Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

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 …

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 here. AI pioneer Illia Polosukhin offers a blockchain-flavored open-source enablement platform Illia Polosukhin, who coinvented the Transformer architecture at Google in 2017, is now launching a new company called Near AI. The company will offer services through a blockchain-powered platform that functions as a secure marketplace for open-source AI models and agents. Polosukhin is a strong advocate for transparent, open-source AI models, which he believes are the best way to promote responsible adopti…

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…

When people talk about how AI might reshape media, the term “hyper-personalization” comes up a lot. In broad terms, it means that AI can tailor the experience around your preferences—assuming it has enough data about you. To some extent, algorithms and ad tech have been doing this for years, recommending links and stories based on your clicks and browsing behavior. What generative AI brings to the table is the ability to adapt the content itself. A large language model could, in theory, understand the kinds of stories I care about and modify what I’m reading—maybe by adding an angle relevant to my region. It could even offer up different lengths or even formats. If I’…

Shares of Docusign Inc. (NASDAQ: DOCU) surged nearly 18% on Friday, after the electronic signature service reported strong fourth-quarter earnings that beat expectations, partially driven by its new artificial intelligence-enabled platform, which it introduced last year. The e-signature company reported earnings of 86 cents per share, beating forecasts of 85 cents, with revenue coming in at $776 million, $15 million over forecasts for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, ending January 31. “Fiscal 2025 was a transformative year for Docusign,” CEO Allan Thygesen said in an earnings statement. “We launched Docusign IAM, our AI-powered agreement management platform, wh…

Struggling pharmacy chain Rite Aid may be preparing to file for a second bankruptcy and sell itself in pieces, according to a new report. The plans would come just a year after Rite Aid emerged from its prior bankruptcy proceedings. Here’s what you need to know. What’s happened? A report from Bloomberg yesterday said that the pharmacy chain Rite Aid was preparing to file for a second bankruptcy. Rite Aid previously filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2023, from which it emerged last year in 2024. But now Bloomberg’s report suggests that Rite Aid’s reorganization in that bankruptcy wasn’t enough to help the retailer put its struggles behind it. Rite Aid is re…

During one of the hardest nights of Rachel Platten’s life—amidst postpartum depression, debilitating chronic pain, and mental health challenges—she glimpsed the light at the end of the tunnel. “I was in my studio and reached the apex of I can’t take it anymore,” she says. “The bottom wasn’t there. I just kept falling. In that moment, this wail came out of me that turned into a song. I was crying, mercy to anyone who would hear me, to whatever God that was out there.” “Something was writing through me,” she continues. “I realized: Is there a purpose or meaning in all of this suffering? Am I being dragged down, like I was with ‘Fight Song,’ letting my roots go deep so t…

A lot has been written about how AI is coming for your job, but EY’s latest AI survey found some surprising results. Out of 500 top executives at major U.S. companies who said artificial intelligence was boosting productivity at their companies, only 17% of those polled actually turned around and laid off workers or cut their jobs. Instead, the new survey found they are reinvesting those gains back into the company. “Executives are plowing productivity gains right back into more AI tools and more talented people,” EY America’s consulting leader Colm Sparks Austin said. “The real breakthrough isn’t automation—it’s amplification. Leading companies are using AI …

State officials are warning Americans not to respond to a surge of scam road toll collection texts. The texts impersonating state road toll collection agencies attempt to get phone users to reveal financial information, such as credit or debit cards or bank accounts. They’re so-called smishing scams — a form of phishing that relies on SMS texts to trick people into sending money or share sensitive information. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said she received one purporting to be from the statewide GeauxPass toll system. “It is a SCAM,” Murrill posted on Facebook this week. “If you ever receive a text that looks suspicious, be sure to never click on it. You don…

A new consensus is growing within the scientific community about climate change: The goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050, as set out in the Paris Agreement, is probably out of reach. We’ve already experienced the first full calendar year beyond this threshold, with last year’s global average temperature being 1.6 C higher than that of the preindustrial era. And while a single year at this level isn’t enough to confirm without a doubt that the Paris goal is a goner, several recent scientific papers have come to the same unsettling conclusion that a new era of warming has already begun. How hot will things get within our lifetimes? The answer w…

Kendrick Lamar isn’t just a Grammy-winning rapper—he’s also behind pgLang, a groundbreaking creative company shaping the future of media, music, and storytelling. But what exactly is pgLang? And how is it redefining the creative agency model? This is FC Explains, where Fast Company breaks down the most innovative companies of the year. View the full article

A strong résumé can make all the difference. It demonstrates to hiring managers that you’re the best person for the job by summarizing your career highlights and accomplishments. We know it’s important to customize your résumé for each job you apply to, and to ensure that you’re including quantitative accomplishments whenever possible, to show the impact you’ve had. But despite the amount of time we all spend writing and refining our résumés when job searching, there’s still a fair amount of debate about the ideal format. One common question is whether or not to include an objective statement at the top of your résumé in order to provide a snapshot of the type of…

Meta is bringing its Teen Accounts, which have stricter parental controls, to its Facebook and Messenger platforms on Tuesday, expanding its teen service from just Instagram. The social media giant rolled out Teen Accounts last year on Instagram that have built-in restrictions on who can contact teens, the content they see, and limits on their time on Instagram. Tuesday’s announcement also includes updates to Instagram’s teen service that will roll out in the next couple of months. Instagram said that teens under 16 will be prohibited from going Live unless their parents give them permission to do so. Teens under that age also will be required to have parenta…

In April 2024, Yahoo acquired Artifact, a tool that uses AI to recommend news to readers. Yahoo folded Artifact’s—which was cofounded by Instagram cofounders Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom—into its revamped news app to help surface and curate content for readers. Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone came on the Most Innovative Companies podcast to talk about the acquisition, the company’s approach to news curation, and what the future could hold for the private equity-owned company. This interview has been edited and condensed. Yahoo acquired news discovery platform Artifact last year. Now, the technology is used in Yahoo’s revamped news app. Why did you acquire the platform? …

For some people, home evokes feelings of joy and comfort. However, according to Ikea’s new Life at Home Report, one in three people struggle to find the joy in their living spaces. The latest report explores why this is—and how, in a world of uncertainty and constant change, small, simple adjustments can help bring more joy into everyday life. Insights gathered from more than 38,000 people across 39 countries show that, while many find it difficult to experience consistent enjoyment in their spaces, joy is often found in life’s smaller moments—through self-expression, cozy comforts, and playful touches. [Image: Ikea] The report highlights four key ingredients f…

Although the definition is a little loose, “middle age” is the name we give to the period of life before we decide someone is officially old. When someone in the United States has reached the age of 40, they can expect to live for more than 40 additional years, on average. Given this lifespan, as well as changes in beliefs about age and fitness, people don’t really start getting “old” until their mid-60s. So, middle age involves the period between 45 and 60 to 65. There are several excellent reasons to want to reconsider goals for your life somewhere in this period of life. In fact, it can be a great time to reset and think about what else you’d like to accomplish. …

Calling the groups in charge of professional tennis “a cartel,” the players’ association co-founded by Novak Djokovic filed an antitrust lawsuit against the women’s and men’s tours, the International Tennis Federation and the sport’s integrity agency on Tuesday in federal court in New York. The suit by the Professional Tennis Players’ Association says the organizations that run the sport hold “complete control over the players’ pay and working conditions” and their setup constitutes “textbook violations of state and federal law” that “immunize professional tennis from ordinary market forces and deny professional tennis players and other industry participants their right …

Former employees of OpenAI are asking the top law enforcement officers in California and Delaware to stop the company from shifting control of its artificial intelligence technology from a nonprofit charity to a for-profit business. They’re concerned about what happens if the ChatGPT maker fulfills its ambition to build AI that outperforms humans, but is no longer accountable to its public mission to safeguard that technology from causing grievous harms. “Ultimately, I’m worried about who owns and controls this technology once it’s created,” said Page Hedley, a former policy and ethics adviser at OpenAI, in an interview with the Associated Press. Backed by three Nobel …

As a leadership consultant who helps organizations understand how to apply artistic thinking, one of the lessons I have learned is one of the basic differences between the artistic practice and the business practice—in the former, questioning is the way of life, in the latter answers are the way to go. Artists ask “why” constantly. Why does this exist? Why are things the way they are? Why are we doing it this way? That relentless questioning is how they push past convention—and it’s the engine of genuine creative thinking. Bring that same type of question into most organizations, and something breaks. “Why are we doing it this way?” stops sounding like curiosity. It s…

Redbox is getting ready for one final sale. The defunct DVD rental chain’s assets, and those of its corporate siblings Crackle and Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, are being auctioned off in New York later this month, according to a court filing published Monday morning. The asset sale is just the latest chapter in Redbox’s tumultuous downfall: Once one of the country’s biggest DVD vendors, the rental chain saw its revenue evaporate overnight during the pandemic, leading to its bankruptcy in June of 2024. Much of this had to do with consumers switching to streaming, but the exact circumstances of Redbox’s demise remain highly contested: Last month, t…

Charles Suppon has big plans for the Tunkhannock Area School District. At any given time, the northeastern Pennsylvania district’s chief operating officer can rattle off statistics about fields in which its schools excel: arts, AP classes and softball, as well as on-the-job training programs for future farmers, welders and more. Goats and chickens roam the high school’s courtyards, where students also tend to koi fish; in the hallways just beyond, high schoolers tinker with tractors, build furniture to sell and offer free tax services for the broader community. But Suppon speaks with vigor when he talks about the five-megawatt system he hopes to install across fi…

Loneliness isn’t just a lingering by-product of COVID lockdowns—it’s a public health crisis. The impacts of social isolation are said to be as detrimental to human health as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, according to former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. Loneliness can increase the risk of heart disease and strokes by roughly 30%, and dementia by about 50%. In some ways, we’ve never been more connected thanks to online networks. Yet for many people, social media has fueled perceptions that others are living fuller, more vibrant lives in comparison to their own. Some have found that online interactions pale in comparison to in-person hang outs. Champagne sales…

Since 1974, William Stout Architectural Books in San Francisco’s Jackson Square has been one of the city’s most iconic destinations for its seemingly endless stock of art, design, and architecture books. As the store was approaching its 50th year in business with a fresh owner, the Eames Institute for Infinite Curiosity, it discovered a problem: It had run out of stickers to label its books. Then it discovered another problem—it didn’t have a formalized logo to print more. But as luck would have it, a fairly competent design firm resided just across the street that offered to help: LoveFrom. “It’s a store we loved. And if we didn’t get to design [their brand], it would …

Think you’ve got game? Time to put it to the test with Tinder’s latest launch in collaboration with OpenAI. On Tuesday, Tinder rolled out The Game Game—a new experience designed to help users practice their flirting skills by chatting with an AI voice, powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4o model. Players are dealt a stack of virtual cards, each introducing a different AI persona and a hilariously exaggerated rom-com scenario (think: a luggage mix-up at the airport or accidentally crushing someone’s sunglasses on the beach). Your challenge? Charm your way through it. The bot makes the first move, and users respond in real time—earning feedback on their game as they go. Nail t…

The Prada Group announced a deal Thursday to buy Italy’s Versace from the U.S. luxury group Capri Holdings under terms that value the fashion house at 1.25 billion euros ($1.4 billion). Prada said the addition of Versace’s “highly recognizable aesthetic . . . constitutes a strongly complementary addition” to its portfolio, which includes the Prada and Miu Miu fashion brands. It said Milan-based Versace offered “significant untapped growth potential.” The final value of the deal will be adjusted at closing, expected in the second half of the year. It will be funded by 1.5 billion euros in new debt and has been approved by the Prada and Capri Holdings board of directors. …