What's on Your Mind?

As artificial intelligence gets smarter, a growing number of companies are increasing its implementation in their operations or more heavily promoting their own AI offerings. The buzzword for this is “AI first.” Duolingo is among the latest to adopt an AI-first approach. The company’s CEO, Luis von Ahn, announced the change in an all-hands email Monday, saying it would stop using contractors to do work AI can handle and only increase head count when teams have maximized all possible automation. “The way we work is fundamentally shifting. AI is becoming the default starting point,” said Duolingo’s Chief Engineering Officer Natalie Glance in an internal Slack messa…

The Fast Company Impact Council is a private membership community of influential leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual membership dues for access to peer learning and thought leadership opportunities, events and more. Ageism in Hollywood is a tale as old as time. It’s well-documented that older women have been less represented in mainstream media and female actors over 40 are less likely to get work compared to their male counterparts. The stigma surrounding aging women in entertainment has been so pervasive that many actresses have felt forced to hide the natural realities of aging. Actr…

We all know the people pleaser in the office—the one who takes on extra work, stays late without being asked, and is at the full disposal of the department manager. They also may agree with whatever the majority says and will dodge conflict, even though they are in the right. But does this mentality pay off? Likely not, say experts. Who exactly is a people pleaser? A people pleaser is someone who abandons their own needs and values to try and make someone else happy, explains Amy Morin, a psychotherapist and the author of 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do. While on the surface, you may think this selfless approach will fast-track you at work, however, this…

Lately, you may have noticed headlines about anti-DEI executive orders. While these orders are aimed at the federal government and don’t directly affect companies, they can make anyone who cares about inclusion feel uneasy. If your organization is serious about creating a fair and welcoming workplace, now is a good time to review and refresh your strategy. Let’s chat about some practical ways to stay focused on your values and navigate these challenging headlines. Reassure your team that inclusion is legal First things first, it’s important to remind everyone that diversity, equity, and inclusion work is completely legal. In an email interview, Working IDEAL’s…

Across the city of Chengdu, China, the quiet but remarkable buildings of Liu Jiakun has slowly pierced through the dominant stereotype of bombastic Chinese architecture. Liu, who has just been named the 2025 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate, has spent the past three decades carefully injecting pieces of socially conscious and transformative architecture into his hometown. Liu’s work includes subtle museums, historically informed preservation projects, and progressive urban projects that blur the edges of private space and public good. “In a world that tends to create endless dull peripheries, he has found a way to build places that are a building, infrastructure, …

Watch any Olympic event, and you’ll notice this universal ritual: The moment an athlete completes their performance, they turn to their coach for feedback. There’s no defensiveness—just a hunger to know how to improve. They understand that even the smallest adjustment could be the difference between standing on the podium or watching from the sidelines. For athletes, feedback is not criticism. It’s a tool for enhancement. This mindset isn’t confined to sports. High performers in every field—whether that’s business, academia, or the arts—share an insatiable appetite for actionable feedback. It’s their secret weapon for continual improvement. Why feedback fuel…

The next time you’re due for a medical exam you may get a call from someone like Ana: a friendly voice that can help you prepare for your appointment and answer any pressing questions you might have. With her calm, warm demeanor, Ana has been trained to put patients at ease—like many nurses across the U.S. But unlike them, she is also available to chat 24-7, in multiple languages, from Hindi to Haitian Creole. That’s because Ana isn’t human, but an artificial intelligence program created by Hippocratic AI, one of a number of new companies offering ways to automate time-consuming tasks usually performed by nurses and medical assistants. This March 2025 image from the…

Unwanted phone calls are out of control. Whether it’s a robocall trying to sell you something or spam calls from scammers trying to rip you off, it’s enough to make you want to stop answering your phone. So what can you do to stop them? The scourge of unwanted phone calls has been branded an epidemic by consumer groups, while the Federal Communications Commission says it’s the top consumer complaint. The calls are a nuisance to many ordinary people, some of whom have complained to The Associated Press. “I need help on getting spam calls to stop,” one reader said in an email. She’s getting up to 14 calls a day despite the countermeasures she’s employed. As the name impl…

Walt Disney’s new headquarters in New York is like a city contained within a single block. By the end of this summer, around 5,000 people will work from within the stately 1.2-million-square-foot skyscraper, and the company ambitiously designed it to create a sense of flexibility and appeal for every single one of them. [Photo: Dave Burk/Disney] That’s a tall order, because the entertainment corporation’s portfolio is more diverse than ever. Today Disney’s work includes studio films and theme parks, but also broadcast news, radio, podcasts, streaming, digital media, and magazines. The media roster, largely based in New York, includes ABC News, ESPN, Hulu, and talk…

A young DARPA-backed startup with a fresh spin on a low-power computer chip has raised over $100 million in a Series B funding round, a sign of the wild appetite for more energy-efficient ways to build bigger and better AI. The company, EnCharge AI, aims to move AI’s heaviest workloads from big, power-hungry data centers to devices at the edge, including laptops and mobile devices, where energy, size, and cost constraints are tighter. Its approach, known as analog in-memory computing, comes from research that CEO Naveen Verma spun out of his lab at Princeton University, where he’s still a professor of electrical and computer engineering. Verma wouldn’t say who i…

As society becomes increasingly aware of people’s diverse needs, accessible design has become the hot topic. Years ago at Michael Graves Design, our president Donald Strum, our chief design officer Rob Van Varick, and I were reviewing student portfolios. All the designs were about sustainability. Today, we see a lot of focus on accessibility. We love it. This makes sense, because gaining empathy for your products’ future users is at the core of product design. The design community is ready for accessibility. Our challenge today is proving that it makes great business sense. At Michael Graves Design, we have long embraced accessible design; our North Star is activities…

Unilever surprised investors on Tuesday by ousting chief executive Hein Schumacher and replacing him with finance chief Fernando Fernandez, who will focus on speeding up the execution of the consumer group’s turnaround strategy. Unilever’s board, which includes billionaire activist investor Nelson Peltz, was unified in its decision to oust CEO Schumacher, a source familiar with the board’s thinking told Reuters. Schumacher was surprised by the move, but the decision involved “nothing untoward”, the person said. In an email to associates, Schumacher defended his approach and record as CEO and said he regretted leaving the company earlier than anticipated. “…

On an unremarkable vacant lot in Atlanta’s West End, a proposed rowhouse construction project could soon become a milestone of modern design. The building itself is not particularly special; its 17 units have attractive geometrical facades, large picture windows, and will be affordably priced. More notable than the design of the project itself is how it was designed. To an uncommon degree, artificial intelligence was used extensively throughout the design process, from market analysis and conceptual design to regulatory compliance and material selection. The building, which is going up for zoning approvals this week, could be one of the first projects designed largely t…

A trippy, futuristic grocery store. A pit stop on an interdimensional road trip. A radio station in another realm. These might sound like products of a particularly vivid fever dream, but they’re actually separate exhibitions from Meow Wolf, the immersive entertainment company known for its wild art installations. And now, Meow Wolf is headed to New York City with a brand new otherworldly museum, it was announced today from the stage of SXSW 2025. While the NYC installation’s opening date has yet to be announced, it will be Meow Wolf’s seventh museum overall. The company already operates five distinct experiences in Las Vegas; Grapevine, Texas; Houston; Denver; and Sa…

As climate change causes increasingly severe natural disasters, it’s also increasingly threatening our art, culture, and shared history. In the recent Los Angeles wildfires, billions of dollars in fine art may have been consumed; architectural gems by Richard Neutra, Gregory Ain, and others were destroyed; and the warehouse of Belmont Music Publishing, a repository chronicling Austrian-American composer Arnold Schoenberg, was lost in what the composer’s son called “a profound cultural blow.” For museums, archives, and libraries, which often operate as nonprofits on limited budgets, meeting these increased risks poses significant financial constraints. This challenge …

Consumers are urged to check their kitchens and pantries after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) posted a notice that warned about health risks associated with select chowder soups. A recall has been issued for the select chowder soup products due to fears they have the potential to be contaminated with Clostridium botulinum. The bacterium can cause a potentially deadly form of food poisoning known as Botulism. Here’s what you need to know about the recall. What’s happened? The FDA has posted a notice of a voluntary recall being conducted by the SeaBear Company of Anacortes, Washington. SeaBear initiated the recall after the company became concerned t…

The fate of Google’s vast empire is now in the hands of a federal judge in Washington, D.C., as hearings begin to determine whether the tech giant should be broken up for maintaining an illegal monopoly in search. If the court rules against Google, the outcome could send shockwaves through the tech industry. The company might be forced to divest major assets—potentially including its Chrome browser or even the Android operating system. While the government has taken similar antitrust actions in the past, it’s been more than 25 years since a household name faced a breakup of this scale. So, what happened to the companies that were split up—or nearly split up—under …

The Super Bowl is a magical time and place for brands. A rare and brief three-or-so hour moment when people want to see commercials. Every marketer’s Xanadu. What defines a great Super Bowl ad is obviously subjective, no matter what the Ad Meters, and any number of other measurement tech tells you. Hell, even your own brain might be lying to you. The real scorecard is unique to each brand and what it considers the worth of up to $40 million or more in investment around the game. My criteria for a good Super Bowl ad remains relatively simple: Is it fun or emotional in a way that is both entertaining and memorable? An easy question to ask, but as each year prove…

Matt Sia is a big fan of eggs. With his daughter, he’ll make slow scrambles bathed in pricey European butter. And as executive creative director at the design and branding firm Pearlfisher, he brought that same love to an egg carton he designed for the now retired brand Consider Pastures. The regenerative farming producers created eggs with rich burnt sienna shells, and Sia designed a complementary blue package that celebrated their natural hue. To reach this reveal, the carton unfolded in a dramatic, multi-tiered story much like an Apple product, with messages like “care” and “cultivate” highlighted in gold foil. These premium eggs sold for $5. But today, as another …

Despite a strong start to the year, traffic at U.S. quick service restaurants (QSR), which has been steadily declining month by month, was down 1.7% year-over-year compared to last April, signaling growing consumer caution or shifts in dining behaviors, according to Revenue Management Solutions (RMS), a company that analyzes data and provides insights about the restaurant industry. At the same time, RMS found on average, fast food prices increased in April by +2.0% year-over-year, steady with inflation trends. In case you’re not familiar with restaurant industry lingo, a quick service restaurant (QSR) describes establishments that prioritize speed and convenience,…

This week, skincare brand Kiehl’s debuted a hairy new font, Starbucks continued to roll out its feel-good nostalgia marketing, and an iconic ’80s soda was revived for the year 2025. Here’s all the branding news we’re keeping up with. [Image: Kiehl’s] Kiehl’s gets in on the custom type craze The news: The skincare brand Kiehl’s just unveiled a new custom font made from an unexpected material: pubic hair. Big picture: The font comes as a response to the backlash that Kiehl’s received in August for an ad campaign for a new product line targeting ingrown pubic hairs. Those initial ads featured fully covered models with just a glimpse of hair peeking out from th…