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A new GLP-1 pill is about to hit the market. On Wednesday, Eli Lilly announced its new GLP-1 pill, Foundayo, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in adults with obesity or weight-related health problems. The company says that drug trials saw patients taking Foundayo losing an average of 27.3 pounds (12.4%) compared to 2.2 pounds (0.9%) with a placebo. It said the drug will be available via LillyDirect, noting that it will begin accepting prescriptions immediately. It expects shipping to begin on April 6, and said the drug will be made broadly available “through U.S. retail pharmacies and telehealth providers” soon after. The medication w…

Chinese spirituality just adopted a new icon: American “momager” Kris Jenner. Jenner, best known for launching the mega-successful careers of her daughters Kourtney, Kim, and Khloé Kardashian, is suddenly the go-to profile pic for Gen Zers on Chinese social media, including apps like RedNote, Weibo, and Douyin. The reverence for Jenner doesn’t stop there. Her photo is also being used for wallpapers on computers, tablets, smart watches, and more, all as part of Chinese Gen Z’s manifestation for good luck. How did Jenner of all people become a Chinese symbol for good fortune? Chinese influencer Marcelo Wang broke down the trend in his own viral TikTok. He explai…

A strong PR plan should balance day-to-day visibility with long-term brand building. At most plans’ core will be some sort of press office, one that fields reactive inquiries, chases proactive opportunities, and strives to create a consistent drumbeat of attention. That ongoing media presence is further punctuated by product launches, releases, or announcements that help create heightened awareness around a singular piece of news or event. That describes the basic tenets of a traditional PR plan for earned media (acknowledging that the PR function is much broader). But the playbook that agencies and in-house teams are using to deliver that is evolving; it looks vastly…

Amazon once seemed poised to wipe out the American bookstore. As online shopping exploded in the late 1990s and early 2000s, independent shops struggled to compete with endless inventory and lower prices. By 2009, many believed indie bookstores were on the brink of extinction. But instead of disappearing, they adapted. The future of books, it turns out, isn’t just online. It’s local. View the full article

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…

Your upper chest could be the key to your long-term health. A new study found a correlation between the health of a human’s thymus and the likelihood of cardiovascular disease or cancer. Published on Wednesday in the science journal Nature, researchers detailed the “crucial” effect of the thymus on long-term health and lifespan, reshaping prior assumptions about the organ. “These findings reposition the thymus as a central regulator of immune‑ mediated aging and disease susceptibility in adulthood,” the report states. Thymus health a key indicator Using AI tools, scientists analyzed more than 27,000 patient scans and medical records to evaluate thymus he…

AI isn’t just transforming industries. It’s transforming the way energy is stored and distributed. Scaling at unprecedented speeds across the country, data centers today require a reliable, uninterrupted power supply, often consuming as much electricity as small cities. This puts immense pressure on power grids. Nationwide electric demand is forecast to increase by nearly 16% by 2029. The main drivers of that increase are investments in data centers, manufacturing, and geopolitical and national strategic industries. Two years ago, the amount of global electricity generated to supply data centers was 460 TWh. This is projected to more than double to 1,000 TWh in 2030, …

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…

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…

Most of the markets are down today after President The President’s address to the nation last night failed to alleviate fears about America’s war with Iran dragging on. But one relatively small tech company is bucking the downward trend in premarket trading this morning: Globalstar. The satellite communications company is reportedly an acquisition target for Amazon, yet its relationship with Apple could complicate any potential deal. Here’s what you need to know. What’s happened? Shares in the relatively small satellite communications company Globalstar, Inc. (Nasdaq: GSAT) are rising today after a Financial Times report yesterday said the ecommerce giant A…

Burritos should be celebrated, because they are ingenious inventions that wrap deliciousness in a handy tortilla for extra convenience. National Burrito Day (today, Thursday, April 2, 2026) was created to do just that. Here’s a little history about the origins of the yumminess before we dive into the freebies and deals to observe this glorious unofficial holiday. A brief history of burritos Burritos hail from Northern Mexico and were invented in the early 20th century. The region’s climate was ideal for wheat, so larger tortillas were made out of the crop. This bigger vessel set the scene for a new culinary delight. The first burritos contained meat, bean…

What if you didn’t actually decide to buy that last thing in your cart? A report from Visa released on Thursday suggests that, in some cases, you might not have. According to a survey from the financial services company, artificial intelligence is no longer just helping people shop. In many cases, AI is starting to shape what people buy, and in some cases, even act on their behalf. The research is based on surveys of both U.S. consumers and business decision-makers. It shows that AI systems are moving from assistants to participants in commerce. That influence is already showing up in everyday behavior. Nearly 40% of Americans say they have made a purchas…

Ali Hewson, like many women, was unprepared for the intensity of perimenopause. “I initially thought I would just grin and bear it, as my mother did,” she says. But the symptoms piled on: brain fog, hot flashes, mood swings, dryness, exhaustion. “One minute you are happy and content, then suddenly you are anxious and irritable followed by intense heat and sweating,” Hewson says. At their worst, her hot flashes were happening hourly. The symptoms began to take a toll on her rich and varied responsibilities as a humanitarian activist, fashion entrepreneur, mother of four, daughter to aging parents, and wife to world-famous rock star Bono. Even after deciding to se…

A newsletter about the state of the product job market recently went viral in the design corner of the internet. It’s exposing a widespread debate about whether the role of the designer is narrowing in the age of AI. On March 24, Lenny Rachitsky, a former Airbnb product developer and author of the business Substack Lenny’s Newsletter, published an article featuring exclusive data on the state of tech hiring in early 2026. The data was collected by TrueUp, a tech job marketplace tracker. Overall, it paints a positive picture for the tech job market. But for designers it points to a moment of hiring uncertainty. TrueUp found that design roles have plateaued since …

Last year, PepsiCo started printing real potatoes onto every bag of Lay’s. The reason? In a world where people are increasingly concerned about the provenance of their food, 42% of the population didn’t realize that the world’s most popular potato chip was made from potatoes. So they put a potato on the packaging. And now, the company is updating Tostitos bags—the most popular plain tortilla chip in the world—with a similar strategy. While Lay’s got a dose of potatoes, naturally, all Tostitos bags feature corn. “We started by being really honest with ourselves. The research was telling us that the old packaging wasn’t working—it was actually reinforcing a lot of…

“And a cascade of lace here, here, and here.” I thwacked my pen against the notepad to emphasize each word while my cousin nodded vigorously. At 8 and 10, we carefully reviewed our wedding dress designs as if our big days were just moments away. While our parents prepped dinner, we rehearsed our grand bridal entry in painstaking detail. I’m probably not the only person who had this fantasy when I was little, but what I didn’t realize was just how that role-play would translate into the career that I have right now. It all started with my own elopement in 2021, and the subsequent blow-out bash a year later. My husband and I juggled countless chaotic spreadsheets, email…

With last weekend’s opening of World of Frozen in the renamed Disney Adventure World park, Paris became the new leader in advanced technology among the company’s theme parks. It’s a title that shifts hands frequently, but with its robotic Olaf and a new nighttime show that blends airborne and water drones with fountains, fire, and water walls, Adventure World is a technological marvel. Disney tends to downplay the focus on technology in its park attractions. Workers and executives at Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI) see the technology as a way to evoke emotion, their primary goal. And with a growing arsenal of tools at their disposal, from AI to powerful game engines (a…

While I was leading a tour of the National Air and Space Museum in January 2026, a visitor posed this insightful question: “Why has it taken so long to return to the moon?” After all, NASA had the know-how and technology to send humans to the lunar surface more than 50 years ago as part of the Apollo program. And, as another tour guest reminded us, computers today can do so much more than they could back then, as evidenced by the smartphones most of us carry in our pockets. Shouldn’t it be easier to get to the moon than ever before? The truth is that sending humans into space safely continues to be difficult, especially as missions increase in complexity. New …

“Houston, we have a problem.” The misquoted phrase is so ingrained in popular culture that it has become the standard comeback to any unexpected mishap. It’s also the last phrase NASA’s Artemis II mission control wants to hear in the coming days because, unlike those of us on Earthly terrain, an astronaut midway to the moon won’t be muttering it after they accidentally burn their toast. A four-person crew took off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 1 for NASA’s first lunar flyby since Apollo 17 in 1972. The organization has done everything it can to ensure the safety of the astronauts, knowing that any harm to the courageous humans could set its lunar …

I’ve been using Claude Cowork extensively over the past month and a half. And not coincidentally, I’ve been more productive than I ever have in that same period. The shift to working agentically is something so profound, you really can’t understand it until you experience it for yourself. Just one example: As the operator of a business selling AI training courses online, email marketing is an important component of getting the word out about them. But much of the work is rote: segmenting my email list, creating templates, writing largely similar drafts, and scheduling them in my email provider—a piece of software I look forward to using about as much as a visit to the…

For nearly four years now, the conversation about generative AI has revolved almost exclusively around productivity, threatened jobs, automatable tasks, efficiency, and competitiveness. But there is a largely underestimated dimension to this revolution: its cultural effects. AI is not just transforming how we work; it is transforming how we are together, how we trust each other, how we communicate, and how we organize ourselves. To measure this, it helps to borrow a framework from Erin Meyer, a professor at INSEAD whose book The Culture Map identifies eight dimensions along which the cultures of the world differ. Applied to artificial intelligence, Meyer’s eight dimen…

The constant race on the work treadmill doesn’t just steal your time. It systematically decays every relationship you have. During a recent keynote, I asked leaders in the room a simple question: “How many of you have cancelled plans with someone you care about, family, friends, a partner, because something came up at work?” Nearly every hand went up. Then I asked: “How many of you have done it more than once this month?” Most hands stayed up. There were a few nervous laughs. Recognition ripples through the room. These aren’t disengaged leaders. They’re high performers who genuinely believe they’ll make it up later. They won’t. And here’s what most don…