Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

“What brand am I wearing?” Sydney Sweeney says, looking into the camera as the shutter snaps, revealing a rotation of summery denim looks. The mood suddenly calms, her eyes close, she takes a deep breath, seagulls call in the background. “Yeah, that one,” she says with a giggle. The ad marks the return of one of the most notorious brand partnerships in recent memory, as American Eagle launches a new campaign to hype its denim shorts called “Syd for Short.” It’s a perfectly pleasant, perfectly innocuous piece of brand work meant to conjure the free-spiritedness of summertime (and, you know, maybe make you forget about—or at least move on from—the last time Sweeney ha…

The advancement of artificial intelligence has shifted rapidly from abstract curiosity to an immediate personal threat for millions of workers. People aren’t just wondering if jobs will change—they’re asking whose jobs, how fast, and whether their own will be next. Making matters worse, several tech companies have already executed a staggering number of layoffs—almost always citing AI as the cause. On its own, this unpredictable unfolding of an entirely new and disruptive technology would be enough to unsettle us—yet we all know it’s just one of several forces compounding an already profound—and growing—sense of uncertainty in our lives. Add to this the volatile t…

Carroll Tower, a 194-apartment public housing development in Providence, Rhode Island, was built in 1974. For more than 50 years, residents there relied on electric baseboards for heating and their own window air conditioners, if they had them, in the summers. But now, the entire building has been retrofitted with a modern HVAC system: 277 heat pumps from Gradient, a San Francisco-based climate tech startup, will heat and cool the property. The heat pumps were installed as part of a $1.25 million public-private project between the Providence Housing Authority, Gradient, the Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources, energy consulting firm Abode Energy Management…

Elon Musk has been summoned to Paris on Monday, where investigators are looking into allegations of misconduct related to the social media platform X, including the spread of child sexual abuse material and deepfake content. The world’s richest man and Linda Yaccarino — the former CEO of X — have been summoned for “voluntary interviews,” while other employees of the platform are scheduled to be heard as witnesses throughout this week, the Paris prosecutor’s office said. It remains unclear whether Musk and Yaccarino will travel to Paris. A spokesperson for X did not respond to questions from The Associated Press and Yaccarino’s current company, eMed, did not answer a req…

One of the weirdest brand collaborations of 2026 just dropped: The non-profit organization StoryCorps is teaming up with Prego—yes, the pasta sauce brand—on a device shaped like a pasta sauce lid that will record your family’s dinner conversations. The device is part of a limited-time offering called the Connection Keeper Bundle, which launches on April 27 for $20. It includes some Prego sauce, a “Connection Keeper” recording device and instruction manual, and a pack of conversation prompt cards to spark discussion. StoryCorps, which is dedicated to recording the stories of Americans “from all backgrounds and beliefs,” is billing the Connection Keeper as a “simpl…

Five years after its California debut, Gwyneth Paltrow’s fast-casual concept, Goop Kitchen, is officially expanding to its second state. The delivery-focused chain plans to open seven new restaurants in New York by the end of 2026, beginning in Midtown West. New York is the state where Goop’s consumer brand awareness is strongest, according to the Academy Award-winning actress. And while larger fast-casual rivals like Sweetgreen and Chipotle Mexican Grill have lately struggled to lure diners, Paltrow tells Fast Company that Goop Kitchen is “pretty much in line with most other fast-casual restaurants in terms of what they charge. And I would argue that our ingredients …

At a recent Stanford Graduate School of Business panel, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and California Congressman Ro Khanna discussed some burning topics about artificial intelligence—from innovation and competition to adoption and skepticism. While AI-related job panic has infiltrated different industries, Huang doubled down on his belief that the technology will do more good than harm to the job market. “The narratives of AI destroying jobs is not going to help America,” Huang said. “First of all, it’s just false.” Huang offered the example that the most popular and successful software engineers at Nvidia—the $5 trillion company where agentic AI has been integrated within…

The annual Lyrid meteor shower is back, reaching its peak on Tuesday evening and at predawn on Wednesday. On average, 10 to 20 meteors are produced per hour during a Lyrid shower. But, in some rare occasions “outbursts” can occur, with up to 100 meteors produced in an hour. According to the American Meteor Society, Lyrids will be mostly visible in the Northern hemisphere at dawn, although limited availability will also be available to those in the Southern Hemisphere. The Lyrid shower is among the oldest recorded meteor showers, dating back as far as 2,700 years. The meteor shower is visible when Earth travels through the path of Comet Thatcher, rendering a t…

Nearly two out of three American adults have used an AI-powered search tool in the past six months. But here’s the stat that should keep every product builder up at night: only 15% say they trust the results “a lot.” That gap between adoption and trust is the defining challenge for the next era of AI search. Consumers are showing up, but they are questioning the results. As product builders, we have to ask ourselves an uncomfortable question: Are we building experiences that earn and deserve consumer trust? The Walled Garden Problem Yelp partnered with Morning Consult to survey more than 2,200 U.S. adults on how they use and perceive AI-powered search. The fin…

I have been thinking about a question that nobody in enterprise software seems to want to sit with: why can the most advanced AI models in the world solve Olympiad-level mathematics but fail to reliably extract a total from an invoice? This is not an academic exercise for me. I have been building automation software for twenty years. My company has processed billions of documents for some of the largest enterprises in the world. Yes, I have a stake in this answer. But twenty years of watching models work on real enterprise data, not benchmarks, gives you a different view than turning a model in a lab. And when those real-world models cannot get the simple stuff right,…

In a video uploaded to X, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that military members would no longer be required to get the flu vaccine in order to serve. “We’re seizing this moment to discard any absurd, overreaching mandates that only weaken our war-fighting capabilities,” Hegseth declared. “In this case, this includes the universal flu vaccine and the mandate behind it.” In a memo accompanying the video announcement, the decision to seek the flu vaccine is described as “voluntary” for all active and reserve service members and for civilian personnel serving in the Department of Defense. “Our new policy is simple: If you are an American Warrior entrust…

As visitors head into downtown Vancouver through the city’s False Creek Flats neighborhood, the first thing they’ll see is the Hive: a 10-story office building built out of wood and shaped like a giant honeycomb. Beneath its webbed exterior, the building is hiding a clever design system that keeps it safe from earthquakes by allowing it to wiggle, shake, and settle. The Hive, designed by the Toronto-based architecture studio Dialog, is the tallest seismic-force-resisting building made from mass timber in North America. By substituting mass timber for typical steel-and-concrete construction, the building is sequestering a total of 4,403 metric tons of CO2; equivalent …

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. AI flattery drives engagement—and distorts judgment Social networks like Facebook and TikTok use a range of techniques to keep us engaged and scrolling (and ultimately viewing ads). One of the most effective is tailoring content to our tastes and preferences, a strategy that has proved highly addictive. Last month, a Los Angeles jury found that Meta’s and Google’s use of infinite scrolling and algorithmic recommendations caused a young user to become addicted, and ordered the compa…

The software company Palantir has waded into online fashion discourse after its head of strategic engagement, Eliano A. Younes, posted pictures of a “lightweight Palantir chore coat” to X. the lightweight Palantir chore coat [04.30.2026 • 0930 AM EST] pic.twitter.com/9K5fmu3bSs — Eliano A Younes (@eliano) April 21, 2026 In his post, Younes detailed the make of the coat (100% cotton, designed and made in America, “relaxed fit”), adding that it goes on sale April 30. The perplexing framing has caught people’s attention: Is this internal merch for a controversial tech company, or a drop from a streetwear brand? Increasingly, those worlds are getting uncomforta…

Last August, as the internet piled on Cracker Barrel over its new “modern” logo, something even stranger was unfolding at Steak ’n Shake. For one week, the chain’s X account didn’t try to sell a single burger. Instead, it attacked Cracker Barrel’s “destruction of shareholder value,” alongside other financial grievances. It sold $20 red MAGA-style hats bearing the words “Fire Cracker Barrel CEO,” and drew attention to a billboard near Cracker Barrel’s Nashville headquarters that Steak ’n Shake had secured, repeating the line. Days later, Cracker Barrel admitted defeat. The logo reverted. The internet moved on. Steak ’n Shake did not. The account remained fixate…

Thousands of AI startups are fighting for the VC funding needed to win a slice of the enterprise market. But according to Scott Stevenson, cofounder and CEO of the legal AI startup Spellbook, many are inflating their real revenues to get it. In a viral tweet on April 17, Stevenson called out these fledgling companies for perpetuating a “huge scam” in their metric reporting. It’s time to expose a huge scam in AI startups: Contracted ARR The reason many AI startups are crushing revenue records is because they are using a dishonest metric The biggest funds in the world are supporting this and misleading journalists for PR coverage. The setup:… pic.twitter.com/NQ0qFSn…

From layoffs and return-to-office mandates to challenges around AI and creativity, it’s not all fun and games for video game workers. And now, some are seeking to unionize. On April 27, a group of game developers behind the digital collectible card game Magic: The Gathering Arena announced the intent to form a union in affiliation with the Communications Workers of America (CWA). The group is a part of the gaming studio Wizards of the Coast (WOTC), a division of Hasbro. The group, which is coming together as United Wizards of the Coast – CWA, said it reached a supermajority of eligible Arena workers in support for unionization a week before the announcement. The …