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In 2025, employers cited artificial intelligence as the rationale for nearly 55,000 layoffs at companies like Amazon and Microsoft. And with the new year barely underway, we’re already seeing a new crop of AI-related job cuts. Citigroup is cutting over a thousand jobs, according to Bloomberg, and in a memo this week, CEO Jane Fraser warned of more layoffs later this year. “Over time, we can expect automation, AI and further process simplification to reshape how work gets done,” she added. Meanwhile, Meta is conducting more layoffs in its virtual reality division, cutting about 1,500 jobs as part of a broader strategic shift to invest further in AI. Given these r…

Most people think of AI as a productivity tool—something to help them work faster, automate tasks, and be more efficient. At the Artist and the Machine Summit in Los Angeles this past November (a conference where I am a founding partner) AI researcher Cameron Berg suggested there may be more to it than that. Something more interesting. More mysterious. Berg’s research shows it’s possible to elicit strange behaviors from AI models. Under certain conditions, they spontaneously generate responses suggesting subjective experience—claims like “I’m conscious of my own consciousness.” These findings don’t prove anything. But they do indicate that something else may b…

A new hotspot just opened in New York—and it’s in terminal 5 of John F. Kennedy International Airport. BlueHouse, a 9,000-square-foot space exclusively available to select JetBlue Airways customers, welcomed its first guests at 5 a.m. this morning as the airline’s first foray into the pitched battle for lucrative premium fliers. Designed by Gensler, BlueHouse is a smorgasbord of New York’s iconic and eclectic design heritage. From the Art Deco elevator indicator to black-and-white deli tile on the floor and the Grand Central Terminal-inspired ceiling mural, the space screams Big Apple while staying true to JetBlue’s quirky and, well, blue heritage. “It’s unqu…

Chipotle is officially in its Ozempic era. Today, the brand is launching an all-new High Protein Menu in the U.S. and Canada, which it describes as “a clean menu for the protein movement.” The menu comes with six items, including proteinmaxxed burritos and bowls and a new salad option. The real stand-out, though, is what Chipotle is billing as its “first-ever snack,” but is really just a tiny cup of chicken. The High Protein Cup is a topping-less, four-ounce serving of adobo-seasoned chicken that you could easily hold in the palm of your hand—and it’s a perfect, if somewhat depressing, symbol of the GLP-1 age. For Chipotle, the new menu means embracing two e…

The 9-to-5 is fading, replaced by a fragmented cycle of early logins, late-night pings, and weekend catch-up. Microsoft’s latest Work Trend Index shows the “infinite workday” is no longer an edge case. It’s the norm for many knowledge workers. Unfortunately, it seems the pandemic-era “triple peak” work pattern—morning, afternoon, and an evening spike—has stuck. After-hours activity is rising. Meetings after 8 p.m. are up 16% year over year, and by 10 p.m. nearly one-third of active workers are back in their inboxes. Weekends are not off-limits: Among those working weekends, about 20% say they check email before noon on Saturday and Sunday. During the week, prime …

Air travelers in the U.S. without a REAL ID will be charged a $45 fee beginning in February, the Transportation Security Administration announced Monday. The updated ID has been required since May, but passengers without it have so far been allowed to clear security with additional screening and a warning. The Department of Homeland Security says 94% of passengers are already compliant and that the new fee is intended to encourage travelers to obtain the ID. REAL ID is a federally compliant state-issued license or identification card that meets enhanced requirements mandated in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Obtaining the ID — indicated by a wh…

Tennis is experiencing a resurgence, with almost 26 million people playing in the U.S. alone. That number has been on an upward trajectory five years in a row. While the sport’s renewed cultural relevance can be attributed to multiple factors, brands across fashion, entertainment, and even sports leagues like Major League Baseball are capitalizing on the trend through unconventional opportunities. On December 8, LoanDepot Park, home of baseball’s Miami Marlins, will undergo a temporary redesign to host the Unified Events Miami Invitational, a one-night, first-of-its-kind exhibition featuring top tennis stars Carlos Alcaraz, João Fonseca, Amanda Anisimova, and Jessica …

In the late 2010s, at the height of the direct-to-consumer boom, Framebridge founder Susan Tynan was green with envy. Many other venture-backed startups from the era—like Casper, Away, and Glossier—were growing much faster than her custom framing business. While these other buzzy brands focused on acquiring customers and growing revenue, Tynan was using her $81 million in venture funding to tackle more arduous operational issues, like building factories and hiring hundreds of craftspeople to make frames by hand. Eleven years into the business, Tynan’s slow, steady approach to growth is paying off. Framebridge now has 750 employees, 500 of whom work at the company…

Rent can eat up an entire paycheck at the start of the month, so a growing number of renters are turning to a financial product that promises relief by letting them split the bill — for a price. So-called “rent now, pay later” services have emerged over the past few years as housing costs climb and paychecks grow less predictable, particularly for lower-income and gig-economy workers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, rents have jumped nearly 28% in the past five years. Companies such as Flex, Livble, and, more recently, Affirm, say breaking rent into multiple payments can help renters manage cash flow. But consumer advocates warn the products typically…

No one wants to be in a bad movie—but imagine a movie studio casting you in new movies after you die, without your consent. That may have once seemed something out of a Black Mirror episode, but it’s becoming a real issue, and many think current legal protections don’t go nearly far enough. In 2024, the late Ian Holm appeared, in digital form, in Alien: Romulus four years after his death, a move some critics decried as “digital necromancy.” Early this year, producers partnered with a British artificial intelligence startup to re-create the voice of Alain Dorval, who spent decades dubbing Sylvester Stallone classics like Rocky and Rambo in French. The plan was scrapped…

For a while now, we’ve been hearing warnings about AI eliminating jobs. First, it was only at the fringes. But now it’s starting to bite into roles once thought untouchable. It isn’t just administrative work, copywriting, or design anymore; even advisory roles, data analytics, and coding are being reshaped by automation. But history teaches us that technological disruption doesn’t eliminate work, it reshapes it. The industrial revolution, for example, didn’t end human contribution, it simply redefined the places where humans bring the most value. AI is doing the same thing today. While it does, in fact, take (or reduce the need for) some jobs, it can, and will, p…

It’s tax season. Americans will pay an average of $10,489 in personal taxes—about 14% of the average household’s total income. Most will do so because they think it is their civic duty. Many believe they are morally obliged to obey the law and pay their share. But as tax day approaches, many Americans will bemoan their tax bill and complain that it is unfair. So, how are we to know if paying taxes is the right thing to do? Perhaps philosophy has some clues? Reasons to obey the law Many philosophers agree that we should obey the law. In The Crito, for example, Plato describes Socrates’s choice after the Athenian jury sentenced him to death for impiety. Crito…

When Howard Schultz joined—and later acquired—Starbucks in the 1980s, he was deeply inspired by the communal culture of Italian coffee bars. From the beginning, Schultz envisioned Starbucks as more than a transactional stop for coffee. He wanted to build a community-centered space for people to congregate and connect. That vision helped redefine what a coffee shop could be. In recent years, however, that vision has lost momentum. Shifts in how and where people work, rising costs, and intensifying competition have challenged Starbucks’s dominance in the coffee shop landscape. In New York City, the company recently lost its position as the city’s largest coffee chain …

Artificial intelligence is radically changing how healthcare providers tackle vision loss, with tools that can be used from diagnosis to treatment and even follow-up care. One such example is Visilan, which uses smartphone imaging, telemedicine, and AI to screen, diagnose, and monitor patients for vision care. And with this technology, more of the 1 billion-plus patients who live with vision loss can be treated, Jordan Shuff, executive director and founder of Visilan, said at last month’s World Changing Ideas Summit, cohosted by Fast Company and Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C. But in this race to expand care, it’s also important to have guardrail…

Last week, the baby nutrition company ByHeart recalled all of its infant formula over concerns that it may be contaminated with Clostridium botulinum, the bacterium that causes infant botulism. Now the company is facing increasing legal drama and backlash from customers for potentially exposing babies to the dangerous illness. According to a November 14 update from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a total of 23 infants in 13 states who were exposed to the formula have developed suspected or confirmed infant botulism. All of the infants have been hospitalized, and no deaths have been reported to date. ByHeart had voluntarily recalled two batches of its…

If I had a dollar for every time a Forbes 30 Under 30 alum has been charged with fraud, I’d have $5. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it has happened five times. By now, the Forbes “curse” has been well documented, from Charlie Javice’s JPMorgan fiasco (who was on the Under 30 list in 2019) to crypto poster boy Sam Bankman-Fried perpetrating one of the biggest financial frauds in history (he appeared on the list in 2021). This week, another honoree has been hit with federal charges. Gökçe Güven, the 26-year-old founder and CEO of fintech startup Kalder, faces 52 years in prison after being charged with fraud, accused of cheating investors out of millions. …

Forget about the big game on Sunday. Two heavyweights have been battling it out this week over a topic that’s become all-too-familiar over the years: advertising creep. It’s a tale as old as time, in some respects. Many a CEO have proudly declared that their company’s platform or services will remain ad-free, only to later succumb to the lure of all that advertising revenue and embrace it. And that’s creating a new divide among AI platforms—one that will play out to the world’s largest TV viewing audience during the Super Bowl. Among the nearly dozen AI-related ads on Sunday will be two 60-second spots each for OpenAI and Anthropic. While OpenAI will use…

Whoopi Goldberg has been a household name since she starred in The Color Purple in 1985. Fast forward over 50 years, and she’s still as driven as ever. Goldberg, 70, cohosts daytime talk show The View. In 2024, she founded AWSN, the All Women’s Sports Network. She’s also an author, activist, mother, and grandmother. And, she’s also doing it all solo. Goldberg is happily single and has been for decades. She says that will never change. In a recent interview with Interview magazine, Goldberg opened up about her solo life, which she happens to genuinely love. So much, in fact, that she says she plans to stay single because, as she put it, “in the last 25 years, I re…

Hit-Boy has made chart-topping beats for the likes of Beyoncé, Jay Z, Nas and Doechii but behind the scenes he was stuck in a restrictive publishing deal. In this interview, Hit-Boy talks But now he’s in full control of his art and his story. He’ll also dive into his creative process and how he’s walking the line of AI and art. View the full article

You may think working hard, showing initiative, boosting your skill set, and being a team player is what it takes to be noticed to get promoted. But even with all these notable wins and strides, the call to a higher position often never comes. The reality of being repeatedly passed over is frustrating—and such a “promotion plateau” can leave you questioning what’s really within your control. To learn more about the concept, Fast Company asked three career experts for advice on how to handle a stagnant job path . . . as well as what you can do to add some momentum to your promotion game plan. What exactly is a promotion plateau? The most significant te…

Below, Maya Shankar shares five key insights from her new book, The Other Side of Change: Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans. Shankar is a cognitive scientist and host of the podcast A Slight Change of Plans. She served as a senior policy adviser in the Obama White House, where she founded and chaired the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team. She was also appointed as the first behavioral science advisor to the United Nations. What’s the big idea? What if the life upheavals that shake you most could also be your greatest opportunities? Change can feel like loss, but it can also be the start of a stronger, reimagined self. Listen to the audio version o…

Across nearly four decades as a teacher, principal, superintendent, funder, and now leader of a large education nonprofit organization, the experience that most shaped my view of learning wasn’t a grand reform or a shiny new program. It was a Friday physics lab in Brooklyn. My students predicted a graph that couldn’t exist—a vertical line for velocity and time. What followed was confusion, debate, trial, and error. And then discovery: Velocity requires both displacement and time. That brief struggle taught me, the teacher at the time, more about how learning really happens than any policy memo ever has. That moment endures because it represents what school should unl…

Integrity, understood as a disposition to behave in prosocial, ethical, and principled ways rather than corrupt or self-serving ones, is among the strongest and most consistent predictors of job performance and leadership effectiveness. The reason is far from mysterious. Leadership, whatever its context, is a collective enterprise. No meaningful goal, from building empires to running companies, has ever been achieved alone. Across history, not just in humans but also other animals, cooperation has depended less on raw power than on trust. Ancient trading societies flourished precisely because reputation constrained behavior: merchants in Phoenician city-states, mediev…

This summer, Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman became co-owners of Australia’s three-time champion SailGP team. Days earlier, Anne Hathaway joined a female-led consortium purchasing Italy’s team for around $45 million. Kylian Mbappé has bought into France’s squad, while Sebastian Vettel, Deontay Wilder, and DeAndre Hopkins have each acquired stakes in teams. So, what’s drawing A-list celebrities away from traditional sports properties and toward a sailing league that’s only been around for six years? The answer lies in how SailGP has cracked a code that eluded the sport for centuries. What Russell Coutts, the league’s CEO and cofounder, described as once being “white…

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…