Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. I’ve always considered immersive multimedia experiences as a medium that chips away at solitude. But never did I expect we’d slide so far down the path of loneliness that it would be considered “a global public health concern,” “an epidemic of loneliness,” or a threat as harmful as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. It’s official: We’re living in an age of social isolation. And, yet, we’ve never been…

OpenAI appeared to be closer to pulling the trigger on advertising in ChatGPT in recent days, but a growing threat from Google has forced the company to pause those plans as it gears up for a quickly escalating chatbot fight. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sent a memo to staff on December 1 declaring a “code red” and ordering the company’s primary focus to be on improving ChatGPT. As part of that directive, Altman reportedly said the company would be pushing back work on other projects, including the introduction of advertising to its chatbot. The about-face came just days after Tibor Blaho, an engineer working on a Chrome extension that offers pre-written prompts for Chat…

Age really is just a number when it comes to social media, as new research from Ampere Analysis shows that more than half of users ages 55 to 64 now watch influencer content every week. This number is up by 10 percentage points since 2020. In the U.K., the figure has also risen over the past five years, from 30% to 38%. TikTok and YouTube, in particular, are behind the growth—proof that Boomers’ social media presence is no longer limited to Facebook. “The biggest surprise in our latest data wasn’t how popular influencer videos have become, it is how rapidly this trend has extended to older audiences,” Annabel Yeomans, senior research manager at Ampere Analysi…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. While homebuyers and home sellers still see headlines about the housing market being a seller’s market and national home prices reaching all-time highs, a deeper look reveals that several regional housing markets have shifted, giving homebuyers some power. During the pandemic housing boom, from summer 2020 to spring 2022, the number of active homes for sale in most housing markets plummeted as homebuyer demand quickly absorbed almost everything that came up for sale. Fast-forward to the current housing market, and the places where active inventory has reb…

I’ve always been somewhat ritualistic, shaped by my Midwestern upbringing in a modest immigrant family. I remember my parents calculating the mileage of our ‘82 Honda Civic in a notepad after every fill-up, the same car I eventually inherited in high school. Or saving every receipt on vacation to audit our daily spending down to the dollar. In every sense, they were amazing parents, and their rituals instilled in me a desire to be intentional about how I lived my life. As human beings in a world of constant distraction, time is the most precious resource we have. As a CEO, managing that resource is one of the most important skills you can master. And it’s no picnic. I…

Thomas Kuhn was a philosopher whose groundbreaking 1962 book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, is credited with bringing the term paradigm shift to pop culture. Kuhn described how scientific communities stick to established paradigms, even as evidence of their limitations mounted. Widely accepted paradigms for understanding and interpreting knowledge don’t crumble under the weight of mere data. Instead, they tend to persist until a crisis emerges—when anomalies become so disruptive that a shift to a new paradigm is unavoidable. Zoning was established in the early 20th century as a way to protect homeowners from unwanted industrial developments nearby. It was p…

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. There’s no question that artificial intelligence has taken the world by storm. However, as the initial excitement over the technology fades, we find ourselves in a new phase of thoughtful exploration. There are many innovative AI startups that have captured the world’s attention; however, many organizations still struggle to develop a clear roadmap to take full advantage of this transformative t…

In the world of interior design gaming, where perfection is often the goal, Redecor, a 3D design-simulation game, has taken an unexpected turn—celebrating flaws. The limited-time Real World Beauty collection, available free until April 15, highlights the authentic, lived-in charm of real homes. Instead of perfection, this update introduces design elements that reflect everyday life, such as coffee stains on wooden tables, sofas worn by pets, and walls decorated with kids’ doodles. The “flawed” collection features elements that players never explicitly asked for but quickly embraced. Natalie Gal, senior director of content for Redecor, explains the inspiration behind i…

When we think of summer bags, we tend to think of big totes we can carry to the beach or a farmers market. But this year, bag designers are reimagining the summer staple as a piece of art you can carry around with you. They’re taking the seasonal materials we’re used to seeing—raffia, straw, wicker—and transforming them into beautiful, interesting shapes. They’re meant to do more than hold your phone; they’re designed to give you pleasure and start conversations. Here are our favorite sculptural bags of the season. Camilla Clutch Cult Gaia, $298 Cult Gaia first made a name for itself with a half-moon-shaped bamboo Ark bag, which went viral. Since then, even as the la…

Anthropic announced Thursday that it has added web search capability to its Claude chatbot. It’s not a new feature to the AI world—but the company’s approach stands as one the most thoughtful to date. Much like its rival Perplexity, Anthropic’s Claude works relevant information from the web into a conversational answer, and includes clickable source citations. Web search is available as a “feature preview” for U.S. users of the Claude 3.7 Sonnet model, with plans to expand to the free tier and to more countries What sets Anthropic’s web search feature apart is that it is automatic. Rather than requiring users to manually select a web search on a given query …

Jensen Huang has some pointed words for leaders who blame company layoffs on artificial intelligence. “I think the narrative that connects AI to job loss, for many of the CEOs that are doing it, is just too lazy,” the Nvidia cofounder and CEO said in an interview with Channel NewsAsia. “AI has just arrived. How is it possible they’re already losing jobs? How is it possible that AI became productive and useful only six months ago, and they were somehow laying people off two years ago because of AI? “It doesn’t make any sense,” Huang added. “It was just a way for them to sound smart, and I really hate that.” While Huang didn’t name-drop any specific CEOs or comp…

Women may be at a heightened risk for being edged out of their job (or having their duties change) due to AI. According to a new study, jobs disproportionately done by women, especially in higher income countries, are more steadily becoming automated. The joint study, which comes from the United Nations’ International Labour Organization (ILO) and Poland’s National Research Institute (NASK), was released today. It assessed the ways in which generative AI is reshaping the world, as well as how it changes the role of human beings. “We went beyond theory to build a tool grounded in real-world jobs. By combining human insight, expert review, and generative AI models,…

Most of us know the general (albeit simplified) story: Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov used a stimulus—like a metronome—around the dogs he was studying, and soon, the hounds would start to salivate. They had learned that the sound meant food was coming. The phenomenon, now known as classical conditioning, became one of modern psychology’s foundational discoveries. It’s an unconscious process where a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a naturally occurring stimulus, eventually leading to a connection between the two. The dogs, seeing the researcher who often brings them food or hearing the noise of the cart on its way, would immediately know they were about to h…

It’s easy to say that the name of the advertising game has always been attention. But the level of skill, belief, strategic rigor, creative confidence, and sheer will required to win this game has never been higher or more complex. Effectively engaging with culture in this pursuit has never been more important or desired by brands and marketers than it is right now, thanks to an ever-fragmented media landscape. There is almost nothing better at attracting our attention and, importantly, keeping it. Why? Because we care. We talk to our friends and family about it. We engage in online and IRL communities about it. The brands and agencies on this year’s list are finding m…

At a remote elementary school in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, until recently, access to safe drinking water was a daily challenge. The school tried to use groundwater, but there wasn’t enough supply; the water was also contaminated with salt and metal. In the dry season, from December to April, droughts made the challenge worse. But last month, the school installed a new system that harvests rainwater, filters it, and then automatically supplies it to drinking fountains, the kitchen, and bathrooms. It’s one of more than 270 schools, from rural Nepal to urban Taiwan, to work with a fast-growing nonprofit called Gravity Water to install the nonprofit’s tech over the last 1…

The climate tech sector is at a crossroads. We have the tools we need to fight climate change, but the real challenge is scaling and deploying them. This is where “climate-curious” outsiders play a crucial role. At Epic Cleantec, a company I cofounded to tackle water scarcity through innovative reuse technology, none of us came from an environmental background. That outside perspective turned out to be a huge advantage. When I began this journey, I didn’t know much about water. I wasn’t a trained environmental or civil engineer, which meant I never even learned about how things were traditionally done. This lack of traditional expertise freed us from being tied down b…

It’s 7:45 a.m. in the office. Someone bounces in, already back from the gym, already through their emails. Cheerfully asks if everyone’s “okay” because it’s so quiet and people seem a bit tired. Around the office, people clutch coffee like a life raft, waiting for their brains to come online and cursing the 8 a.m. meeting. And the cheerful colleague. But at least they got in early enough to find parking and grab coffee before it ran out—this time. Now: which person are you? The early riser, or the one watching them, wondering why you can never feel that awake at this hour no matter how hard you try? Those clutching their strong brews are probably not just tire…

How’s work? If you feel like answering “meh,” you’re not alone. Gallup’s latest workplace survey found that employee engagement has slumped to a 10-year low. It might not be the work itself, though. You might want to take a closer look at your boss, says Dr. Katina Sawyer, coauthor of Leading for Wellness: How to Create a Team Culture Where Everyone Thrives. “The proximal experiences that you have in the day to day of your workplace are what predict your general overall sentiments about your work,” says Sawyer, who is an associate professor of management and organizations at the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management. “That means that the people that you …

StubHub’s 2024 revenue surged 29.5%, it reported on Friday in its U.S. initial public offering paperwork, as the online ticketing marketplace moves ahead with its long-sought New York flotation. A handful of companies are moving ahead with stock market listings despite volatility arising from uncertainty around U.S. trade policy. Nvidia-backed startup CoreWeave and Swedish fintech Klarna are among the companies gearing up to go public in New York. StubHub, one of the biggest secondary ticketing marketplaces for live events, will sell new shares in the proposed offering, it said. Its revenue jumped to $1.77 billion in 2024, compared with $1.37 billion a yea…

Artificial intelligence: it’s not just for tech experts anymore. Instead, a heaping helping of free online resources has emerged. These classes are specifically designed to welcome beginners into the world of AI, even if they possess little or no prior technical background. I selected these Coursera courses for their beginner-friendly approach, high ratings, and comprehensive coverage of foundational concepts and key AI domains. AI For Everyone If you’re taking your very first steps into AI, “AI For Everyone” on Coursera is a great starting point. The course requires no prior experience in AI or programming, making it truly accessible to everyone, and it’s …

You may not have heard of Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, but he’s one of a handful of people responsible for the current AI boom. As VP of Research at OpenAI, Amodei helped discover the scaling laws that project how much smarter an AI gets when given increasing amounts of computing power. He holds PhDs in physics and neuroscience and is probably a genius. Amodei, who left OpenAI in 2021 to found Anthropic, which claims to be a more safety-conscious AI company and is now valued at $61 billion after closing its latest funding round, spoke at Anthropic’s developer day in San Francisco Thursday. He’s quirky, refreshingly frank, and often funny. Here are some of his spicier quip…

China produces 75% of the world’s batteries. South Korea and Japan control much of the remaining supply chain. With tariffs looming over the industry, the U.S. is in a unique position, having both urgency and opportunity to strengthen domestic battery production for myriad uses. The reality is that American battery manufacturers lag their Asian counterparts. Companies here are attempting to catch up by rushing to follow Asia’s manufacturing formula, but that strategy won’t hold up in the long term. The only way to surpass these larger Asian competitors is to move on from outdated manufacturing methods and materials and focus on what defines American leadership: innov…

If you’re in charge of an editorial team, you’re used to objections from the rank and file about using AI. “It gets things wrong.” “I don’t know what it’s doing with my data.” “Chatbots only say what you want to hear.” Those are all valid concerns, and I bring them up often in my introduction to AI classes. Each one opens a discussion about what you can do about them, and it turns out to be quite a bit. AI hallucinations require careful thought about where to apply fact-checking and “human in the loop.” Enterprise tools, APIs, and privacy settings can go a long way to protecting your data. And you can prompt the default sycophancy out of AI by telling it to give you c…