What's on Your Mind?

Imagine starting a new job where your onboarding feels personalized just for you, with an AI assistant guiding you through training, introducing you to teammates, and checking in on how you’re settling in. That level of personalization in the workplace isn’t just a concept for the future – it’s already here and happening more rapidly than many HR departments anticipate. AI is transforming HR in the workplace. In 2026, AI won’t just take over repetitive tasks, but it will fundamentally change how companies hire, onboard, coach, and retain employees. The result is HR teams that are more strategic, data-driven, and more human than ever. After more than a decade worki…

A question I often get when I train editorial teams on the use of AI is, “Is using AI cheating?” Although it’s a yes or no question, it’s obviously not a yes or no answer. The short answer is sometimes, but the key to figuring out the long answer is using the tools with an open mind. If you’re a professional in a field like journalism, you’ll generally be able to tell when it’s speeding up drudgery and when your judgment and expertise are most needed. However, the recent viral story in New York magazine about how colleges and universities are struggling with rampant, unauthorized AI use from students got me thinking about what’s happening much earlier in the pipel…

In the past several years, the trend of “going direct” in public relations has gotten trendy. Broadly, the idea is that certain companies—mainly tech startups—stand a better chance of advancing their own narratives by sidestepping traditional PR and media altogether. Instead, the company founder, fellow executives, and partners would post content to the internet and social media to directly communicate with their customers. There’s naturally been a lot of consternation in the media and PR industries about how effective this kind of approach is, the real value of traditional PR, and whether a company can really chart their own path without some kind of third-party vali…

Over the last five years, artificial intelligence has shifted from a fringe interest to one of the most important drivers of global economic growth. So important has the technology become that the United Nations Security Council held its first open debate on artificial intelligence last month. While little of substance was achieved, a General Assembly resolution authorizing the creation of an independent scientific panel on AI may have a more enduring impact. One of the core questions this panel will seek to answer is how AI can support sustainable economic development without entrenching inequality. The potential dangers here have deep historical parallels. AI runs o…

AI is no longer the future of healthcare; it’s already reshaping how patients are diagnosed and treated. Some of the most interesting developments involve systems that sense and respond to human emotion. Cedars-Sinai’s Connect platform, for example, adapts care based on patient sentiment; CompanionMx interprets vocal and facial cues to detect anxiety; and Feel Therapeutics uses emotion-sensing wearables to tailor interventions in real time. At the same time, clinical tools are evolving. Hospitals are pairing large language models (LLMs) with AI note-taking apps such as Nabla and Heidi, which can listen, summarize, and respond to the nuances of doctor–patient conversat…

The consulting firm Accenture recently laid off 11,000 employees while expanding its efforts to train workers to use artificial intelligence. It’s a sharp reminder that the same technology driving efficiency is also redefining what it takes to keep a job. And Accenture isn’t alone. IBM has already replaced hundreds of roles with AI systems, while creating new jobs in sales and marketing. Amazon cut staff even as it expands teams that build and manage AI tools. Across industries, from banks to hospitals and creative companies, workers and managers alike are trying to understand which roles will disappear, which will evolve, and which new ones will emerge. I researc…

It is hard to believe that in 2025, we are still dialing to schedule doctor appointments, get referrals, refill prescriptions, confirm office hours and addresses, and handle many other healthcare tasks. In fact, I created Zocdoc nearly 20 years ago to help patients avoid the dysfunctional phone experience and schedule appointments online. But I must confess that I have to pick up the phone sometimes, too—and I dread it. I am not alone. According to a recent survey my company conducted, most Americans say they dread calling their doctor about as much as they dread getting a shot. At best, it is an inconvenience. At worst, the phone is a barrier to care and a wildly ine…

The startup playbook that built Uber, Airbnb, and DoorDash is becoming obsolete in real-time. As AI compresses jobs that once required hundreds of employees into algorithms, we’re witnessing the birth of a new company archetype—capital-efficient, immediately profitable, and surprisingly small. With a variety of software to use for all aspects of building a business—from Shopify for e-commerce to Stripe for payments—and low operating costs, innovation just keeps making everything that much more efficient. Advancements in AI are turbocharging this even further. Now, companies not only need less software and less capital for solutions to get off the ground, but they also…

It’s no surprise that artificial intelligence is transforming the way we learn, but it also has the potential to add a sprinkling of magic to on-the-job training. Turning the ordinary into the extraordinary is especially beneficial in the skilled trades. We’re already seeing social media inspire the next generation of tradespeople, and AI-based learning programs can help attract, develop, and retain young talent. In the U.S., hiring for skilled roles, including electricians, industrial machinery workers, plumbers, and HVAC technicians, could be more than 20 times the projected annual increase in new jobs from 2022 to 2032. The current pipeline of skilled trades tr…

In an era where artificial intelligence is rapidly redefining creative industries, branding stands at a pivotal crossroads. Tools like Midjourney and DALL-E are often portrayed as threats to traditional visual branding, but their true value may lie elsewhere—not in replacing human creativity, but in expanding the sensory dimensions of brand expression. At the bread and butter, a global brand consultancy, we believe branding should never be superficial. It should touch. Move. Resonate. That’s why we built our practice around “Betterment Branding”—a philosophy that connects long-term brand growth to emotional, sensory, and social resonance. Today, the intersection of A…

Generative AI is radically reshaping the job market—creating new roles, changing some, and phasing out others. But here’s one effect of the transformative technology that’s not as widely talked about: It’s deepening long-standing workplace gender gaps. A double disadvantage According to a recent report from the World Economic Forum and LinkedIn, women systematically face a two-part problem in the ongoing AI transformation. Relatively fewer women are currently in jobs that are being augmented by generative AI, and relatively more are in roles that are being disrupted. According to LinkedIn data for the US, 24.1% of men work in augmented occupations, while 20.5%…

I founded my company nearly two decades ago. As a bootstrapper, it was initially just me, but soon enough we grew to a dozen people, then a few dozen, then a hundred, and so on. In the early days, I remember feeling confident in my hard skills, like product development and growth strategy. But soft skills were uncharted territory. So I did what you do: practiced the tough conversations and speeches in front of the mirror. It helped—preparation is half the battle—but sometimes I imagine how much faster my leadership skills would have developed if I had real-time feedback. That’s one of the features of AI-powered leadership platforms. For today’s businesses, …

I’m a writing professor who sees artificial intelligence as more of an opportunity for students, rather than a threat. That sets me apart from some of my colleagues, who fear that AI is accelerating a glut of superficial content, impeding critical thinking and hindering creative expression. They worry that students are simply using it out of sheer laziness or, worse, to cheat. Perhaps that’s why so many students are afraid to admit that they use ChatGPT. In The New Yorker magazine, historian D. Graham Burnett recounts asking his undergraduate and graduate students at Princeton whether they’d ever used ChatGPT. No one raised their hand. “It’s not that they’…

The nonstop cavalcade of announcements in the AI world has created a kind of reality distortion field. There is so much buzz, and even more money, circulating in the industry that it feels almost sacrilegious to doubt that AI will make good on its promises to change the world. Deep research can do 1% of all knowledge work! Soon the internet will be designed for agents! Infinite Ghibli! And then you remember AI screws things up. All. The. Time. Hallucinations—when a large language model essentially spits out information created out of whole cloth—have been an issue for generative AI since its inception. And they are doggedly persistent: Despite advances in model si…

The Fast Company Impact Council is a private membership community of influential leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual membership dues for access to peer learning and thought leadership opportunities, events and more. AI and energy are two of the most critical forces shaping the future of our planet—and their relationship is impossible to ignore today. From the significant power consumption of data centers to the growing energy requirements of AI-driven applications, the rapid adoption of AI is driving a surge in global energy demand that is outpacing the growth of renewable energy source…

Thank you once again for reading Fast Company’s Plugged In. A quick programming note: We will be taking the next two Fridays off. Happy holidays to all, and I look forward to resurfacing in your inbox next year. For any number of reasons, 2025 has hardly been my favorite year. But if I were to make a list of things that went well, my relationship with AI would be on it. This was the year I went from being an AI dabbler to a daily user. And while some of that usage still amounts to messing around—hello, Sora!—even more involves tasks that make me more productive. More importantly, it brings me better results, a goal I hold dear. (Sadly, not every AI enthusiast …

While headlines about AI replacing workers dominated 2025, behavioral health is charting a different path. The industry thrives on human connection, measuring success in trust, healing, and human relationships, not throughput. That’s not to say AI isn’t rapidly reshaping the industry—it is. Its role here fundamentally differs because it supports clinicians rather than sidelines them. Over the next year, I predict we’ll see a paradox play out: Behavioral health will become increasingly AI-enabled, and simultaneously, more human than it’s been in decades. The reason is simple. Burnout and administrative burdens have been increasingly limiting what clinicians can do. Pro…

When someone opens the door and enters a hospital room, wearing a stethoscope is a telltale sign that they’re a clinician. This medical device has been around for over 200 years and remains a staple in the clinic despite significant advances in medical diagnostics and technologies. The stethoscope is a medical instrument used to listen to and amplify the internal sounds produced by the body. Physicians still use the sounds they hear through stethoscopes as initial indicators of heart or lung diseases. For example, a heart murmur or crackling lungs often signify an issue is present. Although there have been significant advances in imaging and monitoring technologies, t…

Megan Rapinoe, Caitlin Clark, Serena Williams, Mia Hamm, Lindsey Vonn—the list of high-profile, recognizable women athletes is growing. And track and field athletes may be the next to become household names. That’s the bet that Alexis Ohanian is making with Athlos, an all-women’s track and field league, which is hosting its second event in New York this week. Ohanian is perhaps best known as the cofounder of Reddit, but he’s also an investor who’s made no secret of his interest in investing in sports. During a press event in New York City this week, he said the idea for Athlos came to him while watching the Olympics, during which millions of people tune in to wa…

Under the rally cry of “Altadena Is Not for Sale,” the people of the multi-racial, middle-class town of Altadena, California, are aiming to take charge of their own recovery and rebuilding from the Los Angeles Eaton fires, which killed 17 people, burned more than 14,000 acres, and destroyed over 9,000 homes and businesses. Three community organizations and the local Native American tribes reflect the various perspectives, and collective unity, on how Altadena might avoid the fate of other communities whose recovery ended up being controlled by big developers. Altadena: Not For Sale, My Tribe Rise, and Altadena Strong are three community organizations who have cohosted…

When Hurricane Melissa began moving toward Jamaica earlier this week, Amazon’s chief meteorologist was watching closely—not just for the company’s global shipping operations, but also to see how its disaster relief team might need to act. “As soon as the hurricane formed, we had eyes on it,” says Abe Diaz, principal technical product manager for Amazon’s disaster relief team. “We’ve been tracking this for multiple days.” Inside an Amazon fulfillment center near Atlanta, pallets are stacked with disaster relief supplies, from medical supplies to solar-powered lights. It’s one of 15 massive “disaster relief hubs” that the company has stationed inside warehouses …

A bartender makes a Brandy Alexander, pouring equal parts of a Courvoisier V.S.O.P brandy, Marie Brizard crème de cacao, and fresh cream. He shakes it with ice, strains through a fine mesh strainer, and finishes it off with a neat pile of freshly-grated nutmeg. This imagery may seem to be out of a bartending documentary, but it’s actually a scene from an anime series, Bartender: Glass of God. It’s this unavoidable, radical attention to detail in the animation itself that tells the story of a Japanese way of life–putting extreme care into one’s craft. During scenes inside the bar, the liquor wall features an elaborate selection of spirits, the labels of which are …

All sense of survivors’ guilt was fleeting for those residents whose homes remained standing after wildfires ripped through the Los Angeles area three months ago. Many worried that smoke from the Eaton wildfire that destroyed more than 9,000 structures and killed 18 people may have carried toxins, including lead, asbestos and heavy metals, into their homes. But they struggled to convince their insurers to test their properties to ensure it was safe to return. Nicole Maccalla, a data scientist, said embers burned more than half of her roof, several windows and eaves were damaged, and her house in Altadena was left filled with ash, debris, soot and damaged appliances. She…

The Bronx stands apart from New York City’s four other boroughs in stark ways. Home to 1.4 million residents and the nation’s poorest congressional district, it once flourished as fertile farmland. Today, we’re restoring this land—not to its agricultural roots, but as fertile ground for raising healthy, happy, and prosperous children. And in the process, we’re cultivating opportunity for a new generation of citizens. My wife Lizette and I founded and run Green Bronx Machine (GBM). Our nonprofit is dedicated to rewriting the narrative about the Bronx and its residents. Inside Community School 55, just across the tracks from rows of dilapidated public housing towers…