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Topping this year’s list of MIC honorees in the Asia-Pacific region is a company so innovative that when it emerged from stealth, Fast Company judges and editors were late in the judging process, so we decided to add an unprecedented 11th spot to this category. Chinese artificial intelligence firm DeepSeek launched a pair of state-of-the-art, open-source AI models that require far less computing power and capital than those of Western companies, sending shockwaves through Silicon Valley and the Wall Street firms that fund them. Several more Chinese tech companies round out the top slots: Baidu, which runs China’s top search engine, started offering driverless taxi service…

You know the dream: electric vehicles that can drive straight from New York to Chicago without needing to top off the battery. Robotaxis at your beck and call. Amphibious cars. The promise of next-generation travel hasn’t fully materialized yet, but legions of companies around the world are focused on bringing the vision to life. This year’s list of the most innovative automotive companies recognizes both the upstarts and the incumbents advancing the next era in mobility. As the industry grapples with the larger questions of how to create viable solid-state batteries or commercialize robotaxi service, the companies listed here are focused on the incremental steps toward a…

The world is moving fast—so fast that many people feel like they can’t keep up. The beauty industry is meeting consumers where they are, slowing things down, looking to the past, and consulting nature for inspiration. Nostalgia and a desire to claw back more time, any time, were major drivers in beauty innovation over the past year. Arcaea worked with bioengineers to recreate the DNA of extinct flora from Borneo and extract its essence to create indulgent fragrances under the brand name Future Society. (The company also donates a portion of proceeds to stave off further extinctions on the island.) Delavie Sciences looked to the cosmos for a groundbreaking skincare produc…

These 10 companies provide vital services for businesses at every life cycle stage, from birth to death. Whether facilitating communications with customers, scaling operations, or reducing friction in the marketplace, honorees in the business services category of this year’s most innovative companies help companies grow and thrive—or even perform last rites when that moment finally arrives. In an increasingly post-literate world, companies continue to turn to video to communicate with key stakeholders, and two of this year’s business services honorees help enterprises produce streamable content more efficiently. As part of its ongoing efforts to infuse its products with A…

The gadgets produced by this year’s most innovative companies in consumer and household goods are, in their small way, revolutionizing every room in the house. From standout kitchen devices and boundary-pushing wellness products to a more humane mousetrap, this year’s list offers something for every moment of the day. Starting at the front door, there’s Level, the leader in smart locks, which finally upgraded its “invisible” system to sync with smart home hubs like Apple Home and Google Home via a low-tech radio connection. For the kitchen, there’s Walmart, which debuted Bettergoods, its first new private label in 20 years with a lineup of 300 quality products, not just c…

While smartphones are still the indisputable center of our digital lives, this year’s most innovative consumer electronics companies aim to improve life beyond the touchscreen. A lot of that involves advancement in wearable computing. EssilorLuxottica, for instance, has come up with a winning formula for smart glasses in both the Meta Ray-Bans and its Nuance Audio hearing aids, which pack just enough technology to avoid looking uncool. Apple is approaching things from the opposite direction, using its Vision Pro to show what mixed reality can look like when no expense is spared. Bose’s Ultra Open Earbuds, meanwhile, lead a burgeoning category of hearables that let in outs…

If a job is about more than the title or even the pay—but also a chance to find a deeper meaning and sense of purpose—the honorees in the inaugural class of most innovative companies in economic development are chasing a similar ideal, just on a larger scale. These accelerators, city agencies, and public-private partnerships are working to cultivate innovation economies in their regions—and in a sector that often (and understandably) focuses on the headline numbers—jobs created, dollars invested—these honorees did more than just stoke the economic engine; they afforded spaces for new narratives and creative communities. Some are working on reinvention: Huntsville, the Ala…

This year, the most innovative companies in the education sector are tackling a dizzying array of challenges facing students and schools alike—not to mention parents. As a teletherapy platform, Parallel Learning enables schools and special education providers to counsel students and track their progress. Promova, whose mission is to make language learning more accessible to people who are neurodivergent, is the first language learning app to build a dedicated setting for those with dyslexia—a specialized typeface and adjustments to font size and brightness help mitigate some of the most common reading challenges that people with dyslexia experience. EdSights uses AI chatb…

Design is in a time of transition. Whether it’s the influx of generative AI tools, Gen Z shaking off their post-COVID haze to drive new aesthetics, the practice of graphic design adding clarity to tight elections and challenging our meat consumption, or even the sudden viability of technologies ranging from environmentally friendly A/C to exoskeletons that are turning sci-fi dreams into practical realities, design is in a position to face an uncertain world of scarcity with an unprecedented abundance of innovation. Our honorees for the most innovative companies in design for 2025 span the gamut of product, architecture, and UX. But they are all united in pushing the consu…

Social media has become inexorably intertwined with our daily lives, but not all platforms are equally popular. For every cultural phenomenon like TikTok, there’s a Mastodon. It would be easy, based on the news media’s borderline obsession with TikTok and X, to assume that those platforms are, if not the most used social media tools in America today, then very close to the top. They’re not. In fact, they’re squarely in the middle, according to a new study from Pew Research. Instead, it’s YouTube that is the most commonly used social media platform in the U.S.—by a landslide. Pew reports that 84% of U.S. adults use YouTube. (The platform is also the most widely use…

The latest buzzword is “AI literacy.” Much like “social media,” “ESG,” and “CSR” before it, employers are now looking for proof of fluency on résumés, and individuals are desperate to differentiate themselves to show that they are keeping pace. And it’s everywhere, mentions of terms like “agentic AI,” “AI workforce,” “digital labor,” and “AI agents” during earnings calls increased by nearly 800% in the last year, according to AlphaSense data. Over the last five years, workers across industries have become expected to be well-versed in a technology that is ever-evolving and still relatively new for so many, including the leaders implementing it. The trouble with AI is…

I’ll never forget the first time I saw the power of a group gasp. Years ago, at a Baltimore Ravens game, a film I’d helped create played across the stadium’s newly installed LED screens. In the climactic moment (a close-up shot as the kicker’s foot struck the ball) the entire crowd seemed to freeze, breath held, before erupting in a wave of energy that swept the stands. That’s because the shot was perfectly timed with the real kick-off that started the game. Picture 70,000 people rising to their feet in unison, their collective gasp creating a moment of pure electricity. That wasn’t chance. It was the result of designing an experience where story, environment, and aud…

In many ways, renowned illusionist Rob Lake’s entire life has been building up to his Broadway debut in Rob Lake Magic with Special Guests The Muppets, which begins previews tonight at the Broadhurst Theatre. As a child growing up in Oklahoma, his parents exposed him to theater by taking him to touring shows. The education didn’t stop there. “When they took me to New York, my first Broadway shows were The Secret Garden, The Will Rogers Follies, and Beauty and the Beast, ” Lake tells Fast Company. “I was just so fortunate to be exposed to the arts quite often as a kid.” This early education included the Muppets and their films. “I wore those tapes out so many …

After all these years, Napster is apparently worth $207 million. That’s how much artificial intelligence and extended reality company Infinite Reality purchased the former file-sharing service for on Tuesday. Under its new ownership, Infinite Reality said Napster will become a virtual concert venue that sells physical and virtual merchandise to musicians’ super fans and is capable of hosting social listening parties and gamifying fan engagement and loyalty. “By acquiring Napster, we’re paving a path to a brighter future for artists, fans, and the music industry at large,” Infinite Reality CEO John Acunto said in a statement. “This strategic move aligns with Infini…

The National Park Service said Tuesday it is going to start charging the millions of international tourists who visit U.S. parks each year an extra $100 to enter some of the most popular sites, while leaving them out of fee-free days that will be reserved for American residents. The announcement declaring “America-first entry fee policies” comes as national parks deal with the strain of a major staff reduction and severe budget cuts, along with recovering from damage during the recent government shutdown and significant lost revenue due to fees not being collected during that time. The fee change will impact 11 national parks, including the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and…

The latest gambling scandal to rock the NBA is about a real-world event that normal people would never have noticed. In March 2023, the 35-37 New Orleans Pelicans coasted to a 115-89 win over the Charlotte Hornets, who would go on to finish the year with a record of 27-55. The Pelicans never trailed in the game thanks largely to the play of Brandon Ingram, who notched the first triple-double of his career. The ninth paragraph of the recap on ESPN mentions one other factor that may have contributed to the decisive margin of victory: Hornets guard Terry Rozier left the game early, complaining of a sore right foot, and did not return. As alleged by federal prosecuto…

We talk about time at work as if it’s a fixed resource: something outside of us and something we either “manage well” or “never have enough of.” People genuinely believe the clock is the problem. But the more you look at how the brain processes experience, the less true this becomes. People don’t feel pressured because they have too many tasks. They feel pressured because their brain is constructing time in a way that makes everything feel urgent or impossible to catch up with. Modern neuroscience has been pointing to this for a while. Our experience of time—what feels fast, slow, overwhelming, or “not enough”—is not a reading from an internal stopwatch. It’s a st…

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. The speed and breadth of the changing political/cultural status quo in the U.S. has been breathtaking and disorienting for brand leaders across the tech/business community. Some leaders ​​have gone all in to kiss the ring of the new status quo. Many more are wrestling with the question “How do I continue to support the ideals my brand believes in without causing serious self-sabotage?” Thi…

AI promises a smarter, faster, more efficient future, but beneath that optimism lies a quiet problem that’s getting worse: the data itself. We talk a lot about algorithms, but not enough about the infrastructure that feeds them. The truth is, innovation can’t outpace the quality of its inputs, and right now those inputs are showing signs of strain. When the foundation starts to crack, even the most advanced systems will falter. A decade ago, scale and accuracy could go hand-in-hand. But today, those goals often pull in opposite directions. Privacy regulations, device opt-ins, and new platform restrictions have made high-quality, first-party data harder than ever to ca…

Of all the things we’ve used ChatGPT for in 2025, one of the most specific was: “What should we drink on a Dalston dive bar expedition on a Thursday night with cooler, younger clients, to avoid a hanxiety-filled Friday, with a board presentation to write?” The answer? Neat Patrón or margaritas, with tips on hydration and sleep. It actually worked. We had a great night, and woke up (relatively) clear-headed. This is what millions of people are doing every day: trading Google rabbit holes for AI when seeking product advice, personal hacks, and brand choices. ChatGPT isn’t just an influencing preference. It increasingly is the preference engine. KILL THE FUNN…

When Raising Cane’s recently opened its first-ever location in Meridian, Idaho, it wasn’t a particularly remarkable event for the restaurant chain. The fast-growing chicken purveyor also opened six other restaurants in five other states on the exact same day in November. It aims to open close to 100 new stores this year. But some Idahoans were willing to stand outside in chilly fall weather for more than 48 hours to be the first in the state to get a taste of Raising Cane’s, whose exceptionally narrow menu features chicken fingers, french fries, a secret proprietary dipping sauce, and simple sides like garlic toast and coleslaw. “We had customers camping out since…

The Barclays Center is taking its dressing rooms for touring artists to the next level, and they looked to local inspiration to decorate them. The Brooklyn venue, which hosts concerts and is home to the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets and WNBA’s New York Liberty, has upgraded six dressing rooms that now resemble Brooklyn brownstone apartments, complete with moody tones, soft-glow lighting, and high-end fixtures and finishes. The makeover is part of Barclays Center parent company BSE Global’s $100 million, five-year upgrade of the venue that’s still set to include improvements like a new fan zone and a new premium membership club. Laurie Jacoby, BSE Global’s chief entertai…

Fatherhood used to be invisible in the conversation about entrepreneurship. The story was always the same: A founder celebrated for sacrifice, for grinding through the night, taming fortune one day at a time. The world championed the grind. But that archetype is now deeply outdated. The successful founder is no longer the one sleeping under their desk. That’s not simply dedication; it’s a symptom of poorly designed systems. If your company requires your constant, heroic presence, you haven’t built a business—you’ve built a cage. Today, elite performance is not measured by the hours you log, but by the resilience of the organization you leave behind. The best entre…

I don’t know how Henri Cartier-Bresson would have reacted to Leica replacing the optical viewfinder on his camera with an artificial display. Perhaps the French photographer and cofounder of Magnum Photos wouldn’t have cared one bit about it. Or maybe he—a profound humanist—would have disliked the idea of it almost as much as I do. Cartier-Bresson once famously said that his Leica “became the extension of [his] eye, prowling the streets all day, feeling very strung up and ready to pounce, determined to ‘trap life’—to preserve life in the act of living.” That’s a little harder to accomplish with Leica’s new camera. Today, Leica is launching the M EV1. It’s the first M …