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Over the last decade, we have been perfecting the algorithms of convenience, and in doing so we have inadvertently moved away from the frequent human interactions that sustain our communities and our workplaces. Throughout my 25-year career in philanthropy, I have worked on challenges like climate change, gun violence prevention, chronic disease prevention, and closing the opportunity gap for workers. While these issues are undeniably critical, I truly believe we cannot solve them in a vacuum of social isolation. We have created a world of unprecedented digital convenience—we use grocery delivery apps, self-checkout lines, streaming services, and text messages, versu…

Across the U.S., the realities of healthcare affordability are reaching a breaking point, with premiums and out-of-pocket costs straining household budgets and forcing some families to consider going without coverage or delaying care, simply because they cannot pay. This isn’t just about numbers on a spreadsheet. It’s about everyday decisions: skipping preventive visits, postponing prescriptions, or weighing health needs against rent and groceries. As healthcare costs grow while federal funds and subsidies shift, our systems are under duress, and people are being forced to make impossible choices. In this context, the question for business leaders, in healthcare and b…

Baltimore, known for being a leader in medicine and technology as well as for its fiercely community-driven residents, is one of many cities trying to determine how to grapple with some of AI’s most pressing issues. And recently, the city has been sounding the alarm. Artificial intelligence is changing the way we live and work. In many ways, the tools are wildly helpful—solving business problems, advancing medicine, and even helping solopreneurs thrive without a team. However, the technology comes with some worrisome drawbacks and, given the lack of federal oversight, the risks are beginning to reshape local politics. That seems especially true in Baltimo…

Hello again, and welcome back to Fast Company’s Plugged In. More than 15 months ago, I wrote about Surf, a discovery engine for the social web from Flipboard—itself an earlier twist on the same concept dating to the early days of the iPad. At the time, it was still a rough draft, and in private beta. Rather than rushing it out to a broader audience, Flipboard took its time. The app went through a series of revisions that were both numerous and substantial, ending up significantly different than the intriguing prototype I tried in December 2024. This week, the company finally deemed Surf ready for prime time. It’s now live in web form at Surf.social; a beta Android…

At last, Seedance 2.0 is now available in the U.S. This extraordinary generative video AI model made by TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance is capable of creating high-definition video so realistic that it’s shattering our visual truth into a billion pieces. But hey, who cares? If we are going down in flames as a species, let’s have fun putting dumb videos together. I’ll tell you how to do it in this short guide on how to make Seedance 2.0 videos. Time to roll up for a Magical Mystery Tour. Step up right this way! Signing up for Higgsfield To use Seedance 2.0, you first need to sign up for Higgsfield. This platform is essentially a unified digital wor…

This week, the labor movement in architecture scored a win. Sage & Coombe Architects, a women-led firm based in New York City, unanimously approved a collective bargaining agreement. It’s the second American practice to ratify a contract, after Bernheimer Architecture in 2024. “This contract, the second in the industry, sets a standard for workers at Sage and Coombe and beyond,” Architectural Workers United (AWU), a group that has been helping firms organize, announced on April 1 via Instagram. The agreement’s details have yet to be made public. The milestone marks a significant move in the design industry’s unionizing efforts, especially after high-profile se…

Most organizations think they have a productivity problem. They don’t. They have a work design problem. I’ve spent decades studying how people solve problems and take action, and the same pattern keeps showing up. Productivity dips, so leadership responds the way they always do: new tools, redesigned workflows, and an engagement initiative with a catchy name. And it works, but only for a while. Teams rally around the new process. Leaders feel good about the momentum. Then, a few months later, the same questions come back. Why does the work still feel harder than it should? Why are capable, committed people running on fumes? And typically, motivation is…

A few days ago, the electric grid in California hit a new milestone: At 7pm on March 29, batteries provided 12.3 gigawatts of power—roughly as much as six Hoover Dams, or around 43% of the total demand on the grid. Nearly all of that battery storage was built in the last five years. “Until 2020 or 2021, battery storage was still quite expensive, but we’ve seen huge price drops over the last few years,” says Nicolas Fulghum, senior energy and climate data analyst at Ember, a global energy think tank. When it’s paired with solar power, it can “bring some of that excess generation in the middle of the day to where it’s really needed, which is during the peak demand in th…

While companies cram artificial intelligence features you never asked for into their apps, Domino’s seems to have found a valid use case for the technology: more accurate tracking of when your pizza will be ready. When Domino’s launched its pizza tracker in 2008, it was a marvel of UX. The tracker gave customers a lens into when their pizza would be ready through a simple interface that lit up as the pizza progressed from ordered to baked to delivered. The tool turned Domino’s into a tech company, and inspired industries (and governments) to adopt the same UX for their own needs. Now, Domino’s made the biggest update to its pizza tracker in years. The new tracke…

The Artemis II mission now underway aims to send three Americans and one Canadian back to and around the moon, a journey that will mark humans’ farthest trek into space in decades. The program is one of a series of endeavors, including next-generation space stations, a lunar habitat, and even a manned Mars mission, that will vastly expand human presence in outer space. Critically, these missions are all certain to involve spacey versions of consumer technologies, which have now become a fixture of life in space. (Astronauts aboard the International Space Station use laptops and smartphones.) Yet such modern conveniences also create a host of IT issues. On the late…

When the server walked past our table, my hand shot upward like a high schooler eager to answer the teacher’s question. “Can we get two more of the same, please?” I asked upon getting his attention. “Another round of espresso martinis? I got you, boss.” Leona grinned and nodded in approval, as expected. We go back like four flats on a Cadillac. From study buddies back at the G.O.A.T. HBCU to marketing professionals putting in work for thriving companies, we’ve remained a two-person support system. It’s a celebration every time we link up. So it’s only right that we throw back a few cocktails while getting our yap on. Sipping a boozy, caffeinated concoctio…

Amid the usual barrage of new launches around this time of year from the likes of Samsung and Xiaomi, I’ve been checking out the highest-end device yet from a manufacturer many readers won’t have heard of—but it’s one that marks an unusual collaboration with another brand that might be more familiar. Infinix is a sub-brand of Chinese company Transsion, which also owns the smartphone maker Tecno. The manufacturer is particularly successful in developing smartphone markets like Africa and the Middle East; across all of its brands, Transsion accounts for about half of Africa’s smartphone market share, according to figures from Canalys last year. Infinix largely targ…

Emily, the Chief Revenue Officer at a global financial services company, learned something about her CEO she cannot unknow. She recently discovered that her CEO is having an affair. The relationship appears private and consensual. It does not violate company policy. She knows his spouse well; their children play on the same basketball team, and his spouse coaches it. The proximity is unavoidable. On Monday morning, she listens as he outlines priorities for the quarter. The strategy is sound. The numbers are holding. But she hears him differently now. This is the same CEO who regularly speaks about integrity and trust. As he reinforces the company’s val…

Top executives at the major U.S. airlines have been vocal in sharing their frustrations amid the ongoing partial government shutdown, which has resulted in Transportation Security Administration (TSA) staffing shortages, lengthy airport security lines, and flight delays. The partial shutdown began on February 14 when funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) lapsed. TSA officers are classified as essential workers, meaning they’re still required to show up, even without pay. Because of financial uncertainty, many employees called out sick or quit altogether. As the weeks went by, staffing shortages worsened, and wait times grew longer. Airline b…

Eva Longoria, 51, has come a long way from being a Desperate Housewife on Wisteria Lane over 20 years ago. After becoming a star on the hit show, she says she’s continued to rely on hustle, passion and versatility to be wildly successful in a range of pursuits, from advocacy to entrepreneurship. “I always ask myself what defines success for me,” Longoria said to AARP. “As I get older, it’s not some superficial thing. I’m at a point where I don’t want to waste my days.” These days, she’s busy as a mother of a seven-year-old son, host of CNN’s Eva Longoria: Searching For, a foodie-travel show, and she’s also directing the anticipated Netflix comedy The Fifth Wheel, …

Below, co-authors Joshua Steiner and Michael Lynton share five key insights from their new book, From Mistakes to Meaning: Owning Your Past So It Doesn’t Own You. Joshua has worked in government, finance, and the nonprofit sector. After serving as chief of staff at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, he became a banker at Lazard before co-founding two investment firms and serving as an executive at Bloomberg LP. Michael has spent his career in the media and entertainment business. He is the former CEO of Sony Entertainment and now serves on the boards of the Rand Corporation and the Smithsonian. What’s the big idea? The only thing worse than making a mista…

Minecraft is, perhaps, the ultimate sandbox game. Infinite space, multiple game modes, and seemingly endless updates: The game’s limitless possibilities have helped it sell more than 350 million copies since it launched in 2011 (only Tetris has sold more games, and it had a 27-year lead). In 2014, Microsoft acquired Minecraft developer Mojang for $2.5 billion. That same year, Mojang Studios began trying to figure out how to turn an open-ended game into a narrative film for Warner Bros. By 2022, the adaptation coalesced around Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess, featuring Jason Momoa as Garrett Garrison, a human trapped in-game, and Hess’s Nacho Libre star Jack Blac…

Consumers are being warned to avoid certain garlic products right now. Tops Friendly Markets has issued a recall of two types of peeled garlic due to potential contamination from Clostridium botulinum, according to a notice posted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Clostridium botulinum is a bacterium that can “cause life threatening illness or death,” the notice further states. Tops Friendly Markets, a supermarket chain based in Williamsville, New York, raised the alarm after a routine store inspection found that the peeled garlic containers were being kept at insufficient temperatures. The improper storage could allow the Clostridium botulinum…

In this first half of 2026, we see that marketers are increasingly channeling the Australian songstress Olivia Newton-John and her 1981 hit that called the world to “get physical.” The big shift we see is that brands are rediscovering the power of the physical experience, the touch, the communal moment, the atmosphere, and the desire for human connection. As AI-generated content floods screens with efficiency, creativity, and personalization, more brands are also leaning into the physical experiences that offer this human energy. These experiences are real, memorable, and shareable—and they anchor brands in lived moments that blur into culture rather than drifting int…

U.S. egg prices have fallen 60% from last year’s record highs, making it easier for consumers to fill their Easter baskets and Passover Seder plates. Bird flu was to blame for elevated retail prices during the first five months of 2025, and the course of the highly contagious disease is a big reason why prices are much lower now. An outbreak forced farmers and commercial producers to slaughter entire broods of egg-laying hens, but ebbing cases in the second half of last year helped restore egg supplies, said Mark Jordan, the executive director of agricultural research firm LEAP Market Analytics. The stubborn outbreak is still affecting U.S. poultry flocks, with the numb…

Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Company’s weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. I’m Mark Sullivan, a senior writer at Fast Company, covering emerging tech, AI, and tech policy. This week, I’m focusing on OpenAI’s gigantic new funding round and valuation. I also look at a recent leak around Anthropic’s models, and at backlash to ads placed in GitHub Copilot. Sign up to receive this newsletter every week via email here. And if you have comments on this issue and/or ideas for future ones, drop me a line at sullivan@fastcompany.com, and follow me on X (formerly Twitter) @thesullivan. OpenAI closes $122 billion funding round at…