What's on Your Mind?

Every year, Audience Audit publishes a study on what agency clients really want—and the 2025 edition revealed a stat that should stop any agency leader in their tracks: 77% of clients say they’re more likely to hire an agency that’s a recognized AI expert (not just self-proclaimed). But only 32% believe their current agency fits that description. Here’s what’s more telling: When asked what they expect from their agency when it comes to AI, clients didn’t say “efficiency” or “cheaper deliverables.” They want new ideas, sharper analysis, and real guidance on how to use AI themselves. In other words, they’re not just looking for agencies that use AI. They want partners w…

The modern kitchen has become a canvas for self-expression, a place where consumers obsess over aesthetics and materials with an intensity usually reserved for fashion. They carefully consider the color of their Dutch oven, the kind of wood in their cutting board, and where to display their glass canisters. And yet, tucked into the corner of that same beautiful kitchen, is almost certainly an unattractive trash can that looks like it was designed in 2000 and never revisited. The home goods market is massive and growing. It was valued at $960 billion in 2024 and projected to reach $1.6 trillion by 2030. But aside from premium brand SimpleHuman, which paved the way for …

If you pay to keep ads out of your YouTube experience, keep an eye on your monthly bill. The Google-owned streaming service quietly announced today that it would be raising prices across its plans in an email to U.S. subscribers. Individual YouTube Premium subscribers will soon pay $15.99 a month, a two dollar increase from the previous price of $13.99. For family plan subscribers, pricing will jump all the way from $22.99 to $26.99. YouTube Premium Lite subscribers will pay $8.99 a month, up from $7.99. The change to YouTube Premium plans, which will go into effect at the end of May, is the second time that the price of YouTube Premium has ballooned in the l…

Advocacy groups and experts condemned YouTube for serving up low-quality artificial intelligence-generated videos to its most vulnerable audience: children. In a letter to YouTube CEO Neal Mohan and Sundar Pichai, the CEO of YouTube’s parent company Google, children’s advocacy group Fairplay expresses “serious concern” about the spread of AI-generated videos on both YouTube and YouTube Kids. The letter, which was sent on Wednesday morning, was signed by more than 200 organizations and individual experts such as child psychiatrists and educators. “This ‘AI slop’ harms children’s development by distorting their sense of reality, overwhelming their learning processes and h…

In this final chapter of How YouTube Ate TV, Fast Company’s oral history of YouTube, the platform migrates from computers and phones to the biggest screen in the house: the living-room TV. It also takes on TikTok with brief videos called Shorts and becomes a major destination for podcasts. And it begins to tackle one of its greatest opportunities—albeit a fraught one—by incorporating AI into the creation process. To succeed, it will have to do this without losing the human element that made YouTube a phenomenon in the first place. Comments have been edited for length and clarity. Read more ‘How YouTube Ate TV’ Part one: YouTube failed as a dating site. This…

YouTube is taking steps to crack down on gambling content. On Tuesday, the platform announced a new policy that bans creators from directing viewers to “unapproved” gambling websites through links, images, text, logos, or verbal mentions. According to YouTube, “unapproved” is defined as any site that doesn’t meet local legal requirements or hasn’t undergone review by YouTube or parent company Google. The new rules, which go into effect on March 19th, also include a new age restriction. Online gambling content will no longer be viewable by users who are signed out or signed in under the age of 18. YouTube has made two exceptions to the rule: content focused on onl…

Teenage YouTube users across the world will now get automatic reminders to go to bed and take a break from their screens. YouTube announced this week it was expanding such reminders to minors across the globe, ensuring they are full-screen and toggled-on by default. The feature first debuted in the U.S. seven years ago, and went automatic for minors in 2023. So-called “bedtime” notifications have grown in popularity, buoyed in large part by YouTube and TikTok. But it’s unclear how effective the notifications are in the first place. After all, YouTube users only have to click to close out the banner; on TikTok, it’s even easier to keep swiping past the text. …

You may have noticed that the Google-owned video-sharing site’s infamous red play logo is now rendered in a softer, more pinkish hue. That’s because user research revealed that the company’s logo color rated as one of its top three most outdated design elements. Last updated in 2017, YouTube’s old brand color was a pure red that users perceived to be “too loud when implemented in key UI moments,” Robyn Lee, YouTube’s visual design lead, said in a Google Design blog post. From top: The old red vs. the new [Image: YouTube]The old red had other technical problems, too, like rendering orange on some screens and causing a burn-in effect on TVs—a major issue considering YouTube…

Many major platforms provide personalized “year in review” features that highlight how users have spent their time over the past year. Spotify Wrapped is the most popular of these summaries, but Apple Music, Snapchat, Deezer, and others also offer them. And now, internet users have a new year-in-review feature to check out this year: YouTube Recap. Here’s what you need to know about the video site’s year-in-review and how to access it—especially if you’re looking to kill some time while waiting for Spotify Wrapped 2025 to come out. What is YouTube Recap? YouTube Recap is Google’s just-announced year-in-review feature for its YouTube platform. The pers…

NBCUniversal may soon be pulling its programming from Google’s YouTube TV. The news comes as a dispute between the companies over carriage fees and terms is ramping up. NBC began warning customers on Thursday evening that its programming would leave the streaming platform if the companies don’t reach an agreement by Sept. 30, the date its contract is set to renew. If a blackout were to occur, popular programs such as Sunday Night Football, The Voice, NBA games, and the Oct. 4 premiere of Saturday Night Live, wouldn’t be viewable on the platform. However, a separate spat between YouTube TV and TelevisaUnivision comes at the same time, as both companies’ contracts…

Several channels owned by Paramount Global, including CBS, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, and MTV, could go dark on YouTube TV this week if a contract renewal cannot be reached between the two companies. YouTube TV, a subsidiary of Google, announced in a statement that it is working hard to reach a fair agreement that allows it to keep Paramount channels without raising prices for subscribers. It had not yet been successful in “good-faith” negotiations. What will happen if a new contract isn’t reached? After February 13, all Paramount content, including CBS and CBS Sports, will be removed from YouTube TV. Subscribers will also not be able to access previous re…

One minute, you’re watching a hilarious or even completely bland YouTube short. The next? You realize you’ve just lost an hour of work time or managed to stay up way too late—again. Losing track of time when watching shorts is not an uncommon experience. But now, YouTube wants to help you set limits to stay on task, hit the hay, or just, ya’ know, not lose precious hours of your life to Shorts. On Wednesday, the video streaming giant rolled out a new timer feature on its mobile app. When users log on, they can go into their settings and click on “shorts feed limit” to set a timer that will remind them to stop scrolling. Once users hit their time limit, the app wi…

If you have a stressful job, meditation can help—but it’s not easy to meditate at work. A new workplace pod is designed to help by giving you a private place to take a break, run through a guided meditation or breath work, and begin to experience benefits like improved focus and reduced burnout. OpenSeed, the startup behind the Iris Pod, launched in 2018 after founder Jonathan Marcoschamer attended a 10-day silent meditation course. He wanted to keep meditating during the day, but was working in an open plan office. “I couldn’t find anywhere to meditate,” he says. He also wanted to help make meditation more accessible for other people. So he started work on a prototyp…

Few brands have been more associated with the fast-fashion boom of the last two decades than Zara, the flagship apparel chain owned by Spanish clothing giant Inditex SA. It may surprise some consumers to learn, then, that Zara has in fact reduced its global footprint over the last few years since the pandemic. The brand’s decline in physical storefronts has been moderate but meaningful, from a third-quarter peak of around 2,139 stores in 2019 to just under 1,800 stores five years later, according to earnings statements from Inditex. That’s a reduction of 16%. Now, thanks to new accounting metrics from the company, we’ve learned that Zara’s physical footprint…

Pop star Zara Larsson is the internet’s newest it girl. After a wave of viral hits, including her latest album’s title track “Midnight Sun” and her feature on PinkPantheress’ “Stateside” remix, the Swedish singer cemented herself as the next big thing in pop music. But fame doesn’t come without controversy, as Larsson learned when she revealed to her fanbase that she uses generative AI. The discourse began when Larsson posted about watching AI-generated content on TikTok. Larsson first reposted an image from the account Ai Fruit Stories, a page posting AI animations of—you guessed it—drama between anthropomorphic foods. Larsson then posted a selfie with the c…

To promote its newest shoes, the Swiss athletic apparel brand On filmed a fictional movie trailer with Zendaya. Zone Dreamers stars the actress as an elf-eared astronaut who wears athleisure, trains in space with her flight crew, and—On hopes—sells some merchandise. It’s all an elaborate ad campaign for On’s new low-profile sneaker, Cloudzone, its one-piece Studio Knit Bodysuit, and other offerings from the company’s Spring/Summer 2025 Movement Lifestyle collection, which Zendaya wears throughout. (Consumers hoping to get their hands on the futuristic space suit Zendaya sports in one scene will be disappointed to learn that it’s not part of the collection. Celebrity s…

When Zillow launched 20 years ago, the home-buying process happened almost entirely offline. The company’s digital listings, combined with its innovative “Zestimate”—an estimate of a home’s value, based on the kind of data typically only available to real estate professionals—marked a turning point for the housing market. Zestimates weren’t exact representations of value, but they put power back in the hands of prospective buyers (to sellers’ and agents’ chagrin). Their near-instant popularity was an early “do your research” internet moment. Fast-forward to the present day, and Zillow, which has a $13 billion market cap and reports earnings after the market close on …

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Zillow economists just published their updated 12-month forecast, projecting that U.S. home prices—as measured by the Zillow Home Value Index—will shift +0.0% between March 2026 and March 2027. That’s a mild downward revision from its 12-month forecast published last month (+0.5%). U.S. home prices, as measured by the Zillow Home Value Index, are currently up +0.8% year-over-year. Zillow’s latest 12-month outlook (+0.0%) expects national home prices to remain near that subdued pace. As long as national home price growth remains below U.S. income …

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Zillow economists just published their updated 12-month forecast, projecting that U.S. home prices—as measured by the Zillow Home Value Index—will rise 1.5% between October 2025 and October 2026. Heading into 2025, Zillow’s 12-month forecast for U.S. home prices was +2.6%. However, many housing markets across the country softened faster than expected, prompting Zillow to issue several downward revisions. By April 2025, Zillow had cut its 12-month national home price outlook to -1.7%. In late spring, Zillow stopped issuing downward revisions. In A…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Zillow economists just published their updated 12-month forecast, projecting that U.S. home prices—as measured by the Zillow Home Value Index—will rise +1.2% between August 2025 and August 2026. Heading into 2025, Zillow’s 12-month forecast for U.S. home prices was +2.6%. However, many housing markets across the country softened faster than expected, prompting Zillow to issue several downward revisions. By April 2025, Zillow had cut its 12-month national home price outlook to -1.7%. However, in recent months, Zillow has stopped issuing downward r…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Zillow economists just published their updated 12-month forecast, projecting that U.S. home prices—as measured by the Zillow Home Value Index—will rise 0.5% from February 2026 to February 2027. That’s a mild downward revision from its 12-month forecast published last month (+0.9%). While Zillow’s national home price forecast isn’t negative, it isn’t exactly bullish either. It foresees a soft national housing market in 2026, one where affordability may improve slightly as U.S. income growth outpaces U.S. home price growth. What type of region…