Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Company’s weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week via email here. The AI ‘arms race’ may be more of an ‘arm-twist’ The big AI companies tell us that AI will soon remake every aspect of business in every industry. Many of us are left wondering when that will actually happen in the real world, when the so-called “AI takeoff” will arrive. But because there are so many variables, so many different kinds of organizations, jobs, and workers, there’s no satisfying answer. In the absence of hard evidence, we rely on anecdotes: success stories from founde…

From afar, Lego’s new set inspired by Claude Monet’s painting Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies looks like a slightly more vivid version of the original. Step a bit closer, though, and you’ll find that its intricate brushstrokes are composed of Lego bananas, katana swords, and carrot tops. The new 3,179-piece set was created in collaboration with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, where Monet’s original 1899 artwork, inspired by his idyllic garden in Giverny, is on display. Lego’s designers spent more than a year working in tandem with the museum’s curators to faithfully re-create the original painting’s iconic Impressionist scene. The set will be available to the publi…

Baby care brand Frida is facing online backlash after screenshots of sexual innuendos in its marketing materials began circulating on social media. Frida, which describes itself as “the brand that gets parents,” sells a range of baby care, fertility, and postpartum products through major retailers, including Target. Last week, an X user shared images of several products’ packaging, writing: “sexual jokes to market baby products is actually sick and twisted @fridababy this is absolutely appalling and disgusting.” The post has since gained almost five million views on X. Among the examples highlighted is a social media graphic promoting the company’s 3-in-1 Tru…

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday pitched India as a central player in the global artificial intelligence ecosystem, saying the country aims to build technology at home while deploying it worldwide. “Design and develop in India. Deliver to the world. Deliver to humanity,” Modi told a gathering of some world leaders, technology executives and policymakers at the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi. Modi’s remarks came as India — one of the fastest-growing digital markets — seeks to leverage its experience in building large-scale digital public infrastructure and to present itself as a cost-effective hub for AI innovation. The summit was also addressed by F…

AI is helping teams build software and tools faster than ever—but that doesn’t mean we’re building smarter. I’ve seen entire prototypes spin up in a day, thanks to AI coding assistants. But when you ask how they were built, or whether they’re secure, you get a lot of blank stares. That’s the gap emerging now, between what’s possible with AI, and what’s actually ready to scale. What looks like progress can quickly become a liability. Especially when no one’s quite sure how the thing was built in the first place. Before you go all-in on AI-assisted coding, check these five fault lines: 1. You can’t govern what you can’t see. Perhaps the most overlooked ri…

The annual NFL tradition of firing the head coach as the season ends continues. This year, 10 top coaches got the axe, a staggering 31% of all NFL coaches. And they include football legends like John Harbaugh, after 18 seasons with the Baltimore Ravens, and Sean McDermott, who took the Buffalo Bills to the playoffs in eight out of nine seasons. Firing the head coach—just like firing the CEO in the business world—is the easy answer, and it looks good in the media: decisive, forward-looking, taking action. But, most times, this act alone falls short of fixing the problems that contributed to an organization’s failures. PART OF A SYSTEM In reality, the CEO is part…

They say job hunting is just like dating. Some are taking that advice literally. “Job market so bad I’m using Hinge to find work,” one job seeker posted on TikTok in December. Sharing a look at her dating app profile, in place of a photo of her best angle, she instead uploaded a snapshot of her résumé. Answering the prompt “a life goal of mine,” she wrote “to find work in the creative industries.” Since it was posted in December, the video has gained almost a quarter of a million views. In a recent update, the TikTok user shared that Hinge has since taken down her profile for breaking their policies. But she is not the only one. Others are also using th…

When Sergey Brin spoke at Stanford University’s school of engineering centennial celebration recently, the Google co-founder was open about his career mistakes. “When you have your cool new wearable device idea, really fully bake it before you have a cool stunt involving skydiving and airships,” he joked, referring to the infamous Google Glass flop. But one misstep he admitted to might surprise a lot of people who dream of the day they can quit their 9-to-5. “I actually retired like a month before Covid hit, and it was the worst decision,” Brin said. He was such a failure at retirement that he has since returned to everyday work at Google, spearheading its effort…

Can AI help neurodivergent adults connect with each other? That’s the bet of a new social network called Synchrony, which believes AI and a well-designed social network with the right safeguards can reduce social atomization and calm the overwhelming cacophony of socializing online. Launching February 19, the social network debuts during a moment when social media, chatbots, and doomscrolling has made digital communications a hot button topic for parents. “No other app for the neurodiverse is focusing primarily on reducing social anxiety and encouraging friendship,” says cofounder Jamie Pastrano. “I think that’s the biggest piece of it, and no other app is focusing on…

The social media trial brought by a 20-year-old Californian plaintiff known as Kaley or KGM, putting Meta and YouTube in front of a jury, has captured the world’s attention. The bellwether trial is a test case for the liability of social media platforms and how much they could be on the hook financially if found to have caused harm to their users. KGM, for her part, alleges that she faced anxiety, depression and body image issues after using Instagram. The proceedings could establish the first real legal boundaries for what has been up to now largely unregulated algorithmic design, determining whether amplifying harmful content amounts to negligence. A verdict against…

United Parcel Service (UPS) is planning to close dozens of packaging facilities this year, the shipping giant revealed in a court filing this week. The plans include shuttering facilities in Texas, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, and several other states. It includes locations that have union employees, according to a docket made public as part of a lawsuit between UPS and the Teamsters Union. UPS revealed in January that it will cut 30,000 jobs over the coming year. The move was announced as its partnership with Amazon was winding down and amid a broader push toward automation. At the time, it also revealed plans to close 24 total facilities, though it did no…

Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model doesn’t begin in 2003, when America’s Next Top Model premiered and took television by storm. It doesn’t begin in the 1990s, when eventual host Tyra Banks rose to superstardom in the modeling industry. Instead, it begins in 2020, when the pandemic led a new generation to binge early-aughts reality TV, this time watching with a modern lens—and, naturally, tearing it to shreds on TikTok. From there, Netflix’s newest docuseries rewinds to tell the full story of America’s Next Top Model, from its pre-production through its 24 scandalous cycles and into its modern-day legacy, featuring interviews with contestants, producers, an…

Variant, a generative design tool that promises endless UI exploration, recently introduced a feature most creative people and designers have used for decades: the eyedropper. In Variant, the tool picks vibes: It lets you click on one AI-generated interface and inject its aesthetic DNA—typography, spatial relationships, and color palettes—into another. After so much hype around “vibecoding” and its text-based imprecision, seeing a familiar, direct manipulation tool applied to generative AI feels great.​​ The new AI modality takes a nice step to close the gap between the impenetrable ways of large language model black boxes and the tools designers actually use with the…

The new year has so far not been kind to the share price of Big Tech stocks, particularly the so-called Magnificent 7. These seven companies—Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla—are America’s tech crown jewels. Combined, they have their hands in the hottest areas of tech, including artificial intelligence, mobile computing, chipmaking, and transportation. Yet all of these tech companies have seen their share prices decline since the beginning of the year. Here are some possible reasons why. The Magnificent 7 is seeing red in 2026 As of this writing, there isn’t a single Magnificent 7 stock in the green for 2026. Their year-to-date return…

When it comes to EVs, a bigger battery isn’t always better. Ford Motor Company is making that bet as part of its effort to manufacture a new suite of more affordable electric vehicles—beginning with a $30,000-starting-price mid-size electric truck set to launch in 2027. To get more out of a smaller battery, Ford has had to reimagine every step of its manufacturing process. It has scrapped the typical assembly line process in favor of what the automaker calls its “Ford Universal EV Platform,” and simplified every part of its EV, from the miles of wiring inside the electric system to the number of parts that make up its frame. And it’s had to rethink the batter…

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…

Restaurant operators have been automating customer service processes for years. Implementing kiosks, self-checkout, and mobile ordering has helped margins and cut labor costs. But now there’s a problem. Friendliness scores dropped 12 points in just one year. Thirty-three percent of customers actively avoid restaurants that feel too automated. And AI is about to flood the market. Here’s the choice operators face: double down on customer-facing automation and watch friendliness scores keep falling or use AI differently. It’s time to stop automating what customers value and instead start automating what they don’t see. Smart operators recognize that having AI take or…

Snap is hoping to snap up another revenue stream in its quest to reduce its dependency on advertising. The social media company announced on Tuesday that it will begin offering subscriptions to select creators so they can earn income from their most engaged fans. In a move that supports both creators and its bottom line, Snap will begin testing “Creator Subscriptions” next week with a group of 15 Snapchat creators that includes Jeremiah Brown, Harry Jowsey, and Skai Jackson. Combined, these three creators have more than 3 million followers on Snap, and the company is betting that some portion of those followers will convert to paid subscribers to receive exclusive con…

A dispute between AI company Anthropic and the Pentagon over how the military can use the company’s technology has now gone public. Amid tense negotiations, Anthropic has reportedly called for limits on two key applications: mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. The Defense Department, which The President renamed the Department of War last year, wants the freedom to use the technology without those restrictions. Caught in the middle is Palantir. The defense contractor provides the secure cloud infrastructure that allows the military to use Anthropic’s Claude model, but it has stayed quiet as tensions escalate. That’s even as the Pentagon, per Axios, threatens to d…

From breathtaking jumps to mesmerizing spins, figure skating is one of the most popular sports at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026. In a survey, 56% of 1,000 Americans who planned on watching the winter Olympics said they would be tuning in to watch figure skating, according to market research from Reviews.com. And all eyes are on the American trio of female skaters known as the ‘Blade Angels,’ on Tuesday with the start of the women’s short program. Amber Glenn, Alysa Liu, and Isabeau Levito are hoping to take home the gold in individual women’s figure skating, something the U.S. women’s team has not done since 2006. Only the top 24 women skaters in t…

Rob Shaver is a 49-year-old retail worker who recently had a streak of running at least 1 mile every day for three years. He’s also been living with Stage 4 bone and lung cancer for more than 20 years. Shaver’s commitment to living in spite of illness is chronicled in the short film The Life We Have, which uses his life as a lens through which to examine questions at the heart of the human experience: What gives life meaning when time feels fragile? How do we keep moving forward when suffering feels endless? Though profoundly sad, the film, directed by Sam Price-Waldman, is also thoughtfully inspiring. We see Shaver on his good days, running and spending time w…

If you’re a manager today, your job may well be changing. That is, if it hasn’t already. As companies continue to compress their org charts and axe layers of middle management, a new role is emerging: the “supermanager.” Leaders are finding themselves responsible for significantly more direct reports and broader responsibilities. And in many industries, the trend shows no sign of slowing. A Gallup survey published in January, citing data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, found that the average number of reports managers have increased from 10.9 in 2024 to 12.1 in 2025. The share of managers overseeing 25 or more employees has also grown in the past year, wi…