What's on Your Mind?

Social Security Administration Commissioner Frank Bisignano was named to the newly created position of CEO of the IRS on Monday, making him the latest member of the The President administration to be put in charge of multiple federal agencies. As IRS CEO, Bisignano will report to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who currently serves as acting commissioner of the IRS, the Treasury Department says. It is unclear whether Bisignano’s newly created role at the IRS will require Senate confirmation. The Treasury Department said in a statement that Bisignano will be responsible for overseeing all day-to-day IRS operations while also continuing to serve in his role as commissio…

This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here. AI assistants are now more than simple answer machines. ChatGPT’s new Study Mode, Claude’s Learning Mode, and Gemini’s Guided Learning represent a significant shift. Instead of just providing answers, these free tools act as adaptive, 24/7 personal tutors. Guidde | Create how-to guides with AI Tired of explaining the same thing over and over again to your colleagues? Guidde is an AI-powered tool that helps you explain the most complex tasks in seconds with AI-generated documentation. Turn boring documentation in…

It’s a sound—and smell—car commuters have become intimately familiar with: the noxious fumes of asphalt repaving. U.S. road maintenance and highway expansion require a massive quantity of asphalt every year, roughly 400 million tons a year on average, according to Asphalt magazine, a publication of the international trade association Asphalt Institute. But a new process developed by St. Louis-based firm Verde Resources seeks to streamline the process, making it more sustainable and odorless. Verde’s new BioAsphalt process, which has been in development since 2022, utilizes what’s called biochar, or natural wood remnants from forestry waste that get added into the trad…

Thinking forward is an automatic process. Cause, then effect. Input, then output. A to B. It feels logical—and normal to start with a conclusion, then find justification around it. But we can always take our thinking a step further. Sometimes, the best way to get the answers you want is to think backwards. It’s called mental inversion. Turn the whole thinking process upside down. As the great algebraist Carl Jacobi said, “Invert, always invert.” Put another way, “What would guarantee I fail at X?” is a better question than “How do I achieve X?” Most people focus on the obvious process because the brain doesn’t like to think through ugly pitfalls. Starting from B to …

This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. I’ve recently written about free, private AI tools and the best AI mobile apps. To build on that AI series, I’m sharing a new guest post today on how to make the most of AI by Frank Andrade, The PyCoach. He’s an AI & Python instructor who has helped thousands of people on YouTube and Substack master AI with beginner-friendly guides and in-depth tutorials. As he starts a new journey on Instagram, he’s offering his ChatGPT course free to anyone who follows & DMs him. I’ve been using ChatGPT since the day it was released. Bac…

In 2026 (and beyond) the best benchmark for large language models won’t be MMLU or AgentBench or GAIA. It will be trust—something AI will have to rebuild before it can be broadly useful and valuable to both consumers and businesses. Researchers identify several different kinds of AI trust. In people who use chatbots as companions or confidants, they measure a feeling that the AI is benevolent or has integrity. In people who use AI for productivity or business, they measure something called “competence trust,” or the belief that the AI is accurate and doesn’t hallucinate facts. I’ll focus on that second kind. Competence trust can grow or shrink. An AI tool user, qu…

Lately, at every networking event or leadership roundtable, I’m hearing the same things on repeat. CEOs are focused on growth in an uncertain context. HR leaders are worried about retention and employee burnout. Managers are trying to figure out how to build connection in hybrid workplaces that feel more transactional by the day. Everyone is chasing new strategies for engagement, inclusion, and belonging—yet most are overlooking one of the simplest, most powerful tools we all have: mentorship. In an age where technology evolves faster than people can keep up, mentorship is the real accelerator. It’s how knowledge sticks, how culture travels, and how innovation spr…

We were promised empathy in a box: a tireless digital companion that listens without judgment, available 24/7, and never sends a bill. The idea of AI as a psychologist or therapist has surged alongside mental health demand, with apps, chatbots, and “empathetic AI” platforms now claiming to offer everything from stress counseling to trauma recovery. It’s an appealing story. But it’s also a deeply dangerous one. Recent experiments with “AI therapists” reveal what happens when algorithms learn to mimic empathy but not understand it. The consequences range from the absurd to the tragic, and they tell us something profound about the difference between feeling heard and…

As I said in previous articles, executives like to say they’re “integrating AI.” But most still treat artificial intelligence as a feature, not a foundation. They bolt it onto existing systems without realizing that each automation hides a layer of invisible human work, and a growing set of unseen risks. AI may be transforming productivity, but it’s also changing the very nature of labor, accountability, and even trust inside organizations. The future of work won’t just be about humans and machines collaborating: It will be about managing the invisible partnerships that emerge when machines start working alongside us . . . and sometimes, behind our backs. The ill…

There’s a new AI companion in town. Just don’t call it that. Launching today, Stream Ring is a wearable device that lets you capture your thoughts, brainstorm ideas, prepare for an interview, or—if you’re the company CTO’s 7-year-old child—simply learn about dinosaurs. The ring, which comes in silver ($249) and gold ($299), with a black resin contour on the inside, is available to preorder now, with shipping to begin in summer 2026. It only listens when you press and hold on its miniature touchpad, a bit like a walkie-talkie. You wear it on your index finger, raise it to your lips when you want to save that brilliant idea you just had, or find a quick recipe for J…

It’s the dream: You finish a huge project that wins widespread acclaim—from your boss, your peers, your clients, your friends and family. You’re flying high. The world should be your oyster. And yet? You can’t find the inspiration to follow up. Your productivity dries up. You’re afraid lightning won’t strike twice. You fear being a one-hit wonder. Maybe not in the obsolete pop star sense—but in the professional, creative, successful sense. It’s a horrible, limiting feeling that kills your productivity, not to mention confidence. But according to research from the Rotterdam School of Management in the Netherlands, there’s a cause for the feelings of inadequac…

When I first ventured into self-employment a few years ago, I received a lot of advice from fellow freelance writers: Know your worth. Don’t take low-paying work. The advice was valid, as too much low-paying work is a recipe for burnout. But to the newly self-employed, I would say: Know your worth. And also, there are very valid reasons to take low-paying work, if it can help launch your business. You can open the right doors without selling yourself short. The project is good for your portfolio Potential clients will expect “proof” that your work is good—especially if it’s the type of work that can be displayed in a portfolio (design, video, writing, or…

Imagine starting a new job where your onboarding feels personalized just for you, with an AI assistant guiding you through training, introducing you to teammates, and checking in on how you’re settling in. That level of personalization in the workplace isn’t just a concept for the future – it’s already here and happening more rapidly than many HR departments anticipate. AI is transforming HR in the workplace. In 2026, AI won’t just take over repetitive tasks, but it will fundamentally change how companies hire, onboard, coach, and retain employees. The result is HR teams that are more strategic, data-driven, and more human than ever. After more than a decade worki…

The market for obesity and diabetes treatments remains scorching hot, funneling billions in sales to Eli Lilly and fueling a bidding war over another drugmaker. Lilly said Thursday that its top-selling drugs, Mounjaro and Zepbound, brought in more than $10 billion combined during the recently completed third quarter. That made up over half of the drugmaker’s $17.6 billion in total sales. Separately, Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk announced plans to buy Metsera Inc. in a deal that could be worth up to $9 billion. That came more than a month after U.S. drugmaker Pfizer Inc. made a nearly $5 billion bid for Metsera, which has no drugs on the market but is developi…

Last year Canva reworked its user experience and tools in a full-frontal attack on the productivity and enterprise markets now dominated by Microsoft Office and Google Workspace. Now the Australian company is going for Adobe’s jugular. Affinity—the British company Canva bought in 2024—is out with a new app that aims to sink Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign with a simple proposal: If you are a professional designer, here’s an integrated photo editing, vector illustration, and page layout studio seamlessly integrated into a single application, with a feature set comparable to Adobe’s apps and a fully customizable UI. For free. You know, free free. “Free for…

Every year, Audience Audit publishes a study on what agency clients really want—and the 2025 edition revealed a stat that should stop any agency leader in their tracks: 77% of clients say they’re more likely to hire an agency that’s a recognized AI expert (not just self-proclaimed). But only 32% believe their current agency fits that description. Here’s what’s more telling: When asked what they expect from their agency when it comes to AI, clients didn’t say “efficiency” or “cheaper deliverables.” They want new ideas, sharper analysis, and real guidance on how to use AI themselves. In other words, they’re not just looking for agencies that use AI. They want partners w…

When my teenage son developed mysterious symptoms, I followed the same path anyone else would: I put his health in the hands of a team of medical professionals. Multiple myeloma is a rare blood cancer. It is so uncommon in 17-year-olds that it doesn’t appear on diagnostic checklists. Despite having no clear starting point to work from, my son’s doctors worked their way to an accurate diagnosis through a process of trial and error, bouncing ideas off each other and testing and discarding hypotheses until they could tell us what was wrong. The process felt inefficient and uncertain at a time when I wanted fast answers and cast-iron guarantees. But this messy and distinctive…

The obesity rate in the U.S. is continuing its downward trend. The news comes three years after obesity rates hit a record high. In 2022, almost four out of 10 (39.9%) of Americans met the threshold for the classification, however, the number first began to shrink in 2023. Now, the rate of obesity is now down to 37%, according to new data from Gallup. The new findings are based on data from three nationally representative surveys of 16,946 U.S. adults. And while the numbers don’t seem massively significant, the report found that those three percentage points add up to around 7.6 million Americans who no longer meet the criteria for being obese. According to the n…

Executives are no longer measured by the weight of their title but by the scale of what they create, especially in an era reshaped by AI. The most effective leaders now marry vision with execution, using technology as a co-pilot to accelerate outcomes while keeping human judgment at the center. Strategy isn’t declared anymore; it’s built in real time, constantly iterating and leveraging AI to turn ideas into outcomes faster than ever. The builder CEO is a visionary who architects systems, coaches teams, and removes obstacles through hands-on involvement. Here’s how executives with a builder leadership style are involved with the day-to-day work and unite teams around …

Consider this: You want to book a multicity, international trip with flights from New York City to London, then Paris, and then back to New York City. There are numerous variables in the mix—different airlines, various ticketing levels, and more—that make the booking more complicated than anticipated. Accordingly, you may end up booking several separate flights, with multiple tickets and confirmation codes to keep track of. If you travel a lot, that can be a lot to manage. But Navan, a corporate travel and expense platform, says it has smoothed the whole process out for booking flights. Navan—which went public less than a month and a half ago, and mainly competes…