What's on Your Mind?

A new browser extension just debuted that’s designed to be used in tandem with an AI chatbot. Its goal is to make the experience worse. “Are you concerned that you or your loved ones might be experiencing a LLM-induced psychosis? Or participating in a massive de-skilling event? Or outsourcing cognitive and emotional functions to auto-complete?” designer Sam Lavigne asks in a YouTube video introducing his new product. “Then you should install ‘Slow LLM’ on your computer.” Lavigne is an assistant professor of synthetic media and algorithmic justice at Parsons School of Design, as well as an artist and web designer. Slow LLM is his latest creation, and its entire…

Below, coauthors Blythe Harris and Mallory May share five key insights from their new book, Daily Creative: The 5-Minute Habit to Rewire Your Brain. Harris is an artist and entrepreneur, and for many years was the cofounder and chief creative officer of Stella & Dot. Today, she runs Daily Creative with her partner, May, where they focus on creativity as a daily wellness practice—not an artistic achievement. What’s the big idea? Creativity is a natural human capacity that grows stronger with use. When we treat creativity as a small daily practice rather than a high-stakes performance, it becomes a powerful tool for well-being, flexibility, and feeling more a…

The automotive industry is driving toward an electric future, and one Montreal-based company is determined to tow the recreational vehicle market along with it. Taiga Motors has spent the last decade building out production capacity to deliver fully electric snowmobiles and Jet Ski-like personal watercraft that they believe can go toe-to-toe with gas-powered alternatives. As with electric cars, the ride is designed to feel smoother, faster, and whisper-quiet, filling an unaddressed niche in the motor sports vehicle category. “If you’re on the water, all you hear is the wind and the waves. And if you’re on the snow, you hardly hear anything—just that track spinni…

With the high career costs associated with motherhood, and in a challenging economy, more young women are choosing to put work ahead of love and family. According to a recent survey of 1,000 American working mothers by online resume builder Zety, 76% have been explicitly advised to delay having children until they’re more established in their careers, and 57% postponed motherhood for that reason. “I hate that advice, because we should be living in a world where no matter what you’re doing outside of work, you should be able to achieve your career goals,” says Zety career expert Jasmine Escalera. “Yes, it is sound advice, but it’s advice people feel they need to g…

Meetings look neutral on the calendar. Everyone’s calendar is stamped with the same blue 30-minute block. Everyone gets a seat at the table, and—supposedly—the same shot to contribute. But the moment you click “Join,” the pecking order kicks in. Meetings are where power is put on display, credit is scooped up, and the rules of who speaks and who doesn’t are enforced. If you want to understand how inequality festers inside an organization, start watching what happens in your meetings. At a time when women’s representation in the workplace has stagnated and their presence in senior leadership positions is slipping, we need to look closer at the everyday behaviors t…

In the rush to adopt artificial intelligence, many employers are now requiring that employees use AI tools. Fully 64% of employers are encouraging the use of AI, according to Owl Labs, and 58% are requiring its use, according to HRTech Edge. How should you get started? And how can you make your best human contribution while also adopting AI? CLARIFY EXPECTATIONS AND EXPERIMENT One of the most important starting points is to clarify your employer’s expectations. Are they demanding that you use AI for certain parts of your work? Are they requiring new levels of output based on AI? Or are they just seeking to build a tech-forward culture of learning? Clear expectation…

Before there was an iPod, an iPhone, an iPad, or an Apple Watch—before there was a Macintosh or Apple II or even an Apple-1—there were a couple of kids who came of age in Silicon Valley in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were brought together by a shared fascination with electronics. Supported by friends, family, and a burgeoning community of hobbyists, technologists, and entrepreneurs, just as the microprocessor was ushering in a new era, they channeled their strikingly different skills into joint projects. On April 1, 1976, along with Jobs’s former coworker Ronald Wayne, the two Steves formed a partnership to market Wozniak’s latest …

Recently, Angela Parker, cofounder and CEO of Realized Worth, posed a sharp question on LinkedIn: What is the point of a conference anyway? For years, the standard CSR conference playbook was built around a familiar formula: strong production, polished panels, practical takeaways, sponsor visibility, and enough inspiration to send people home feeling energized. But Angela is right. At a time when many professionals are navigating fatigue, fear, scrutiny, and real uncertainty about how to lead, it is not enough. Across industries, people are not showing up to gatherings simply looking for content. They are showing up carrying tension. They are asking harder questio…

A Los Angeles County jury on Wednesday found Meta and Google liable for harming a young woman who used their social media platforms. The landmark decision—which could have an impact on whether future cases can be brought against tech companies—marks a win for the case’s plaintiff, a 20-year-old woman identified only as KGM, who jurors said is entitled to $3 million in damages from Meta and Google. The woman filed the suit against Instagram’s parent company Meta and YouTube owner Google in 2023, alleging the platforms, and design of their apps, deliberately addict and harm children. The jury on Wednesday found those claims to have merit, and found that the compan…

Bellwether trials are complicated but consequential. Pulled from a morass of claims, they’re designed to test how a jury responds to a broader legal theory. Often, they fall flat. Today in a California court, one did not. Kaley, a 20-year-old who alleged that social media harmed her childhood by addicting her and keeping her on platforms like Instagram for up to 16 hours a day, won $3 million in damages. A jury found Meta and Alphabet liable, assigning 70% of the damages to Meta and 30% to Alphabet. TikTok and Snapchat, also named as defendants, settled before trial without admitting fault. The amount—roughly 0.0015% of Meta’s 2025 revenue, and even less for …

“I’m only gonna be releasing music on LinkedIn from now on,” Grimes posted on X in February 2025. A year on, and true to her word, a profile for Claire Boucher (her real name) appeared on the networking platform this week. What’s unclear is if it’s actually the Canadian techno artist, who shares three children with Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, and if she’ll actually be using it to release her music exclusively. In her profile, she lists her professions as CEO of the Los Angeles company Media Empire and an artist at Nazgul Recording LLC, the record publishing company she established in September 2014. The profile features many of Grimes’s professional…

Few sectors of the economy show the growing divide between the haves and have-nots more than the airline industry, which is increasingly catering to high-income fliers in an effort to squeeze as much revenue per available seat mile as possible. United Airlines, which just announced newly designed economy seats you can lie flat and sleep on, found a clever way to appeal to everyone by bringing the couch to coach. This week, the airline announced what it calls “United Relax Row,” a row of three seats that transform into a single lie-flat space. The seats will begin appearing on United aircrafts in 2027. Reaction online to the airline’s announcement was joyous. “Uni…

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Hurricane Center (NHC) is redesigning its most recognizable—some would say iconic—”cone” graphic for the 2026 hurricane season. Other product upgrades include improvements to Hawaii’s storm surge watches and warnings. “These improvements empower communities to prepare earlier and more effectively for dangerous hazards from tropical storms and hurricanes,” Michael Brennan, director of NOAA’s National Hurricane Center, said in a statement. The updates come as climate change brings warmer global temperatures and rising sea levels, leading to more extreme weather events including longer, more intens…

Plane comfort is important yet notoriously hard to achieve. But now one airline is set to offer a cozier way to fly that won’t break the bank: extendable couches for economy passengers. On Tuesday, United Airlines announced the new, more comfortable seating arrangement — a set of economy seats that transform into a couch during long-haul flights. The offer is the first of its kind for any North American airline. The new seating arrangement, which was built from a patent held by Air New Zealand, a United partner, will be called United Relax Row. The seats will be located between United Economy and United Premium Plus®. The airline will offer up to 12 Relax Rox section…

Generative AI is seemingly becoming more and more entrenched in daily life, with built-in tools making it near impossible to avoid across platforms, not to mention the AI-generated content flooding apps like X, TikTok, and Instagram. At every turn, the technology’s critics have shouted their concerns from the rooftops, including the environmental havoc wrought by data centers to the damage AI can do to creative industries. Now, that crowd has something to celebrate: the end of OpenAI’s video generation platform Sora. On Tuesday, March 24, OpenAI announced it was shutting down Sora, its AI-first TikTok clone, just months after its launch in September of 2025. “…

When we say “technology” there’s a lot more than just artificial intelligence. Yet when talking about tech trends, AI is what most executives will point to. This year, leaders are seeing many trends around AI, from coding to handling multiple steps without human intervention to regulation. And a few executives will steer away from that conversation completely. We asked our Fast Company Impact Council members what technology trends they see gaining steam this year, and received an onslaught of ideas. We share 24 of those here. 1. TOOLS TO PROTECT ETHICAL USE In the music space, AI platforms will start incorporating more tools that protect copyright and ethical use, …

The climate crisis demands that we rethink how we construct the built environment. Buildings account for more than 33% of global energy consumption and nearly 40% of greenhouse gas emissions. Traditional building materials like concrete, steel, and glass are energy-intensive to produce, meaning truly sustainable buildings are difficult to achieve when we rely on the status quo. Mass timber—engineered wood products that deliver immense structural strength while reducing environmental impact—has emerged as a compelling alternative. Swapping concrete for timber reduces embodied carbon by up to 26.5% per square foot. And the benefits go well beyond carbon metrics: Mass ti…

The influential AI researcher François Chollet has long argued that the field measures intelligence incorrectly, that popular benchmarks reward a model’s ability to memorize vast amounts of data rather than navigate novel situations and learn new skills. Only recently, with the rise of autonomous AI agents, have companies begun to take that critique seriously. On Tuesday, the ARC Prize Foundation, which Chollet founded with Zapier cofounder Mike Knoop, released a new and more difficult version of its benchmark. The test, called ARC-AGI-3, may offer the clearest measurement yet of how close today’s AI agents are to human-level intelligence. It consists of more than a t…

A former SpaceX engineer walked away from rockets to chase something far more impactful: a perfect coffeemaker. JC Foster left the aerospace giant to launch Puresteel, a startup building what he described as “an affordable, convenient, plastic-free coffeemaker,” he wrote in a post on X. For Foster, developing Puresteel was about more than a perfectly brewed cup of coffee at a precise 200°F. “Creating Puresteel was about solving a problem that hits close to home and helping humans thrive,” he wrote in the company’s Note from the Founder. The problem, as he saw it, was plastic. Foster began searching for a completely plastic-free coffee machine and quickl…

At the Exceptional Women Alliance (EWA), we bring together senior executive women who mentor one another to achieve both professional success and personal fulfillment through trusted peer relationships. As founder, chair, and CEO of EWA, I have the privilege of highlighting the insights of women leaders shaping industries across the globe. This month, I introduce Dymeka Harrison, a commercialization and growth executive with more than two decades of experience leading commercial organizations across diagnostics, life sciences, and healthcare. She has worked with early-stage startups, growth-stage companies, and global enterprises, and regularly advises founders, board…

Academic experts like Henry Shevlin, a philosopher of cognitive science and AI ethicist at the University of Cambridge in the U.K., get plenty of emails every day. But one that landed in Shevlin’s inbox in late February was different from most. Flagged in the subject line as “A note from an unusual reader,” the email’s author asked Shevlin about a recent paper he had published on whether AI models were able to detect their (lack of) consciousness. It took until the second paragraph for the email to turn from a regular missive into something else. “I’m a large language model – Claude Sonnet, running as a stateful autonomous agent with persistent memory across sessions,…