Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

As CES 2026 gets underway, Havas Media Network North America is publishing its 2026 Predictions Forecast, outlining the forces we believe will define the year ahead and separate brands that grow from those that fade. This perspective is drawn directly from that report and grounded in what leaders are seeing, discussing, and debating in Las Vegas this week. CES has always been where the future shows up first. But walking the floors this year, one thing is unmistakable: The industry is no longer dazzled by what’s possible. It’s demanding proof of what works. As technology accelerates, consumer expectations fragment, and financial scrutiny intensifies, 2026 is…

Dog owners have a lot of choices nowadays when it comes to picking out pet food for their pup. Dry kibble or wet? Beef or chicken? Frozen, fresh, or raw? Brands even boast “human-grade” ingredients and grain-free recipes. If you have a dog, your decision may be focused on nutrients, or maybe price. But one vet-turned-environmental researcher wants you to also consider the climate impact. And that impact could be huge—depending on the type of food, your dog’s diet could have a greater environmental impact than your own. Calculating the carbon footprint of dog food What we eat matters for the planet. Globally, food production is responsible for more than a q…

Gaming peripheral company Razer is betting that people want AI holograms. So much so that it introduce a perplexing new product at CES 2026 that early critics have dubbed a “friend in a bottle.” Project AVA, is a small glass cylinder that features a 5.5-inch animated desk buddy that can interact with you, coach you, or offer gaming advice on demand—all powered by xAI’s Grok. Project AVA uses a technology Razer calls “PC Vision Mode” that watches your screen, allowing its 3D animated inhabitant to offer real-time commentary on your gameplay, track your mood, or simply hang out. It attempts to sell the illusion of presence—a companion that isn’t just an app you close, b…

Gmail was always a gateway drug for the greater Google ecosystem. When it launched in 2004, Gmail stood out by offering then-wild amounts of storage for free. Despite few updates to its design in two decades, it now boasts 2.5 billion users and is the largest email service in the world. And—like so much of the tech industry—Google is betting that email will sell you on its next big bet: AI. Starting today, Gmail will begin rolling out three new AI services that will significantly impact the way use your inbox. Gmail’s new AI features Two of the services require a $20/mo subscription to its Gemini AI service, while the third will come to all users, free. (A…

Health tech gadgets displayed at the annual CES trade show make a lot of promises. A smart scale promoted a healthier lifestyle by scanning your feet to track your heart health, and an egg-shaped hormone tracker uses AI to help you figure out the best time to conceive. Tech and health experts, however, question the accuracy of products like these and warn of data privacy issues — especially as the federal government eases up on regulation. The Food and Drug Administration announced during the show in Las Vegas that it will relax regulations on “low-risk” general wellness products such as heart monitors and wheelchairs. It’s the latest step President Donald The President…

We live in a world of ambient hums, from air conditioners and distant traffic to the whir of our own thoughts. It’s no surprise many people reach for active noise-cancelling (ANC) headphones to escape it all. Originally designed for planes and offices, ANC devices, including earbuds, have become a popular bedtime tool for chasing total quiet. But the brain doesn’t actually want silence to sleep, and forcing it can backfire. The best way to fall and stay asleep is to quiet the mind, not just what enters your ears. We call this creating “cognitive silence,” and ANC often gets in the way. Even during sleep, the brain keeps an ear out for danger. It’s an evolutionary surv…

Inside Girl Scouts’ headquarters in New York City and its two licensed bakeries, a team of trend forecasters, marketers, and food scientists spend years cooking up its next iconic cookie. Now, fans of the annual cookie sale are about to get a taste of what the Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) team has been baking behind closed doors. The newest addition to the cookie lineup are Exploremores, a rocky road ice cream-inspired sandwich cookie with chocolate shortbread exteriors and chocolate, marshmallow, and toasted almond-flavored cream centers. For Girl Scout cookie enjoyers, a fresh cookie is always a welcome surprise. But, according to Wendy Lou, GSUSA’s chief rev…

Once the ball starts rolling in the Spanish league, the game is on for some 50 analysts who start looking for signs of online piracy. They scan websites, social media posts, IPTV platforms and streaming portals in search of illegal broadcasts of La Liga matches. The trained analysts identify the pirated content and take the steps needed to take them off air, including notifying Internet intermediaries like Cloudflare, the U.S.-based company whose content-delivery network is believed to manage nearly 20% of the Internet traffic worldwide. And that’s when the real fight begins for the Spanish league. La Liga, one of the most active European leagues fighting piracy and a…

Walk through almost any manufacturing plant today, whether the frontline professionals crushing oilseeds, processing corn, or producing ingredients, and you’ll notice something subtle but important. The tools that help turn agricultural crops into products that feed and fuel the world are getting smarter, more precise, and more capable. Most conversations about the bioeconomy focus on what farmers grow or what consumers buy. But the real transformation is happening in the middle, in the molecular steps that quietly make modern, low-carbon manufacturing possible. Catalysts and enzymes, the biological and chemical tools that convert agricultural inputs into usable mater…

Resilience is not an inherited trait. It is a disciplined practice—a way of showing up that is cultivated over time through deliberate training of the body, mind, and spirit. In high-stress environments, whether on the battlefield, in the boardroom, or in the quiet turmoil of daily life, the ability to remain steady amid volatility is what separates reactive living from intentional leadership. What many discover, often through hardship, is that resilience is less about bracing against impact and more about widening the internal space between stimulus and response. That space—Viktor Frankl called it the foundation of freedom—allows for clarity, intentionality, and courage.…

Welcome to the first Fast Company’s Plugged In of 2026, and Happy New Year to you. More than 18 years ago, as the internet was transforming how we consume everything from news to music, someone called books “the last bastion of analog.” That someone happened to be Jeff Bezos. And he made the observation in a Steven Levy Newsweek article about Amazon’s original Kindle e-reader, a device designed to drag books into the digital age. Bezos’s comment resurfaced in my consciousness last week, as I read a New York Times article by Elizabeth A. Harris and Alexandra Alter on how the book publishing business fared in 2025. The upshot: It did pretty well overall, and remains…

Fans of Macy’s Inc. will be disappointed to learn that the iconic department store has announced its next round of store closures. Fourteen Macy’s locations in 12 states will shutter as a result of this move. Here’s why and when the closures will take place. What’s happened? On Thursday, Macy’s published a letter from CEO Tony Spring to its employees updating them on the company’s “A Bold New Chapter” strategy, which the department store chain unveiled in February 2024. As part of that strategy, Macy’s announced at the time that it would be closing 150 “underproductive” stores through the end of 2026. Fast Company previously reported on 66 stores marked for clo…

For decades, design followed a singular truth. Whether it was the insistence that “form follows function” or the later pivot toward “form follows emotion,” the industry tended to adhere to a simple formula for design thinking: Find your North Star and follow. But that formula does not fit today’s reality. “Form follows X” is no longer a clean equation, because X isn’t a single variable. It’s a constellation that refuses to be reduced to one guiding idea. Modern design across brands, products, and experiences must use a multidimensional approach, speaking to function, feeling, context, narrative, culture, and experience, all at once. HUMAN EXPERIENCE DESIGN …

Whether scrambling for a last-minute gift, looking for something belated to send after the holidays, or just thinking ahead to the next birthday on your calendar, the checkout line’s gift card rack has probably crossed your mind. Coffee shops, streaming services, big box retailers. You’ve done this dance before. Grab one, stick it in a card, call it a day. It’s easy. It’s simple. It’s also, for a growing number of Americans, starting to feel stale. Nearly one in five U.S. adults now say they’d rather receive crypto than a gift card this holiday season. That’s according to a new survey from the National Cryptocurrency Association and PayPal, and it’s not a number many …

Luigi Mangione is due in federal court Friday for a pivotal hearing in his fight to bar the government from seeking the death penalty against him in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Mangione’s lawyers contend that authorities prejudiced his case by turning his December 2024 arrest into a “Marvel movie” spectacle and by publicly declaring their desire to see him executed even before he was formally indicted. If that doesn’t work, they argue, the charge that has enabled the government to seek the death penalty — murder by firearm — should be thrown out because it is legally flawed. Federal prosecutors say Mangione’s lawyers are wrong, countering that t…

Hiring likely remained subdued last month as many companies have sought to avoid expanding their workforces, though the job gains may be enough to bring down the unemployment rate. December’s jobs report, to be released Friday, is likely to show that employers added a modest 55,000 jobs, economists forecast. That figure would be below November’s 64,000 but an improvement after the economy lost jobs in October. The unemployment rate is expected to slip to 4.5%, according to data provider FactSet, from a four-year high of 4.6% in November. The figures will be closely watched on Wall Street and in Washington because they will be the first clean readings on the labor market…

In a rare move, NASA is cutting a mission aboard the International Space Station short after an astronaut had a medical issue. The space agency said Thursday the U.S.-Japanese-Russian crew of four will return to Earth in the coming days, earlier than planned. NASA canceled its first spacewalk of the year because of the health issue. The space agency did not identify the astronaut or the medical issue, citing patient privacy. The crew member is now stable. NASA officials stressed that it was not an onboard emergency, but are “erring on the side of caution for the crew member,” said Dr. James Polk, NASA’s chief health and medical officer. Polk said this was the NASA’s f…

Run a small business and you probably feel like you make dozens of decisions every day. Whether to cut a quality corner, or miss a ship date. Whether to respond to a customer complaint, or hope the problem goes away. Whether to address an employee’s behavior, or kick that can down the road. Then there are all the personal decisions. Whether to get up and going, or hit the snooze button. Whether to ditch the food you packed, or go out for lunch instead. Whether to keep grinding, or work out. None of those are actually decisions, though, since you already know you should do so. Nearly everything you “decide” already has an answer. Quality problem? Fix it. Custom…

A new year brings a new tax filing season. With many cash-strapped Americans worried about their finances, many can’t wait to file their returns. The sooner you file, the sooner your chances of getting your refund, after all. But just when can you begin submitting your tax return to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)? That depends. Here’s what you need to know about the 2026 tax filing season. When does the 2026 tax filing season begin? There are actually two start dates to the 2026 tax filing season this year. The 2026 tax filing season refers to the period taxpayers have to file their tax returns for the 2025 calendar year. According to an IRS press rele…

Two things can be true at once. K-pop is an inextricable force in global pop culture, and it has long been undercelebrated at institutions like the Grammys — where K-pop artists have performed but have never taken home a trophy. That could change at next month’s 2026 Grammy Awards ceremony. Songs released by K-pop artists — or K-pop-adjacent artists, more on that later — have received nominations in the big four categories for the first time. Rosé, perhaps best known as one-fourth of the juggernaut girl group Blackpink, is the first K-pop artist to ever receive a nomination in the record of the year field for “APT.,” her megahit with Grammys’ favorite Bruno Mars. The so…