Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

This week, the U.S. Tennis Association (USTA) announced that it’s putting the revenue from selling U.S. Open tickets and $23 signature Honey Deuce cocktails toward a new cause: Completing an $800 million renovation of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center (NTC), the sports complex that hosts the annual tennis championship. The renovation represents the single largest investment in U.S. Open history, according to a press release published by the USTA. It will encompass a full transformation of the Arthur Ashe Stadium, where championship games are played, as well as a luxe new player performance center on the NTC’s campus. The work will be spearheaded by the …

How did you get to this article? Maybe you opened a link in an email, or you navigated from the Fast Company home page. Perhaps you Googled “agentic AI” and this figured in the results. The point is, you almost certainly clicked, scrolled, tapped, or typed your way here, because that’s the digital grammar that shapes nearly every online experience. But that 30-year-old paradigm is about to change. Agentic AI is ripping up the rulebook, by creating a new layer of intelligent, autonomous mediation between us and the digital world. Personal shopping agents will handle routine purchases, while in the workplace, agents will automate workflows and streamline procurement. …

Nations are trying to reach an agreement to charge commercial vessels a fee for their emissions in what would effectively be the world’s first global carbon tax. The International Maritime Organization, which regulates international shipping, set a target for the sector to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by about 2050, and committed to ensuring that fuels with zero or near-zero emissions are used more widely. Its Marine Environment Protection Committee meets Monday through Friday in London. The committee, comprised of IMO member states, is working to approve proposed new global regulations to put a price on maritime greenhouse gas emissions and to set a ma…

Matt Ries has lived in Florida only three years, but everyone told him last summer was unusually hot. That was followed by three hurricanes in close succession. Then temperatures dropped below freezing for days this winter, and snow blanketed part of the state. To Ries, 29, an Ohio native now in Tampa, the extreme weather—including the bitter cold—bore all the hallmarks of climate change. “To me it’s just kind of obvious,” said Ries, a project manager for an environmental company and self-described conservative-leaning independent. “Things are changing pretty drastically; just extreme weather all across the country and the world. . . . I do think humans are speeding up …

The list of Rite Aid drugstores marked for closure continues to grow at a furious pace after the ill-fated pharmacy chain filed for bankruptcy a second time. In a court filing last week, the company said it would move to close 151 additional locations in 10 states, its largest batch of closures since the Chapter 11 process began three weeks ago. Three earlier filings had disclosed a combined 210 closures, as Fast Company previously reported. That means the list of stores that are expected to shutter on an accelerated timeline is now over 360—more than a quarter of Rite Aid’s fleet of 1,277 locations. Fast Company reached out to Rite Aid for more information …

The LA Art Book Fair returned this weekend with a new venue and a renewed sense of intention. Now in its eighth edition, the fair took over ArtCenter College of Design’s South Campus in Pasadena, California, transforming classrooms, courtyards, and even the rooftop of a Subaru Outback into vibrant hubs of independent publishing. Produced remotely by Printed Matter’s New York team, the fair was made possible through deep collaboration with LA’s creative community. Still reeling from January’s wildfires, the city’s small press scene showed up with resilience and purpose, supported by mutual aid efforts and fee waivers for affected publishers. At a time when book bans, c…

In 2021, Eugene Kashuk was looking for a new venture. The Ukrainian entrepreneur realized in the wake of the pandemic that there was a large gap in education. Students were lagging behind, particularly in math. Kashuk started Brighterly, a platform that connects math teachers from all across the globe with students in the United States for private tutoring. Brighterly offers private lessons for $20 per 45-minute lesson—much cheaper than the average rate of about $40 per hour in the United States. In part, Brighterly is able to keep costs down because it uses AI to generate lessons so teachers are able to use their time to focus on their student instead of coming…

The skies over London could soon get a lot more exciting. Joby Aviation, the California-based electric air taxi company, announced an exclusive partnership with Virgin Atlantic on Saturday that it says will pave the way to launching its vehicles across the United Kingdom. The partnership will see Joby’s services integrated into Virgin’s app and website, and connect passengers at Heathrow and Manchester airports. Passengers will be able to reserve a seat on a Joby air taxi using Virgin’s app, the companies say. The announcement did not say when service is expected to begin. “We are delighted to be partnering with Joby to bring short-haul, zero-emission flights…

For many people, pets provide unconditional love, companionship, and a sense of security. But not all human-pet relationships are beneficial, and some may contribute to stress and anxiety rather than relief. Psychologists have been studying attachment theory for decades. This framework explains how people form emotional bonds, seek closeness, and manage separation. People with secure attachment tend to feel safe in relationships, while those with attachment anxiety may crave closeness but frequently worry about rejection or loss. Just like with human relationships, people form attachment bonds with pets. Some form secure attachments, finding comfort in their pet a…

At the beginning of the hit 2003 movie Love Actually, Hugh Grant’s character muses that whenever he gets gloomy about the state of the world, he redirects his attention to the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. Another remedy would be to consider the vast natural wonders of space, but perhaps that’s more of a William Shatner move. Regardless of your leading-man preference, if you are in need of some wonder this week, there will be a partial solar eclipse early Saturday morning visible in certain parts of the world. Here’s what that all means and where and how to best see it. What is a partial solar eclipse? The moon orbits the Earth while our home planet …

It’s been another bad week for Tesla shares so far. After closing down again yesterday, as of the time of this writing, TSLA shares are down over 5% in early morning trading on Tuesday. The stock’s decline this week comes after the company shed nearly 15% of its value in a single day last week. Much of Tesla’s recent stock declines have been attributed to the public souring of the company as its CEO, Elon Musk, has become increasingly involved in politics in both America and Europe. Since Musk’s political engagements, including his role in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the United States and his support of the far-right party Alternative for German…

According to new research from Whop, a marketplace for digital products, one in three Gen Z consumers now make purchasing decisions based on recommendations from AI-generated influencers. The report gathered survey data from 2,001 Americans 12-to-27 years old and found the trend particularly strong among college-aged consumers. Nearly half of 19-to-21 year olds follow AI influencers, with 47% of young men following these accounts, compared to under 40% of women. While many have argued that AI influencers lack the authenticity needed to sell products, that might not matter—especially to Gen Z. Authenticity vs reach Previous research backs this up. Nearly h…

The most frequent mistake companies make when applying? They fail to focus on a single, representative example of internally grown innovation. Here’s some advice on how to produce a more compelling application for Fast Company’s Best Workplaces for Innovators 2025. Get Real Jargon won’t win you any awards. Applications that read as if they were written to appeal primarily to an internal audience are not likely to earn high marks from our judges. Use clear language to describe your innovation programs. We’re looking for companies that do more than just talk the talk. Be Current Focus on a recent or ongoing example. We’re looking for current hotbeds of innovat…

Ozempic-maker Novo Nordisk turned to the actors from Apple’s 2000s “Get a Mac” ads to differentiate its GLP-1 medication amid a rising sea of competitors. On January 20, the Danish pharmaceutical company announced its “There’s Only One Ozempic” campaign starring Justin Long and John Hodgman. The actors are reprising their roles from Apple’s Mac vs. PC ads playing the personifications of a name brand and the alternative—but now for weight-loss drugs. Long personified Mac in the original Apple campaign by dressing in a more youthful, casual way than Hodgman, who personified a stuffy, dorky PC by wearing glasses and a suit and tie with a closely cropped haircut. …

Lego’s new building kit will turn your wall into an ode to ’80s graffiti art. The latest in Lego’s art-inspired sets is a customizable brick-built version of Keith Haring’s dancing figures, an instantly recognizable motif of five breakdancing stick figures articulated in Haring’s iconic pop art style. The kit comes with 1,773 pieces, can be mounted on stands or affixed to a wall, and stands at just over a foot tall. It retails for $119.99 and is set to hit Lego’s website and land in stores on May 15. In recent months, Lego has been working to build out a more extensive catalog of eye candy kits aimed at adults, ranging from a Lego-based version of Leonadro da Vinc…

Brazilian meat giant JBS came a step closer Friday to its long-held goal of trading its shares on the New York Stock Exchange. The company’s minority shareholders voted to approve the company’s plan to list its shares both in Sao Paulo and New York, casting aside opposition from environmental groups, U.S. lawmakers and others who noted JBS’ record of corruption, monopolistic behavior and environmental destruction. JBS Global CEO Gilberto Tomazoni said the outcome showed shareholders were confident in the benefits a dual listing would bring. The company said before the vote that listing shares in the U.S. would boost its global profile and attract new investors. …

The wildfires that blazed through Los Angeles earlier this year, some of the fastest-spreading fires on record, underscored the risk of living in homes known to be at high risk for future fires. One national homebuilder, KB Home, believes that risk can be reduced by building a wildfire-resilient neighborhood. Dixon Trail, a community of 64 homes under construction in Escondido, California, near San Diego, will be the first neighborhood to earn the new Wildfire Prepared Neighborhood standard developed by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS). [Image: KB Home]Each individual home will meet the Wildfire Prepared Home Plus certification, an IBHS desi…

​​Recent breakthroughs in generative AI have centered largely on language and imagery—from chatbots that compose sonnets and analyze text to voice models that mimic human speech and tools that transform prompts into vivid artwork. But global chip giant Nvidia is now making a bolder claim: the next chapter of AI is about systems that take action in high-stakes, real-world scenarios. At the recent International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR 2025) in Singapore, Nvidia unveiled more than 70 research papers showcasing advances in AI systems designed to perform complex tasks beyond the digital realm. Driving this shift are agentic and foundational AI mode…

Researchers funded by the U.S. Navy have used gene-editing technology to make house spiders produce red fluorescent silk. This might seem like a quirky scientific novelty, but the breakthrough is a critical step toward modifying spider silk properties and creating new “supermaterials” for industries ranging from textiles to aerospace. The team at Germany’s University of Bayreuth, led by Professor Thomas Scheibel, successfully applied CRISPR-Cas9—a molecular tool that acts as “genetic scissors” to cut and modify DNA sequences—to spiders for the first time. The study, published in the scientific journal Angewandte Chemie, demonstrates how this technology introduces modi…

U.S. health officials said they plan to phase out eight petroleum-based artificial colors from the nation’s food supply, triggering an overhaul of scores of brightly hued products on American store shelves. Details of the plan are expected to be announced Tuesday afternoon by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary, who have advocated the change as part of Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. The officials are expected to spell out a regulatory path for removing the color additives, a process that typically requires public notice and agency review. It would be a sweeping change for U.S. food produ…