I think [AI] is going to be very, very helpful in terms of decision-making.” The CEO added that AI …

How would a school shooting affect your employees? It’s something that most employers never want to think about, but it’s a horrifyingly real threat to any community—and the companies and organizations that do business there. Following the death of my youngest son, Dylan, in the 2012 Sandy Hook School shooting, I can tell you first-hand about the lasting trauma that occurs when your child is injured or killed in this type of tragedy—and how that ripples through the entire community. In October, we held America’s Safe Schools Week, a national initiative to raise awareness about school violence and promote safety. It’s also a time for companies to recognize they have a …

This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. I love apps like Metronaut and Tomplay, which let me carry a collection of classical (sheet) music on my phone. They also provide piano or orchestral accompaniment for any violin piece I want to play. Today’s post shares 10 other recommended tools for music lovers from my fellow writer and friend, Chris Dalla Riva, who writes Can’t Get Much Higher, a popular Substack focused on the intersection of music and data. I invited Chris to share with you his favorite resources for discovering, learning, and creating music. By day, Chris work…

Picture the scene. You’ve advertised a job on LinkedIn and received applications from around Europe. The perfect candidate lives in one of the world’s top tech cities—Paris, Berlin, or Amsterdam, for instance. Your company is based somewhere in Europe, so hiring them should be easy, right? Unfortunately, no. Despite their geographical proximity, countries in Europe still vary significantly in their hiring rules and regulations, making it hard to compliantly pay cross-border workers. Let’s take a closer look at the problem. So close, yet so far There’s naturally a certain amount of friction in terms of labor law compatibility between European states in…

Police are getting a boost from artificial intelligence, with algorithms now able to draft police reports in minutes. The technology promises to make police reports more accurate and comprehensive, as well as save officers time. The idea is simple: Take the audio transcript from a body camera worn by a police officer and use the predictive text capabilities of large language models to write a formal police report that could become the basis of a criminal prosecution. Mirroring other fields that have allowed ChatGPT-like systems to write on behalf of people, police can now get an AI assist to automate much dreaded paperwork. The catch is that instead of writing the…

Over the course of 2025, deepfakes improved dramatically. AI-generated faces, voices, and full-body performances that mimic real people increased in quality far beyond what even many experts expected would be the case just a few years ago. They were also increasingly used to deceive people. For many everyday scenarios—especially low-resolution video calls and media shared on social media platforms—their realism is now high enough to reliably fool nonexpert viewers. In practical terms, synthetic media have become indistinguishable from authentic recordings for ordinary people and, in some cases, even for institutions. And this surge is not limited to quality. The v…

U.K. banks and government tech systems going down. University students in Australia struggling to complete their coursework. Homes across Europe losing access to their Ring doorbells. While you were sleeping, large parts of the Amazon Web Services (AWS)-based internet went offline around the world. According to the AWS outage monitor, the problem stemmed from a misconfiguration of Domain Name System (DNS) resolution within the company’s cloud infrastructure. The problem was remedied within three hours of being encountered—by people unable to log onto Roblox or search the web with Perplexity. But the outage highlights just how much the web’s day-to-day function…

Some good news on the weight-loss front: Customers can now go to Costco to get Ozempic and Wegovy, brand-name injectable prescription drugs manufactured by drug maker Novo Nordisk, which contain the same active ingredient: semaglutide. The Danish pharmaceutical firm announced Friday that both are available at the big-box retailer’s pharmacies nationwide, for $499 for a month’s supply—the same price as sold in CVS, Walmart, and the company’s direct-to-consumer website. You’ll still need a prescription to buy the drugs. Fast Company has reached out to both Costco and Novo Nordisk for comment. Also—Costco is offering a 2% discount for both Costco executive member…

When Accenture announced plans to lay off 11,000 workers who it deemed could not be reskilled for AI, the tech consulting giant framed the decision as a training issue: some people simply cannot learn what they need to learn to thrive in the world of AI. But this narrative fundamentally misunderstands—and significantly underplays—the deeper challenge. Doug McMillon, the CEO of Walmart, pointed to this bigger challenge recently when he said, “AI is going to change literally every job.” Now, if this turns out to be true, every role will have to be reimagined. And when every role changes, this is more than a change in each job or even a specific field. It implies a profo…

Just four days into the new year, awards season kicked off with the Critics Choice Awards. One week later, it’s time for the Golden Globes to shine. The 83rd edition of this star-studded event—which takes place on Sunday, January 11, in Beverly Hills, California—celebrates greatness in both television and film. Here’s everything you need to know about the big night, including how to tune in. History and past controversy of the Golden Globe Awards The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the former organization behind the Golden Globes, was founded in 1943. Under this banner, journalists came together to create an awards ceremony to honor the artists the…

Even if you use a calendar app to organize your life, the paper calendar is far from being obsolete. Write something down on a printed calendar, and it becomes a persistent reminder of important events. You don’t have to dig through any screens to write things down, and you don’t have to perform any complex sharing maneuvers to set up a communal calendar for family members or colleagues. But even the paper calendar could benefit from some digital enhancements. With a few minutes of setup, you can print a custom calendar to your exact specifications while also making it small enough to fit on a single sheet of paper. This tip originally appeared in the free Coo…

What began as a race to build better AI models has escalated into a competition for compute, talent, and control. Foundation models—large-scale systems trained on vast datasets to generate text, images, code, and decisions—now underpin everything from enterprise software and cloud infrastructure to national digital strategies. The industry’s language around AI has grown more ambitious—and more elastic. Agentic AI has leapt from research papers to Davos billboards, while artificial general intelligence, or AGI, now appears routinely in investor decks and earnings calls. Definitions have begun to blur. Some companies quietly lower the bar for what qualifies as general, …

Every April, the internet fills up with green logos, limited-edition packaging, and pledges that will be quietly retired by May. We’ve gotten good at calling that out. Greenwashing is understood, documented, and increasingly prosecuted. What we talk about less is the other problem: the brands that are actually doing the work, but have stopped saying so. Both are failures. Just different kinds. Here’s what’s actually happening. The share of S&P 100 companies using “ESG” in their sustainability report titles dropped from 40% in 2023 to just 6% in 2025. But the work hasn’t stopped. According to a 2025 EcoVadis study, 87% of U.S. companies have actually increased …

It’s a great week to have a disposable income and act like you know how to ski. North Face x Skims today launches its second winter outerwear capsule, again channeling ski culture with a campaign shot on the powder-coated Chilean mountains. (Skis and airfare not included.) The 2025 drop expands on its collection from last year with even more silhouettes, like the wrap puffer coat, and a thoughtfully cropped, hooded puffer jacket with drop shoulder that brings some fashion to the line, which is aesthetically more oriented toward sport. It also includes men’s and kid’s styles for the first time (prices range from $55 to $800). Even considering the new styl…

Almost 1 million Frigidaire minifridges are being recalled because they pose the potential to catch fire, according to a notice from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) released on Thursday. The notice expands an earlier recall from 2024. Canada-based Curtis International is recalling another 330,000 minifridges, on top of the 634,000 minifridges it recalled back in July of 2024. The company has received at least six reports of the model EFMIS121 minifridges catching fire, with property damages, per the CPSC notice. The minfridges were sold exclusively at Target stores nationwide and online at Target.com from January 2020 through October 2023, for a…

Meet the new CEO of Sam’s Club: Latriece Watkins. As you’ll hear from my interview with Watkins this week’s episode of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies podcast, she is a Walmart veteran, who began her career in the real estate division in 2006. Over the next two decades, she rose up through the ranks to become Walmart’s chief merchant in 2023, making her one of the most powerful people in the retail industry, responsible for choosing the $500 billion worth of products the company sells every year. In recent years, Watkins has made a deliberate attempt to woo higher income consumers into stores by introducing higher-end brands, like Sonos and LaRoche Posa…

AllBirds Inc. was valued at $4 billion less than five years ago. Now, it will be sold for just $39 million. The shoe company on Monday announced a definitive agreement with American Exchange Group (AXNY), which involves selling all of its intellectual property, assets, and liabilities. Privately held AXNY owns a number of brands, including Aerosoles, Ed Hardy, and Jonathan Adler. “We are incredibly thankful to our teams for the work they have been doing to fuel our product engine, build awareness of Allbirds and deliver an engaging customer experience,” Allbirds CEO Joe Vernachio said in a statement. The sale has already been approved by Allbirds’ boar…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. As ResiClub has closely documented, Florida has been the epicenter of U.S. housing market weakness in 2025. However, KB Home executives now believe the worst may be behind them—at least for their business—in the Sunshine State. While giant homebuilder KB Home—which has a $4.3 billion market capitalization—isn’t ready to call it an inflection point for the entire state, it believes its price cuts in Florida were more than sufficient to stabilize demand for its business. In fact, it may have cut too deeply in Florida and could now need to raise pri…

Halloween candy shoppers who bought Reese’s pumpkin-shaped candy said they felt tricked when the picture on the outside packaging didn’t exactly match the treat inside. They were so upset, in fact, that they filed a lawsuit in late 2023 seeking $5 million in damages. Now a judge has dismissed their claims. At issue is Reese’s Peanut Butter Pumpkins, whose wrappers show an image of a pumpkin-shaped candy with a jack-o’-lantern face carved into the chocolate outer layer. In reality, the chocolate inside is faceless. In a class-action suit filed in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Florida, plaintiffs claimed Reese’s candy wrappers were deceptive. …