Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

You’ve heard the gospel: AI is going to change everything. Good, great, grand. But when you’re staring down a deadline and 80 unread emails, you don’t need philosophy, you need a cheat sheet. The fastest way to master AI isn’t by watching lectures, it’s by finding a way to replace an hour of your grind with a 10-second prompt. Here are five specific, repeatable ways to automate your most time-consuming professional tasks. Grab your chatbot of choice (Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot—whatever floats your boat) and let’s get to work. Writing Staring at a blank page. Tedious, formulaic first drafts. Enough. You are a professional. You shouldn’t be spen…

There’s a line I heard recently from Mel Robbins that’s been echoing in my head ever since: “People do well if they can.” It’s deceptively simple. The kind of phrase you nod at, maybe even repost. But when you sit with it, really sit with it, it starts to challenge a lot of the assumptions made every day. Especially when it comes to financial health and literacy. NOT LAZY, JUST LIMITED OPTIONS Let’s be honest: It’s easy to judge what we don’t understand. It’s easy to look at people struggling with money and tell ourselves stories. They’re reckless. They don’t care. They should know better. But here’s the thing: Most people actually do care. They want to pay off…

The one practical career security no one can take from you is control. I’ve built my career on five core mindsets that helped me transition to being responsible for my own career success. It’s how I run my professional life. Careers are not just built. They’re owned. That’s how you become indispensable. Your career isn’t a ladder. It’s a business. And you are in charge. Most people treat it like a job. I treat it like an asset. Every skill, every project, every task matters. If you want leverage, freedom, and a career that works for you, these mindsets can help you take your career to another level. They can determine your choices, growth, and freedom. And change how you …

Have you ever tried to complete a jigsaw puzzle without all the pieces? That’s what it’s like to run a business with siloed systems. Business data is critical in every industry, but if it’s siloed across departments, teams, and people—that is, if your puzzle pieces are scattered across your home—you may never figure out how to make that information work for you. Left unaddressed, this fragmentation can eventually undermine customer trust, brand integrity, and employee retention, severely impacting your business goals. True integration isn’t just about building more efficient systems: It’s about centering the entirety of your customer’s needs in every system you bu…

For many children, the experience of getting their first pair of glasses is an inevitable milestone, the first in a lifetime of visits to the eye doctor. But what if those lenses could actually help preserve the child’s vision and reduce the chances for more serious eye problems in adulthood? That’s the promise of a new type of lens approved by the Food and Drug Administration in September. While the technology has previously been available in Europe, Asia and other parts of the world, it’s now rolling out in the U.S. Here’s what to know about the new approach. What is myopia and why is it increasing? Myopia, commonly called nearsightedness, is when people can c…

For the past two years, I’ve written predictions for how AI will continue to change the media industry and the business of news in the coming year. Prognosticating is a risky business even at the most tranquil of times, and media’s AI era is anything but: bots are multiplying, newsrooms are shrinking, and new business models always seem to be still developing. Last year, four of the five predictions I made came true, those being the spread of audio experiences like NotebookLM’s audio overviews, a greater emphasis on content licensing, more “legit” AI-generated content, and publishers doing more with their own summarization and chatbots. I should have probably known my…

Shares in Europe and Asia advanced on Wednesday after benchmarks on Wall Street surged on hopes the Federal Reserve will soon opt to cut interest rates. The future for the S&P 500 gained 0.3%, while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.2%. In early European trading, Germany’s DAX gained 0.2% to 23,500.98, while the CAC 40 in Paris also rose 0.2%, to 9,623.22. Britain’s FTSE 100 edged 0.1% higher. In Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.9% to 49,559.07 in a broad rally that encompassed major exporters and technology shares. However, shares in Kioxia dropped 14.9% on reports that Bain Capital plans to sell $2.3 billion of the computer memory maker’s shares. …

Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Company’s weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. I’m Mark Sullivan, a senior writer at Fast Company, covering emerging tech, AI, and tech policy. This week, I’m focusing on the role of NSFW material on AI platforms, which could be complicated when AI platforms turn into social platforms. I also look at a powerful new Anthropic model for free Claude chatbot users. Sign up to receive this newsletter every week via email here. And if you have comments on this issue and/or ideas for future ones, drop me a line at sullivan@fastcompany.com, and follow me on X (formerly Twitter) @thesullivan. Sam Al…

The public disclosure of more than 20,000 pages of newly released documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has been the subject of much online discourse this week. While the emails themselves are full of damning revelations, particularly regarding Epstein’s relationship with President Donald The President, the internet’s attention has been caught on another detail. “BREAKING: Newly released emails reveal Jeffrey Epstein struggled to compose sentences in English,” journalist Tom Elliott posted on X. “Why can none of these very rich and powerful men type or spell,” journalist Jill Filipovic asked. In case you haven’t seen it, one such email read…

Netflix missed Wall Street’s third-quarter earnings targets because of an unexpected expense from a dispute with Brazilian tax authorities, while it offered a forecast a touch ahead of Wall Street projections for the rest of the year. The report failed to impress investors accustomed to fast-paced growth from the streaming video pioneer. Shares of Netflix, which had risen 39% this year ahead of the earnings report, fell 6.3%, to $1,163.80, in after-hours trading on Tuesday. Netflix posted net income of $2.5 billion and diluted earnings per share of $5.87 for July through September, a period when the animated K-Pop Demon Hunters became the most-watched movie in Net…

In 2026 (and beyond) the best benchmark for large language models won’t be MMLU or AgentBench or GAIA. It will be trust—something AI will have to rebuild before it can be broadly useful and valuable to both consumers and businesses. Researchers identify several different kinds of AI trust. In people who use chatbots as companions or confidants, they measure a feeling that the AI is benevolent or has integrity. In people who use AI for productivity or business, they measure something called “competence trust,” or the belief that the AI is accurate and doesn’t hallucinate facts. I’ll focus on that second kind. Competence trust can grow or shrink. An AI tool user, qu…

When the lights finally dimmed at the 2025 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show last night, the first thing guests saw was a gold light emanating from backstage. Model Jasmine Tookes, nine months pregnant, opened the show in a gold macramé dress with drop pearls and a pearl and crystal wing in the shape of a clamshell. Art buffs might notice that the shell is a callback to Sandro Boticelli’s renaissance painting “Birth of Venus,” symbolizing sensuality, divine beauty, rebirth, and new beginnings. The cultural reference is a more elevated and considered nod to womanhood than the show’s previous themes, which have included “Santa’s Helpers” or “delicious sweets.” The loo…

Life with a fluctuating income is a lot like being left-handed: The world isn’t designed to meet your needs, so you need to adjust accordingly. Those who make the leap into solopreneurship are often struck by all the little things they took for granted as salaried employees. Things like having health benefits, taxes and retirement savings deducted from their earnings, knowing exactly when the next injection of cash is coming, or what they’ll make next month. Even monthly billing cycles for things like rent, student loans, and car payments are based on the assumption of predictable monthly earnings. Most don’t ditch the corporate life because they’re really good a…

I just got back from a week on the beach. The water was crystal clear, the sky blue, and my butt was in a lounge chair all day. I certainly enjoyed myself and caught up on a ton of sleep. But did I return to work today bursting with ideas and fresh energy? If I’m honest, not really. It feels more like I left my brain sunning itself on the seaside. Meanwhile, I need to dig myself out from under a mountain of work and complete my massive back-to-school to-do list. Where did I go wrong in my vacation planning? If I was looking to maximize floating time and the amount of tasty fish I ate, nowhere. But according to psychology, as much as I enjoyed my break, I al…

Like every company in the world, Pantone thinks you really need AI help to do your job. Unlike most companies, however, the people who created the esperanto of color matching might have actually developed something useful. Today, Pantone is announcing a generative AI model that can automatically create a color palette. It was trained in-house on six decades of proprietary color research papers and articles, which is now available in Pantone Connect’s extension for Adobe apps. I don’t know if designers will be into the idea of chatting with an AI to find their new product’s color palette, but according to Pantone, many are eagerly waiting for such a helper. “We observe…

There are many reasons why someone may have a second job or some kind of side gig when they’re working for you. They may have financial needs that are greater than what you can pay. They may have expertise that enables them to consult or engage with other businesses. They may have a passion project or startup that they’re nurturing while they work for you. Whatever it is that is driving your employees, their other line of work can affect their performance for you. It is valuable to understand what your team members are doing and the impact it is having on their responsibilities for you. Some workplaces (like mine) require explicit declarations of conflicts of inte…

Michelle, a 42-year-old marketing executive, was scrolling through her grocery app when she saw the total: $87. A year ago, her weekly cart never dipped below $200. Chips, late-night snacks, and bottles of wine had given way to produce, yogurt, and lean proteins. But that same morning, a $900 charge for her GLP-1 prescription landed on her credit card. Whatever she was saving at the supermarket felt dwarfed by the cost of her medication. Drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound are being hailed as medical breakthroughs. They’re not just changing waistlines—they’re changing household budgets. And as these shifts ripple through everyday spending, the finan…

The Salt Lake City Olympics planned for 2034 are now the Utah Games after organizers announced a new logo and name to reflect the multi-community work that goes into hosting the largest winter sports event on Earth. The state’s Governor, Spencer Cox, says the new logo has united people—though not in a good way. “It’s really brought people together because everyone seems to not like it,” Cox said at a recent press conference. The new logo is temporary until the final emblem of the Games is released in 2029. It spells out “Utah” in irregularly shaped characters (does that say “IJTAH?”) that are stacked on top of “2034.” Its launch color palette is just black and…

Mark Walter is the majority owner of the Los Angeles Lakers after the NBA Board of Governors approved his purchase of a controlling stake from the Buss family. The Lakers and the league confirmed the next step Thursday in a transaction that is expected to close shortly. The sale of the NBA’s most valuable franchise was initially announced in June. Jeanie Buss will remain the Lakers’ governor under the deal for at least the next five years, and she will oversee day-to-day operations “for the foreseeable future,” the team said. Her father, Jerry Buss, bought the Lakers in 1979. But the Lakers are now primarily owned by Walter, the billionaire whose TWG Global in…

America’s defense technology sector is rapidly expanding. Top talent, ambitious founders, and serious capital are flooding into a mission that matters, delivering products and solutions that will send us to the moon, deploy unimaginably capable unmanned aerial devices, and redefine what’s possible in modern warfare. It’s an exciting moment—one full of possibility and potential. But here’s the problem: while everyone is focused on the moonshots, we’re overlooking the foundation. The unsexy stuff. The quiet, mission-critical gaps that don’t make headlines but could leave us dangerously vulnerable. We’re building skyscrapers without checking if the ground beneath us is s…

Mark Manson’s 2016 book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck delivered some hard truths and prescient advice to millions of readers seeking answers. Now he’s building an AI-based application to do the same. At that time, Manson says the self-help field was “unrealistic, not very evidence based—just designed to make you feel good,” inspiring him to write a book that offered “a more skeptical, realistic, and zero bull shit approach to personal growth and self-help.” Nearly a decade later, Manson says he’s seeing the same pattern in the digital world, with millions turning to generic AI platforms for guidance, only to receive unrealistic, potentially harmful advice. T…

Becoming a chartered financial analyst (CFA)—a certification that requires thousands of hours of professional experience, as well as taking a very rigorous exam; Investopedia calls it “one of the most respected designations in finance”—is no easy feat. That is, until now. Two years ago, AI models could only pass the first two sections of the prestigious, three-part exam. The essay section, however, had it stumped. And yet, in a new study from New York University’s Stern School of Business and GoodFin, an AI-powered wealth management platform, advanced AI like Gemini 2.5 Pro and Claude Opus passed the exam with flying colors. What would’ve taken a human 1,000 hour…