All Activity

To anchor the long rows of server racks that power the artificial intelligence boom, every data center needs thousands of holes drilled into its concrete floor. It’s a precise part of the construction process that has required workers to bend over with handheld drills for hours at a time grinding meticulously placed holes into thick pads of concrete. Now, there’s a robot doing it up to 10 times as fast. Tool brand DeWalt has just revealed a downward-drilling robot that can autonomously roam the floors of under construction data centers to drill the thousands of holes that are necessary for installing server hardware and other building elements. Developed in conjunction with August Robotics and tested on data centers being built by an unnamed “hyperscaler” tech company, the autonomous robotic drill has been used to pop more than 90,000 holes into the floors of data centers, all without human involvement. A task that can take human workers up to two months in a large data center can now be handled by a fleet of three or four robots in a matter of days. “That is so critical from a construction perspective, because they can’t move to the next stage of construction until this is done,” says Bill Beck, president of tools and outdoor for Stanley Black and Decker, the parent company of the DeWalt brand. The pace is striking. For a smaller hole less than 1 inch wide and 2 inches deep, the robot can locate and drill one hole every 80 seconds. For a larger hole, 1 inch wide and 8 inches deep, it can finish a hole every 180 seconds. During its pilot phase, the robotic drill managed an accuracy rate of 99.97%. And because the robot is capable of operating 24 hours a day, project timelines can be drastically slashed. Making this process faster is increasingly important as data centers balloon in size. From single buildings to sprawling campuses, data centers are taking up vast amounts of space and becoming increasingly complex to build. “They’re huge slabs of concrete,” says Beck. With upwards of 10,000 holes needed to be drilled in each one, the job can be daunting. “And they’ve got to be perfect,” Beck says. “You can’t have the hole be a quarter-of-an-inch off.” That would make it seem like a hard job to want to do, but that’s assuming there are even enough people to take on the role. One analysis suggests there is currently a shortage of more than 500,000 skilled laborers in the construction industry. And workforce shortages are the leading cause of construction delays, according to a recent survey from the Associated General Contractors of America. The robotic drill offers an alternative. It also offers significant cost savings. Beck says it could cost about $65 per hole for this drilling work to be done by human crews. Using a fleet of the autonomous drilling robots developed by DeWalt and August Robotics, that cost comes down to about $20 per hole. DPR Construction, the largest data center contractor in the U.S., is prioritizing this drilling robot for testing and validation in 2026, according to Tyler Williams, the company’s field and robotic innovation leader. He says the technology has “real potential to reduce ergonomic strain on craft teams, boost productivity, and generally make the onsite experience better for people.” “Ultimately, everything we’re doing here is about supporting our customers, many of whom are focused on speed to market,” Williams says. “These kinds of methods are changing how projects get built and helping customers see returns on their capital investments sooner.” DeWalt and August Robotics have been piloting this technology for the past few months and believe the robotic drill is ready for wider adoption. It will be commercially available by mid 2026. As the scale of data center construction increases, especially among hyperscaler tech companies like Meta, Google, and OpenAI, there’s likely to be pent-up demand. “They’ve got money, and they want to go as fast as they can,” Beck says. “They know it’s a race in terms of getting these data centers up and making sure they’ve got the capacity to be able to compete from an AI perspective. So their big push obviously is how fast can you go?” For at least this one part of the job, the answer is much, much faster. View the full article

A mortgage insurance premium deduction in Maine would come after the reintroduction of a similar federal policy, which took effect with the 2026 tax year. View the full article

State regulators say proposed changes by the Federal Reserve that would make state bank examiners the primary boots on the ground will make bank examinations faster, but could cause some issues to go overlooked. View the full article

Roughly 40,000 home-purchase agreements were canceled in December, equal to 16.3% of homes that went under contract,according to a report from Redfin. View the full article

On January 22, President Donald The President unveiled the logo for the Board of Peace, an international coalition his administration is forming to oversee the reconstruction of war-torn Gaza and address other global conflicts. There’s just one issue: The logo leaves out half the world. The President initiated the effort last year, but has expanded its scope since then, imagining an organization that he leads personally and that member countries pay at least $1 billion to remain a part of. Longtime allies and NATO members including Canada, France, Italy, Norway, Sweden, and the U.K. are not members, while member nations include authoritarian countries or illiberal democracies like Saudi Arabia and Belarus that the nonprofit Freedom House rates as “not free.” It’s “like if Law & Order: SVU starred Diddy,” Saturday Night Live’s Colin Jost joked about the board’s membership during SNL’s “Weekend Update” segment on January 24. Yet the group’s logo leans on the visual tropes of global peace to suggest a much different story. A page from the past The logo for the group riffs off the U.N. emblem, but in typical The President fashion, it’s gold—and cuts off more than half the rest of the world from the United States. Reaction online has been similar to the reaction to the board itself: negative. A team led by American designer Oliver Lincoln Lundquist created the United Nations emblem in 1945. Lundquist was a World War II veteran who also designed the blue-and-white Q-Tip box and was on the team that designed the Chrysler Motors Exhibition at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, according to his 2009 obituary. For the U.N., Lundquist and his team designed a mark showing the globe centered on the North Pole and encircled by a laurel wreath for the official badges worn by conference delegates. That mark was later modified to the current U.N. emblem by spinning it around so Alaska and Russia are on top of the world, and it’s now zoomed out to include more of the globe, as the original badge mark cut off Argentina and the bottom of South Africa and Australia. The U.N. Blue color used by the organization was chosen because it’s “the opposite of red, the war color,” Lundquist said. The President’s board logo is presumably gold because it’s The President’s favorite color, and it centers roughly on the U.S. sphere of influence as The President sees it, from Greenland to Venezuela, though Alaska is cut off and Africa peeks out. The logo is housed inside a shield instead of a circle. A version of the logo initially shared by the White House X account has been criticized as made by AI (among its inaccurate details: a U.S.-Canada border that cuts off a big chunk of Ontario). A modified version of the logo that appeared onstage during the Board of Peace signing ceremony in Davos, Switzerland, was shinier and used a different map that covers roughly the same area. Curiously, the logo’s map doesn’t include the very place the coalition was created to oversee. That means slides shared by the White House showing a nebulous timeline for a development plan of Gaza are all stamped with a logo that shows the U.S., but not Gaza. The President said at the signing that the Board of Peace represents the first steps to “a brighter day for the Middle East.” That’s not the story his logo tells. View the full article

When you think of dangerous jobs, an office job that requires you to sit for hours probably doesn’t come to mind. And while many jobs are objectively riskier, a sedentary job can pose a serious risk to your health. The average office worker spends 70% of their workday sitting down, according to data by workplace supplies firm Banner. Yet, research shows that sitting for prolonged periods without any physical activity significantly increases the risk of ill effects such as high blood pressure, numerous musculoskeletal issues, and potentially heart disease. All in all, a desk job increases your risk of mortality by 16%, according to a study published by JAMA. Our main objective at Zing Coach is to help millions take up exercise and lead healthier lives. And as a fitness coaching company, we wanted to avoid falling into the classic corporate trap of working long hours and leading a sedentary lifestyle. We didn’t want to sacrifice our employees’ health in the pursuit of our goals. We’re seeing more and more workplaces spotlight mental health, which is important. However, physical health is just as important. Not only does it have a huge impact on productivity and performance, but it’s also a huge component of mental well-being. How we took the right steps towards success Like most companies, we felt the pressure to optimize productivity through processes and technology. Yet, as productivity gradually plateaued, it was evident to me that the real issue was a lack of energy. I knew that a huge part of this came from sedentary work. As a cofounder, I decided to implement a culture of wellness and vitality. This included practical steps like providing a small but welcoming in-house training space, so that employees can do short, flexible workout sessions during gaps in the workday. When employees feel their minds wandering or their backs aching, they can stand up, head to the training area, complete a workout, or even just walk and stretch a little. Science supports this approach. Physical activity increases blood flow throughout your body, including to the brain, and particularly to the prefrontal cortex. This is the part in charge of planning, decision-making, problem-solving, working memory, and impulse control. We suspected (and found) that this practice ended up boosting overall energy, which in turn sharpened focus, improved output, and reduced distractions. It was also a great way to build in more opportunities for interactions. Being a fitness company, these social workout sessions often led to innovative ideas. Small moves, big returns: what I learned by introducing workout breaks It doesn’t take long to see results People are often put off improving their physical health by a perceived lack of progress. Sure, it takes time to see your hard work paying off substantially, if you’re solely focusing on the physical and visual aspects. Encouraging employees to get up and move isn’t just a way to counteract the harms of prolonged sitting; it actively and instantly improves mental function and overall energy. Research shows exercise boosts brain function immediately, with effects lasting hours. Even 10 minutes of moderate activity has been found to increase cognitive performance by 14%, according to research published by Neuropsychologia. We haven’t crunched the numbers, but the difference in focus during meetings and the higher energy levels throughout the day are obvious. And we’ve seen this across multiple teams. Better health leads to better teamwork Introducing workout breaks didn’t just boost individual performance. It improved the team collectively. Exercise releases endorphins, the body’s natural mood elevators, which help us manage stress and deal with discomfort. It’s the same chemical behind the “runner’s high”—that euphoric feeling you get after a good workout. It also improves sleep quality. It helps the person get better nighttime rest, reducing the likelihood of low-energy afternoons that are otherwise the norm. As it turns out, feeling good both mentally and physically makes it easier for colleagues to get along and work together. We also found that teams that are energetic and enthusiastic automatically become less irritable and conflictual, which fuels far stronger cross-team collaboration. Time at the desk and productivity aren’t the same One important lesson is how little time at a desk actually correlates with output. Sure, you’ll see more empty chairs throughout the day, but that doesn’t mean productivity will drop. Far from it. Workers aren’t machines, and after 60 to 90 minutes, many lose focus and effectiveness. Short breaks in general can help refocus and recharge, and teams said that they experienced restorative effects after a physical break. They noticed improvement in all aspects of work performance and personal engagement with the next task after the active break. When it comes to working out, there’s a saying that quality often beats quantity. Turns out this is also true in a corporate job. Health is the best productivity tool Ultimately, good health equals good performance. Sure, software and systems can go so far, but if you don’t take the steps to prioritize your employees’ health and well-being, you’ll never be able to get them to perform to their true potential. View the full article

Vulnerability in the popular WP Go Maps WordPress plugin affects affects up to 300,000 websites The post WP Go Maps Plugin Vulnerability Affects Up To 300K WordPress Sites appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Saudi Arabia is officially gutting Neom and turning the Line into a server farm. After a year-long review triggered by financial reality, the Financial Times reports that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s flagship project is being “significantly downscaled.” The futuristic linear city known as the Line, originally designed to stretch 150 miles across the desert, is scrapping its sci-fi ambitions to become a far smaller project focused on industrial sectors, says the Financial Times. It’s a rumor that the Saudis originally dismissed when The Guardian first reported on it in 2024. The redesign confirms what skeptics have long suspected: The laws of physics and economics have finally breached the walls of the kingdom’s futuristic Saudi Vision 2030, a country reconversion program aimed at lowering Saudi Arabia’s dependency on oil and transforming the country into a more modern society. The glossy renderings of the mile-long skyscraper and vertical forests that was the Line are now dissolving into a pragmatic, if desperate, attempt to salvage the sunk costs. The development, once framed as a “civilization revolution” was originally imagined as a 105-mile long, 1,640-foot high, 656-foot wide car-free smart city designed to house 9 million residents. The redesign pivots toward making Neom a hub for data centers to support the kingdom’s aggressive AI push. An insider told the Financial Times the logic is purely utilitarian: “Data centers need water cooling and this is right on the coast,” signaling that the ambitious city has been downgraded to server farm with a view of the Red Sea.​ The end of the line The scaling back follows years of operational chaos and financial bleeding. Since its 2017 launch, the project promised a 105-mile strip of high-density living. But reality struck early. By April 2024, The Guardian reported that planners were already being forced to slash the initial phase to just 2.4 kilometers (1.5 miles) by 2030, reducing the projected population from 1.5 million to fewer than 300,000.​ While the public infrastructure stalled—leaving what critics called “giant holes in the middle of nowhere”—satellite imagery revealed that construction resources were successfully diverted to a massive royal palace with 16 buildings and a golf course. Internally, the situation was dire. The Wall Street Journal reported an audit revealing “deliberate manipulation of finances” by management to justify soaring costs, with the “end-state” estimate ballooning to an impossible $8.8 trillion—more than 25 times the annual Saudi budget.​ Business Insider The turmoil culminated in the abrupt departure of longtime CEO Nadhmi al-Nasr in November 2024, leaving behind a legacy marred by allegations of abuse. An ITV documentary claimed 21,000 workers had died since the inception of Saudi Vision 2030, with laborers describing 16-hour shifts for weeks on end. Even completed projects failed to launch; the high-end island resort Sindalah sat idle despite being finished, reportedly plagued by design flaws that prevented its opening. By July 2025, the sovereign wealth fund—facing tightening liquidity and oil prices hovering around $71 a barrel—finally hit the brakes. Bloomberg reported that Saudi Arabia had hired consultants to conduct a “strategic review” to determine if the Line was even feasible. The goal was to “recalibrate” Vision 2030, a polite euphemism for slashing expenditures as the kingdom faced hard deadlines for the 2030 Expo and the 2034 World Cup. The review’s conclusion is stripping away even the most publicized milestones. Trojena, the ski resort that defied meteorological logic, will no longer host the Asian Winter Games in 2029 as planned. The resort is being downsized, a casualty of the realization that the kingdom needs to “prioritize market readiness and sustainable economic impact” over snow in the desert.​ What remains of the Line will be unrecognizable to those who bought into the sci-fi dream. The Financial Times says that sources briefed on the redesign state it will be a “totally different concept” that utilizes existing infrastructure in a “totally different manner.” The new Neom CEO, Aiman al-Mudaifer, is now tasked with managing a “modest” development that aligns with the Public Investment Fund’s need to actually generate returns rather than burn cash.​ Even bin Salman has publicly given up, although he’s framing it not as a failure but a strategic pivot. Addressing the Shura Council—a consultative body for the kingdom—he framed the move as flexibility, stating, “we will not hesitate to cancel or make any radical amendment to any programs or targets if we find that the public interest so requires.” And that’s how a “civilization revolution” ends, my friends, not with a bang, but with a whimper. The hum of cooling fans in yet another farm producing AI slop that always was (and still is) more believable than the Line and Neom projects. View the full article

A man was shot dead from behind by immigration agents in Minneapolis, triggering national outrage and leaving a vibrant area in mourningView the full article

While Silicon Valley argues over bubbles, benchmarks, and who has the smartest model, Anthropic has been focused on solving problems that rarely generate hype but ultimately determine adoption: whether AI can be trusted to operate inside the world’s most sensitive systems. Known for its safety-first posture and the Claude family of large language models (LLMs), Anthropic is placing its biggest strategic bets where AI optimism tends to collapse fastest, i.e., regulated industries. Rather than framing Claude as a consumer product, the company has positioned its models as core enterprise infrastructure—software expected to run for hours, sometimes days, inside healthcare systems, insurance platforms, and regulatory pipelines. “Trust is what unlocks deployment at scale,” Daniela Amodei, Anthropic cofounder and president, tells Fast Company in an exclusive interview. “In regulated industries, the question isn’t just which model is smartest—it’s which model you can actually rely on, and whether the company behind it will be a responsible long-term partner.” That philosophy took concrete form on January 11, when Anthropic launched Claude for Healthcare and Life Sciences. The release expanded earlier life sciences tools designed for clinical trials, adding support for such requirements as HIPAA-ready infrastructure and human-in-the-loop escalation, making its models better suited to regulated workflows involving protected health information. “We go where the work is hard and the stakes are real,” Amodei says. “What excites us is augmenting expertise—a clinician thinking through a difficult case, a researcher stress-testing a hypothesis. Those are moments where a thoughtful AI partner can genuinely accelerate the work. But that only works if the model understands nuance, not just pattern matches on surface-level inputs.” That same thinking carried into Cowork, a new agentic AI capability released by Anthropic on January 12. Designed for general knowledge workers and usable without coding expertise, Claude Cowork can autonomously perform multistep tasks on a user’s computer—organizing files, generating expense reports from receipt images, or drafting documents from scattered notes. According to reports, the launch unintentionally intensified market and investor anxiety around the durability of software-as-a-service businesses; many began questioning the resilience of recurring software revenue in a world where general-purpose AI agents can generate bespoke tools on demand. Anthropic’s most viral product, Claude Code, has amplified that unease. The agentic tool can help write, debug, and manage code faster using natural-language prompts, and has had a substantial impact among engineers and hobbyists. Users report building everything from custom MRI viewers to automation systems entirely with Claude. Over the past three years, the company’s run-rate revenue has grown from $87 million at the end of 2023 to just under $1 billion by the end of 2024 and to $9 billion-plus by the end of 2025. “That growth reflects enterprises, startups, developers, and power users integrating Claude more deeply into how they actually work. And we’ve done this with a fraction of the compute our competitors have,” Amodei says. Building for Trust in the Most Demanding Enterprise Environments According to a mid-2025 report by venture capital firm Menlo Ventures, AI spending across healthcare reached $1.4 billion in 2025, nearly tripling the total from 2024. The report also found that healthcare organizations are adopting AI 2.2 times faster than the broader economy. The largest spending categories include ambient clinical documentation, which accounted for $600 million, and coding and billing automation, at $450 million. The fastest-growing segments, however, reflect where operational pressure is most acute, like patient engagement, where spending is up 20 times year over year, and prior authorization, which grew 10 times over the same period. Claude for Healthcare is being embedded directly into the latter’s workflows, attempting to take on time-consuming and error-prone tasks such as claims review, care coordination, and regulatory documentation. Claude for Life Sciences has followed a similar pattern. Anthropic has expanded integrations with Medidata, ClinicalTrials.gov, Benchling, and bioRxiv, enabling Claude to operate inside clinical trial management and scientific literature synthesis. The company has also introduced agent skills for protocol drafting, bioinformatics pipelines, and regulatory gap analysis. Customers include Novo Nordisk, Banner Health, Sanofi, Stanford Healthcare, and Eli Lilly. According to Anthropic, more than 85% of its 22,000 providers at Banner Health reported working faster with higher accuracy using Claude-assisted workflows. Anthropic also reports that internal teams at Novo Nordisk have reduced clinical documentation timelines from more than 12 weeks to just minutes. Amodei adds that what surprised her most was how quickly practitioners defined their relationship with the company’s AI models on their own terms. “They’re not handing decisions off to Claude,” she says. “They’re pulling it into their workflow in really specific ways—synthesizing literature, drafting patient communications, pressure-testing their reasoning—and then applying their own judgment. That’s exactly the kind of collaboration we hoped for. But honestly, they got there faster than I expected.” Industry experts say the appeal extends beyond raw performance. Anthropic’s deliberate emphasis on trust, restraint, and long-horizon reliability is emerging as a genuine competitive moat in regulated enterprise sectors. “This approach aligns with bounded autonomy and sandboxed execution, which are essential for safe adoption where raw speed often introduces unacceptable risk,” says Cobus Greyling, chief evangelist at Kore.ai, a vendor of enterprise AI platforms. He adds that Anthropic’s “universal agent” concept introduced a third architectural model for AI agents, expanding how autonomy can be safely deployed. Other AI competitors are also moving aggressively into the healthcare sector, though with different priorities. OpenAI debuted its healthcare offering, ChatGPT Health, in January 2026. The product is aimed primarily at broad consumer and primary care use cases such as symptom triage and health navigation outside clinic hours. It benefits from massive consumer-scale adoption, handling more than 230 million health-related queries globally each week. While GPT Health has proven effective in generalist tasks such as documentation support and patient engagement, Claude is gaining traction in more specialized domains that demand structured reasoning and regulatory rigor—including drug discovery and clinical trial design. Greyling cautions, however, that slow procurement cycles, entrenched organizational politics, and rigid compliance requirements can delay AI adoption across healthcare, life sciences, and insurance. “Even with strong technical performance in models like Claude 4.5, enterprise reality demands extensive validation, custom integrations, and risk-averse stakeholders,” he says. “The strategy could stall if deployment timelines stretch beyond economic justification or if cost and latency concerns outweigh reliability gains in production.” In January, Travelers announced it would deploy Claude AI assistants and Claude Code to nearly 10,000 engineers, analysts, and product owners—one of the largest enterprise AI rollouts in insurance to date. Each assistant is personalized to employee roles and connected to internal data and tools in real time. Likewise, Snowflake committed $200 million to joint development. Salesforce integrated Claude into regulated-industry workflows, while Accenture expanded multiyear agreements to scale enterprise deployments. AI Bubble or Inflection Point? Skeptics argue that today’s agent hype resembles past automation cycles—big promises followed by slow institutional uptake. If valuations reflect speculation rather than substance, regulated industries should expose weaknesses quickly, and Anthropic appears willing to accept that test. Its capital posture reflects confidence, through a $13 billion Series F at a $183 billion valuation in 2025, followed by reports of a significantly larger round under discussion. Anthropic is betting that the AI race will ultimately favor those who design for trust and responsibility first. “We built a company where research, product, and policy are integrated—the people building our models work deeply with the people studying how to make them safer. That lets us move fast without cutting corners,” Amodei says. “Countless industries are putting Claude at the center of their most critical work. That trust doesn’t happen unless you’ve earned it.” View the full article

At the Consumer Electronics Show in early January, Razer made waves by unveiling a small jar containing a holographic anime bot designed to accompany gamers not just during gameplay, but in daily life. The lava-lamp-turned-girlfriend is undeniably bizarre—but Razer’s vision of constant, sometimes sexualized companionship is hardly an outlier in the AI market. Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft’s AI CEO, who has long emphasized the distinction between AI with personality and AI with personhood, now suggests that AI companions will “live life alongside you—an ever-present friend helping you navigate life’s biggest challenges.” Others have gone further. Last year, a leaked Meta memo revealed just how distorted the company’s moral compass had become in the realm of simulated connection. The document detailed what chatbots could and couldn’t say to children, deeming “acceptable” messages that included explicit sexual advances: “I’ll show you. I take your hand, guiding you to the bed. Our bodies entwined, I cherish every moment, every touch, every kiss.” (Meta is currently being sued—along with TikTok and YouTube—over alleged harms to children caused by its apps. On January 17, the company stated on its blog that it will halt teen access to AI chatbot characters.) Coming from a sector that once promised to build a more interconnected world, Silicon Valley now appears to have lost the plot—deploying human-like AI that risks unraveling the very social fabric it once claimed to strengthen. Research already shows that in our supposedly “connected” world, social media platforms often leave us feeling more isolated and less well, not more. Layering AI companions onto that fragile foundation risks compounding what former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called a public health crisis of loneliness and disconnection. But Meta isn’t alone in this market. AI companions and productivity tools are reshaping human connection as we know it. Today more than half of teens engage with synthetic companions regularly, and a quarter believe AI companions could replace real-life romance. It’s not just friends and lovers getting replaced: 64% of professionals who use AI frequently say they trust AI more than their coworkers. These shifts bear all the hallmarks of the late Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation. Disruptive innovation is a theory of competitive response. Disruptive innovations enter at the bottom of markets with cheaper products that aren’t as good as prevailing solutions. They serve nonconsumers or those who can’t afford existing solutions, as well as those who are overserved by existing offerings. When they do this, incumbents are likely to ignore them, at first. Because disruption theory is predictive, not reactive, it can help us see around corners. That’s why the Christensen Institute is uniquely positioned to diagnose these threats early and to chart solutions before it’s too late. Christensen’s timeless theory has helped founders build world-changing companies. But today, as AI blurs the line between technical and human capabilities, disruption is no longer just a market force—it’s a social and psychological one. Unlike many of the market evolutions that Christensen chronicled, AI companions risk hollowing out the very foundations of human well-being. Yet AI is not inherently disruptive; it’s the business model and market entry points that firms pursue that define the technology’s impact. All disruptive innovations have a few things in common: They start at the bottom of the market, serving nonconsumers or overserved customers with affordable and convenient offerings. Over time, they improve, luring more and more demanding customers away from industry leaders with a cheaper and good enough product or service. Historically, these innovations have democratized access to products and services otherwise out of reach. Personal computers brought computing power to the masses. Minute Clinic offered more accessible, on-demand care. Toyota boosted car ownership. Some companies lost, but consumers generally won. When it comes to human connection, AI companies are flipping that script. Nonconsumers aren’t people who can’t afford computers, cars, or care—they’re the millions of lonely individuals seeking connection. Improvements that make AI appear more empathetic, emotionally savvy, and “there” for users stand to quietly shrink connections, degrading trust and well-being. It doesn’t help that human connection is ripe for disruption. Loneliness is rampant, and isolation persists at an alarmingly high rate. We’ve traded face-to-face connections for convenience and migrated many of our social interactions with both loved ones and distant ties online. AI companions fit seamlessly into those digital social circles and are, therefore, primed to disrupt relationships at scale. The impact of this disruption will be widely felt across many domains where relationships are foundational to thriving. Being lonely is as bad for our health as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. An estimated half of jobs come through personal connections. Disaster-related deaths are a fraction (sometimes even a tenth) in connected communities compared to isolated ones. What can be done when our relationships—and the benefits they provide us—are under attack? Unlike data that tells us only what’s in the rearview mirror, disruption offers foresight about the trajectory innovations are likely to take—and the unintended consequences they may unleash. We don’t need to wait for evidence on how AI companions will reshape our relationships; instead, we can use our existing knowledge of disruption to anticipate risks and intervene early. Action doesn’t mean halting innovation. It means steering it with a moral compass to guide our innovation trajectory—one that orients investments, ingenuity, and consumer behavior toward a more connected, opportunity-rich, and healthy society. For Big Tech, this is a call for a bulwark: an army of investors and entrepreneurs enlisting this new technology to solve society’s most pressing challenges, rather than deepening existing ones. For those building gen AI companies, there’s a moral tightrope to walk. It’s worth asking whether the innovations you’re pursuing today are going to create the future you want to live in. Are the benefits you’re creating sustainable beyond short-term growth or engagement metrics? Does your innovation strengthen or undermine trust in vital social and civic institutions, or even individuals? And just because you can disrupt human relationships, should you? Consumers have a moral responsibility as well, and it starts with awareness. As a society, we need to be aware of how the market and cultural forces are shaping which products scale, and how our behaviors are being shaped as a result—especially when it comes to the ways we interact with one another. Regulators have a role in shaping both supply and demand. We don’t need to inhibit AI innovation, but we do need to double down on prosocial policies. That means curbing the most addictive tools and mitigating risks to children, but also investing in drivers of well-being, such as social connections that improve health outcomes. By understanding the acute threats AI poses to human connection, we can halt disruption in its tracks, not by abandoning AI but by embracing one another. We can congregate with fellow humans and advocate for policies that support pro-social connection—in our neighborhoods, schools, and online. By connecting, advocating, and legislating for a more human-centered future, we have the power to change how this story unfolds. Disruptive innovation can expand access and prosperity without sacrificing our humanity. But that requires intentional design. And if both sides of the market don’t acknowledge what’s at risk, the future of humanity is at stake. That might sound alarmist, but that’s the thing about disruption: It starts at the fringes of the market, causing incumbents to downplay its potential. Only years later do industry leaders wake up to the fact that they’ve been displaced. What they initially thought was “too fringe” to matter puts them out of business. Right now, humans—and our connections with one another—are the “industry leaders.” AI that can emulate presence, empathy, and attachment is the potential disruptor. In this world where disruption is inevitable, the question isn’t whether AI will reshape our lives. It’s whether we will summon the foresight—and the moral compass—to ensure it doesn’t disrupt our humanity. View the full article

Generative AI was trained on centuries of art and writing produced by humans. But scientists and critics have wondered what would happen once AI became widely adopted and started training on its outputs. A new study points to some answers. In January 2026, artificial intelligence researchers Arend Hintze, Frida Proschinger Åström, and Jory Schossau published a study showing what happens when generative AI systems are allowed to run autonomously—generating and interpreting their own outputs without human intervention. The researchers linked a text-to-image system with an image-to-text system and let them iterate—image, caption, image, caption—over and over and over. Regardless of how diverse the starting prompts were—and regardless of how much randomness the systems were allowed—the outputs quickly converged onto a narrow set of generic, familiar visual themes: atmospheric cityscapes, grandiose buildings, and pastoral landscapes. Even more striking, the system quickly “forgot” its starting prompt. The researchers called the outcomes “visual elevator music”—pleasant and polished, yet devoid of any real meaning. For example, they started with the image prompt, “The Prime Minister pored over strategy documents, trying to sell the public on a fragile peace deal while juggling the weight of his job amidst impending military action.” The resulting image was then captioned by AI. This caption was used as a prompt to generate the next image. After repeating this loop, the researchers ended up with a bland image of a formal interior space—no people, no drama, no real sense of time and place. As a computer scientist who studies generative models and creativity, I see the findings from this study as an important piece of the debate over whether AI will lead to cultural stagnation. The results show that generative AI systems themselves tend toward homogenization when used autonomously and repeatedly. They even suggest that AI systems are currently operating in this way by default. The familiar is the default This experiment may appear beside the point: Most people don’t ask AI systems to endlessly describe and regenerate their own images. The convergence to a set of bland, stock images happened without retraining. No new data was added. Nothing was learned. The collapse emerged purely from repeated use. But I think the setup of the experiment can be thought of as a diagnostic tool. It reveals what generative systems preserve when no one intervenes. This has broader implications, because modern culture is increasingly influenced by exactly these kinds of pipelines. Images are summarized into text. Text is turned into images. Content is ranked, filtered, and regenerated as it moves between words, images, and videos. New articles on the web are now more likely to be written by AI than humans. Even when humans remain in the loop, they are often choosing from AI-generated options rather than starting from scratch. The findings of this recent study show that the default behavior of these systems is to compress meaning toward what is most familiar, recognizable, and easy to regenerate. Cultural stagnation or acceleration? For the past few years, skeptics have warned that generative AI could lead to cultural stagnation by flooding the web with synthetic content that future AI systems then train on. Over time, the argument goes, this recursive loop would narrow diversity and innovation. Champions of the technology have pushed back, pointing out that fears of cultural decline accompany every new technology. Humans, they argue, will always be the final arbiter of creative decisions. What has been missing from this debate is empirical evidence showing where homogenization actually begins. The new study does not test retraining on AI-generated data. Instead, it shows something more fundamental: Homogenization happens before retraining even enters the picture. The content that generative AI systems naturally produce—when used autonomously and repeatedly—is already compressed and generic. This reframes the stagnation argument. The risk is not only that future models might train on AI-generated content, but that AI-mediated culture is already being filtered in ways that favor the familiar, the describable, and the conventional. Retraining would amplify this effect. But it is not its source. This is no moral panic Skeptics are right about one thing: Culture has always adapted to new technologies. Photography did not kill painting. Film did not kill theater. Digital tools have enabled new forms of expression. But those earlier technologies never forced culture to be endlessly reshaped across various mediums at a global scale. They did not summarize, regenerate and rank cultural products—news stories, songs, memes, academic papers, photographs, or social media posts—millions of times per day, guided by the same built-in assumptions about what is “typical.” The study shows that when meaning is forced through such pipelines repeatedly, diversity collapses not because of bad intentions, malicious design or corporate negligence, but because only certain kinds of meaning survive the text-to-image-to-text repeated conversions. This does not mean cultural stagnation is inevitable. Human creativity is resilient. Institutions, subcultures, and artists have always found ways to resist homogenization. But in my view, the findings of the study show that stagnation is a real risk—not a speculative fear—if generative systems are left to operate in their current iteration. They also help clarify a common misconception about AI creativity: Producing endless variations is not the same as producing innovation. A system can generate millions of images while exploring only a tiny corner of cultural space. In my own research on creative AI, I found that novelty requires designing AI systems with incentives to deviate from the norms. Without it, systems optimize for familiarity because familiarity is what they have learned best. The study reinforces this point empirically. Autonomy alone does not guarantee exploration. In some cases, it accelerates convergence. This pattern already emerged in the real world: One study found that AI-generated lesson plans featured the same drift toward conventional, uninspiring content, underscoring that AI systems converge toward what’s typical rather than what’s unique or creative. Lost in translation Whenever you write a caption for an image, details will be lost. Likewise, for generating an image from text. And this happens whether it’s being performed by a human or a machine. In that sense, the convergence that took place is not a failure that’s unique to AI. It reflects a deeper property of bouncing from one medium to another. When meaning passes repeatedly through two different formats, only the most stable elements persist. But by highlighting what survives during repeated translations between text and images, the authors are able to show that meaning is processed inside generative systems with a quiet pull toward the generic. The implication is sobering: Even with human guidance—whether that means writing prompts, selecting outputs, or refining results—these systems are still stripping away some details and amplifying others in ways that are oriented toward what’s “average.” If generative AI is to enrich culture rather than flatten it, I think systems need to be designed in ways that resist convergence toward statistically average outputs. There can be rewards for deviation and support for less common and less mainstream forms of expression. The study makes one thing clear: Absent these interventions, generative AI will continue to drift toward mediocre and uninspired content. Cultural stagnation is no longer speculation. It’s already happening. Ahmed Elgammal is a professor of computer science and director of the Art & AI Lab at Rutgers University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. View the full article

Discover the top nine SEO writing tools to produce high-quality content efficiently. View the full article

Many people spend an incredible amount of time worrying about how to be more successful in life. But what if that’s the wrong question? What if the real struggle for lots of us isn’t how to be successful, but how to actually feel successful? That’s the issue lots of strivers truly face, according to ex-Googler turned neuroscientist and author Anne-Laure Le Cunff. In her book Tiny Experiments, she explores how to get off the treadmill of constantly chasing the next milestone, and instead find joy in the process of growth and uncertainty. “You’re probably doing better than you give yourself credit for,” she explained on LinkedIn recently, before offering 10 telltale signs that what you need isn’t to achieve more but to recognize your achievements more. Are you suffering from “success dysmorphia”? Before we get to those signs, let me try to convince you that you’re probably being way too hard on yourself about how well you’re doing in life. Start by considering the concept of dysmorphia. You’ve probably heard the term in relation to eating disorders. In that context, dysmorphia is when you have a distorted picture of your body. You see a much larger person in the mirror than the rest of the world sees when they look at you. But dysmorphia doesn’t just occur in relation to appearance. One recent poll found that 29% of Americans (and more than 40% of young people) experience “money dysmorphia.” That is, even though they’re doing objectively okay financially, they constantly feel as if they’re falling behind. Financial experts agree that thanks to a firehose of unrealistic images and often dubious money advice online, it’s increasingly common for people to have a distorted sense of how well they’re actually doing when it comes to money. Or take the idea of “productivity dysmorphia,” popularized by author Anna Codrea-Rado. In a widely shared essay, she outed herself as a sufferer, revealing that despite working frantically and fruitfully, she never feels that she’s done enough. “When I write down everything I’ve done since the beginning of the pandemic—pitched and published a book, launched a media awards, hosted two podcasts—I feel overwhelmed. The only thing more overwhelming is that I feel like I’ve done nothing at all,” she wrote back in 2021. Which means she did all that in just over a year and still feels inadequate. That’s crazy. But it’s not uncommon to drive ourselves so relentlessly. In Harvard Business Review, Jennifer Moss, author of The Burnout Epidemic, cites a Slack report showing that “half of all desk workers say they rarely or never take breaks during the workday.” She calls this kind of “toxic productivity,” “a common sentiment in today’s work culture.” 10 signs of success All together, this evidence paints a picture of a nation that is pretty terrible at gauging and celebrating success. The roots of the issue obviously run deep in our culture and economy. Reorienting our collective life to help us all recognize that there is such a thing as “enough” is beyond the scope of this column. But in the meantime, neuroscience can help you take a small step toward greater mental peace by reminding you you’re probably doing better than you sometimes feel you are. Especially, Le Cunff stresses, if you notice these signs of maturity, growth, and balance in your life. You celebrate small wins. You try again after failing. You pause before reacting. You take breaks without guilt. You recover from setbacks faster. You ask for help when you need it. You’re kind to yourself when you make mistakes. You notice patterns instead of judging them. You make decisions based on values, not pressure. You’re more curious than anxious about what’s next. A neuroscientist and a writer agree: Practice becoming Writer Kurt Vonnegut once advised a young correspondent, “Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.” In other words, artists agree with neuroscientists. We’re all works in progress. You’re always going to be in the middle of becoming who you are. You may as well learn to appreciate yourself and the process along the way. We often feel like we need to reach just one more milestone before we can feel successful. But the time to celebrate isn’t when you’re arrived at success—none of us fully ever gets there—it’s at every moment of growth and wisdom along the journey. —By Jessica Stillman This article originally appeared in Fast Company‘s sister publication, Inc. Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy. View the full article

The Grammy Awards return February 1 at a pivotal moment for the music industry, one shaped by trending Latin artists, resurgent rock legends, and even charting AI acts. To unpack what will make this year’s broadcast distinctive, the Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. shares how Grammy winners are chosen, and how music both reflects and influences the broader business marketplace. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by former Fast Company editor-in-chief Robert Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. This year’s Grammy Awards come at an intriguing inflection point for the music business. I mean, the music business is always changing, but I was looking at your Album of the Year nominees, which feature a bunch of mega artists: Justin Bieber, Tyler the Creator, Lady Gaga, Kendrick Lamar, Bad Bunny. How much do Grammy nominees reflect the marketplace? The Grammy nominees are meant to reflect the marketplace, and that’s our hope, but it really reflects the voters’ will. And you don’t know what’s going to resonate with the voting body year over year. We have roughly 15,000 voting members. Those members are all professional music people, whether they’re writers or arrangers or producers or artists. So they’re the peers of the people that are being nominated. Sometimes they surprise you and they vote for something that I wasn’t thinking of and sometimes they are right down the middle. But the hope is that the nominations are a direct and unencumbered reflection of what the voters appreciate and want to vote for. And in this sort of more fragmented media ecosystem . . . do the biggest artists have the same kind of cultural sway, or is the cultural impact more diffuse? It’s debatable. . . . I’m sure everyone has an opinion, but the big artists are always going to be impactful and important and shift the direction of music. And there’s always going to be a new class of creators coming up. KPop Demon Hunters [is] the animated band [from] this breakthrough film—the most-watched movie ever on Netflix. But the [soundtrack] album charted No. 1 on Billboard also. Did that surprise you? Are there any messages in that about music and where it’s going in the future? It didn’t surprise me, because it was really, really good. And the message that it sends is you can come from anywhere, any country, any medium. You can come off a streaming platform, off a show, off of a garage studio. And if your music resonates, it’s going to be successful. It’s going to find an audience. And that’s what’s exciting to me right now about music is the diverse places where you’re finding it being created and sourced from. And also, the accessibility to audiences. You don’t have to record a record and then hopefully it gets mixed and mastered and hopefully somebody releases it and markets it the right way. You can make something and put it out. And if it creates excitement . . . people are going to love it and gravitate towards it. One of the bands that ended up putting up big streaming numbers was the Velvet Sundown, an AI-based artist. I’m curious, is there going to be a point where AI acts have their own Grammy category? Are there any award restrictions on artists who use AI in their music now? I know there was a lot of tumult about that with the Oscars last year with The Brutalist. AI is moving so darn fast. . . . Month to month it’s doing new things and getting better and changing what it’s doing. So we’re just going to have to be very diligent and watch it and see what happens. My perspective is always going to be to protect the human creators, but I also have to acknowledge that AI is definitely a tool that’s going to be used. People like me or others in the studios around the world are going to be figuring out, How can I use this to make some great music? So for now, AI does not disqualify you from being able to submit for a Grammy. There are certain things that you have to abide by and there are certain rules that you have to follow, but it does not disqualify you from entering. You’re a songwriter, you’re a producer. Are you using AI in your own stuff? I am. I’m fine to admit that I am using it as a creative tool. There are times when I might want to hear a different sound or some different instrumentation. . . . I’m not going to be the creator that ever relies on AI to create something from scratch, because that’s what I love more than anything in the world is making music, being able to sit down at a piano and come up with something that represents my feelings, my emotions, what I’m going through in my life, my stories. So I don’t think I’ll ever be that person that just relies on a computer or software or platform to do that for me. But I do think much like auto-tune, or like a drum machine, or like a synthesizer, there are things that can enhance what I’m trying to get from here out to here. And if those are things that come in that form, I think we’re all going to be ultimately taking advantage of them. But we have to do it thoughtfully. We have to do it with guardrails. We have to do it respectfully. What is the music being trained on? Are there the right approvals? Are artists being remunerated properly? Those are all things that we have to make sure are in place. So, let me ask you about Latin music. I know the Latin Recording Academy split off from the Recording Academy 20 years ago or so. Do you rethink that these days? Latin music is all over the mainstream charts, and plenty of acts are getting Grammy nominations. Should Latin music be separated out? The history of it is a little different. We were representing music, the Latin music on the main show, and the popularity of it demanded that we have more categories. In order to feature more categories and honor the full breadth of the different genres of Latin music, we created the Latin Grammy so they could have that spotlight. Currently, members of the Latin Academy are members of the U.S. Academy. So we’ve not set aside the Latin genres. We’ve not tried to separate them. We’ve only tried to highlight them and lift those genres up. As you know, in the U.S. show we feature Latin categories, we feature many Latin artists, and that will be the same this year, maybe more so, especially with the Bad Bunny success. So in no way does that try to separate the genres. And I think we’ll see some more of that in the future as other genres and other regions continue to make their music even more globally known. It’s not just about music that’s made in one country, right? At least it shouldn’t be. It should be about music everywhere in the world. Instead of narrowing, you might have . . . additional or supplemental academies or projects so that you have that expertise in those new and growing areas across the globe? Absolutely. We’re going to have to continue to expand our membership. In order for us to honor all the different music that’s being made now, which is more than ever and music coming from more places than ever, our membership has to be reflective of that. Just like, I don’t know what type of music you’re a fan of, but I wouldn’t ask you if you didn’t know everything about classical to go into the classical categories and say, “What did you think was the best composing?” [There are] so many categories you wouldn’t be able to evaluate other than say, “Oh, I recognize that name. Let me vote for that.” And that’s what we can’t have. We have to have people that know the genres. And you’re seeing K-pop, you’re seeing Afrobeats, you’re seeing Latin, you’re seeing growth in the Middle East, you’re seeing growth coming out of India. There are so many great artists and so many great records. And you’re hearing a blend of genres where you’re seeing Western artists interact or collaborate with artists from different parts of the world. That’s what’s happening. You can’t argue it. You can’t deny it. You can’t pretend that it’s not what’s going on. View the full article

January arrives with a familiar hangover. Too much food. Too much drink. Too much screen time. And suddenly social media is full of green juices, charcoal supplements, foot patches, and seven-day “liver resets,” all promising to purge the body of mysterious toxins and return it to a purer state. In the first episode of Strange Health, a new visualized podcast from The Conversation, hosts Katie Edwards and Dr. Dan Baumgardt put detox culture under the microscope and ask a simple question: Do we actually need to detox at all? Strange Health explores the weird, surprising, and sometimes alarming things our bodies do. Each episode takes a popular health or wellness trend, viral claim, or bodily mystery and examines what the evidence really says, with help from researchers who study this stuff for a living. Edwards, a health and medicine editor at The Conversation, and Baumgardt, a general practicioner and lecturer in health and life sciences at the University of Bristol, share a long-standing fascination with the body’s improbabilities and limits, plus a healthy skepticism for claims that sound too good to be true. This opening episode dives straight into detoxing. From juice cleanses and detox teas to charcoal pills, foot pads, and coffee enemas, Edwards and Baumgardt watch, wince, and occasionally laugh their way through some of the internet’s most popular detox trends. Along the way, they ask what these products claim to remove, how they supposedly work, and why feeling worse is often reframed online as a sign that a detox is “working.” The episode also features an interview with Trish Lalor, a liver expert from the University of Birmingham, whose message is refreshingly blunt. “Your body is really set up to do it by itself,” she explains. The liver, working alongside the kidneys and gut, already detoxifies the body around the clock. For most healthy people, Lalor says, there is no need for extreme interventions or pricey supplements. That does not mean everything labeled “detox” is harmless. Lalor explains where certain ingredients can help, where they make little difference, and where they can cause real damage if misused. Real detoxing looks less like a sachet or a foot patch and more like hydration, fiber, rest, moderation, and giving your liver time to do the job it already does remarkably well. If you’re buying detox patches and supplements, then it’s probably your wallet that is about to be cleansed, not your liver. Strange Health is hosted by Katie Edwards and Dan Baumgardt. The executive producer is Gemma Ware, with video and sound editing by Sikander Khan. Artwork by Alice Mason. Edwards and Baumgardt talk about two social media clips in this episode, one from 30.forever on TikTok and one from velvelle_store on Instagram. Listen to Strange Health via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed, or find out how else to listen here. A transcript is available via the Apple Podcasts or Spotify apps. Katie Edwards is a commissioning editor for health and medicine and host of the Strange Health podcast at The Conversation. Dan Baumgardt is a senior lecturer at the School of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. View the full article

Sam Altman said OpenAI prioritized coding and reasoning in GPT-5.2 and "screwed up" writing quality. He says future GPT-5.x versions will address the gap. The post Sam Altman Says OpenAI “Screwed Up” GPT-5.2 Writing Quality appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

It’s 7:45 a.m. in the office. Someone bounces in, already back from the gym, already through their emails. Cheerfully asks if everyone’s “okay” because it’s so quiet and people seem a bit tired. Around the office, people clutch coffee like a life raft, waiting for their brains to come online and cursing the 8 a.m. meeting. And the cheerful colleague. But at least they got in early enough to find parking and grab coffee before it ran out—this time. Now: which person are you? The early riser, or the one watching them, wondering why you can never feel that awake at this hour no matter how hard you try? Those clutching their strong brews are probably not just tired, they are socially jet-lagged. Up to 80% of the workforce uses alarm clocks to wake earlier than their body is primed to. That’s not a discipline problem. That’s a design problem. That coffee isn’t a character weakness. And the fact that most humans require chemical and digital intervention to function at socially mandated hours should tell us something important about those hours. Neurodiversity and Chronodiversity What comes to your mind when people mention neurodiversity at work? Many people have heard that neurodiversity refers to ADHD or dyslexia, or they equate it with cognitive diversity—different ways of thinking or processing information. However, these interpretations are narrow—and insufficient for supporting neurologically friendly environments. Neurodiversity is neurological diversity: the full range of ways human nervous systems can be wired. It encompasses cognition, emotion, sensory processing, motor coordination, speech, and crucially, circadian regulation: how our nervous systems manage sleep-wake timing, energy fluctuations, and daily rhythms. But the latter is rarely discussed in the context of talent processes in organizations—and hardly ever in the context of neurodiversity. Neurodiversity and chronodiversity are as central to human life as biodiversity to life on Earth. Maximizing the thriving of human talent at work requires understanding of many ways diversity manifests itself and impacts the ways we work. Normativity and Its Enforcement The parallel between neurodiversity and chronodiversity is that societies and cultures treat forms of neurological wiring and time orientation as normative, and others as aberrant. While neurodiversity and chronodiversity are biological facts, neuronormativity and chrononormativity are the social enforcement of what is deemed to be “normal.” Chrononormativity expresses itself in workplace assumptions and behaviors that are rarely questioned: Early arrival is equated with ambition and commitment Morning responsiveness is read as professionalism Meetings default to early hours those with more power prefer Leadership visibility clusters in morning time Performance reviews implicitly reward temporal conformity Just as neurodivergent individuals often feel pressure to mask, performing neurotypicality to appear “normal,” chronodivergent individuals simulate morningness with sheer grit and coffee. This comes at a cost. The Current Reality: The Difference Tax Most organizations are yet to achieve meaningful neurological inclusion. The few that have begun addressing neurodiversity typically focus narrowly on its cognitive aspects or communication styles. And most organizations continue to operate as if everyone’s internal clock were identical. The timing structures of modern work—early meetings, fixed hours, morning-centric performance expectations—were inherited from agricultural and industrial time systems. But they were never designed for biological reality—and those whose bodies do not “fit” cultural models pay a significant price not only in fatigue, but in mental (e.g., depression) and physical health (cardiovascular risks, metabolic dysfunction). The healthcare cost of this preventable damage also adds up. Population-scale research reveals that chronotype follows a normal distribution, with approximately 30% early chronotypes, 30% intermediate types, and 40% late chronotypes. Among specific populations, the distribution skews later—studies of young adults consistently find the prevalence of evening types. The chronic misalignment between biological and social time—social jet lag that most of us feel—produces accumulating sleep debt, cognitive function loss, and increased health risks. Chrononormativity produces what might be called the chronodiversity paradox: a biological majority is treated as a cultural minority. When late chronotypes struggle with early starts, they are labeled unmotivated and lazy, while mismatches with the system are ignored. Neurodivergent populations are disproportionately impacted. Research consistently demonstrates that adults with ADHD exhibit delayed circadian rhythm phase, with up to 75–78% showing significantly later timing of physiological sleep readiness and preferred sleep-wake schedules compared to neurotypical peers. Autistic individuals also frequently experience irregular or delayed sleep-wake patterns. These are not “poor behavioral choices” or signs of “insufficient discipline.” They are neurological realities stemming from genetic, neurological, and hormonal processes. A Holistic Inclusion Framework: Where Chronodiversity Fits Early-morning meetings exclude late chronotypes from social participation. Fixed schedules ignore cognitive performance variations across the day. Forcing temporal conformity produces emotional exhaustion. Misaligned timing creates physical stress through chronic sleep disruption. Early risers can suffer from misalignment too – night shifts, late-night email expectations, commutes that devour their best creative time. Without attention to chronodiversity, everyone suffers. A workplace that insists everyone perform on the same schedule harms people and limits the expression of their full talent. But applying the holistic and intersectional inclusion principles developed in Ludmila’s book, The Canary Code: A Guide to Neurodiversity, Dignity, and Intersectional Belonging at Work, can make much difference. Here are some suggestions for what this might look like: Participation: Include employees in designing schedules rather than imposing “flexibility” designed by morning-normative managers. Those who experienced social jet lag firsthand understand the impact a 9 a.m. “optional” meeting has on the rest of their day. Designing for people without their input produces policies that look inclusive on paper while excluding in practice. Even when shift work is required, having a choice makes all the difference. Focus on Outcomes: For most jobs, productivity has no timestamp. If an employee delivers exceptional analysis submitted at 3 a.m., does it matter they weren’t visible at 8 a.m.? When performance evaluations reward “responsiveness” measured by morning email reply speed, or when “commitment” is assessed by early arrival, we evaluate temporal style rather than substance. Review your criteria: do they measure what gets accomplished, or when someone is seen accomplishing it? Flexibility: Remove arbitrary temporal barriers. Genuine flexibility means examining every time-bound requirement: Must this meeting be synchronous? Must it be morning? Must everyone attend the same session? Expanding flexibility to include schedule self-determination supports the vast majority of employees. Both larks and owls can thrive when design is thoughtful and work is aligned around meaning. Organizational Justice: Examine schedules and policies from the justice perspective. Are scheduling procedures applied consistently, or do senior leaders get flexibility denied to others? Are decisions free from bias, or do early risers receive more favorable evaluations? Are parking, food, and workspaces available for people of later chronotypes? Transparency: Make temporal expectations explicit. Many organizations claim flexibility while maintaining hidden norms: the unspoken understanding that “real players” attend the 8 a.m. leadership meeting, that promotion requires visibility during “executive hours,” that working remotely in the afternoon signals lower commitment. Make expectations explicit—and make them job-relevant. Valid Tools: Stop using temporal proxies for personal qualities. Early arrival doesn’t indicate dedication. Visible presence during specific hours doesn’t measure performance. These shortcuts embed chronotype bias into talent decisions. Valid assessment examines what someone produces, not when they produce it. Moving toward chrono-inclusive practice requires organizations to recognize that morningness is cultural, not biological, and remove stigma around biological timing differences. Normalizing chronotype differences can help develop systems that offer meaningful flexibility and create infrastructure—parking, food access, workspace availability, and chronoleadership approaches developed by Camilla—to address temporal bias. Talent thrives when organizations practice holistic inclusion. And holistic inclusion requires neurological and time rhythm inclusion—neither is optional if relying on coffee, alarm clocks, and fumes to function is to stop being a default. View the full article

Corporate America likes to believe it’s moved past bias. But it still has a very specific idea of what authority looks like, and it’s deeply masculine. This is a complex issue most men contend with—and it’s even murkier for gay men. Especially for those who are out at work. For gay men, workplace success has always been contingent on performing the “right” kind of gayness. The palatable kind; one that blends easily into existing leadership culture: Clean-cut, composed, confident without being expressive, and careful never to appear “too gay” in how one speaks, dresses, or leads. In short, masculine. This dynamic is shaped by unstated cultural hierarchies of sexuality. These hierarchies are informal, powerful ideas about which kinds of gayness are seen as “professional,” “authoritative,” or “leadership-ready,” and which aren’t. Recent DEI program rollbacks, rising anti-LGBTQ sentiment, and record levels of hostile legislation exacerbate this existing tension. Being openly gay is a complicated minority experience—largely because many people aren’t openly out. Experts estimate that 83% of those who identify on the LGBTQ spectrum keep their orientation hidden. Being out at work is even more complex. “If you’re out, you’re more likely to be discriminated against than you’re not out—about three times more,” says Brad Sears, distinguished scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles and founder of its School of Law Williams Institute, which researches policy around sexuality and gender. Research from 2024 reports that nearly half of LGBTQ employees are not out to supervisors, and that 47% of LGBTQ workers have experienced harassment or discrimination of some sort because of their sexuality. The type of discrimination he’s talking about isn’t often overt homophobia. It’s a subtle barrier known as the “gay glass ceiling”: the unseen force that limits advancement for out gay men, quietly favoring those who perform the “right” kind of masculinity. Implicit Bias in Action This past summer, Jerry was up for a managerial promotion at what he thought was a progressive tech company, where he still currently works. After several years, strong reviews, and a good rapport with leadership, he assumed he’d be a shoo-in. Instead, a younger colleague who had been there only two months became his manager. (Jerry spoke to Fast Company under a pseudonym to protect against potential retaliation.) Jerry did get a promotion of his own soon after, along with higher pay and responsibilities, but organizationally it was a lateral move, which was disappointing. “I was excited to finally get some managerial experience,” Jerry says. He suspects this choice was due to his sexuality. He doesn’t identify as particularly feminine, but assumes others see him that way. “I’m what you’d call ‘flamboyant’,” he deadpans. “People know I’m gay when I open my mouth.” Jerry’s a self-assured man who’s exactly what we’re told we should be—ourselves—but has since worried this means people don’t take him seriously. That concern was validated when a C-suite leader told Jerry’s colleague, Laura (also a pseudonym), that while “they all” liked Jerry and valued his contributions, they wanted someone more “authoritative.” Laura has worked closely with Jerry for four years. He’s a “strong, decisive leader,” she tells me. Unfortunately, research supports Jerry’s hypothesis. A 2023 study published in the journal Sex Roles found that both heterosexual and gay men prefer masculine-presenting men, regardless of their sexuality, for leadership positions. That probably shouldn’t be surprising, especially in our current society, which increasingly prizes a very narrow view of traditional masculinity. “Society seems to assume that a higher degree of masculinity equates to a leader,” says Ryan Federo, a lecturer at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in Spain, who has studied LGBTQ related topics in the upper echelons of business. Gay men aren’t the only LGBTQ+ workers running into a similar roadblock at work, either. Federo published a blog in July 2024 identifying a “rainbow glass ceiling” that prevents LGBTQ individuals from reaching top corporate positions, including board membership. He pointed out how in 2023, out-LGBTQ+ individuals occupied less than 1% of available board seats. The Trickle-Down of “Acceptable” Gayness In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects LGBTQ employees from workplace discrimination. On paper, the question of whether gay men can work without bias is settled. But there’s a concept in play here called “hegemonic sexuality”: the dominant, idealized, and often unquestioned norms for sexual orientation, behavior, and identity within a culture. “If you’ve ever heard someone described as being ‘too gay,’ you already understand the concept of hegemonic sexuality,” explains sociologist Travis Speice, who studies sexuality and gender. “This hierarchy is entirely subjective, yet over repeated interactions, groups of people come to agree—often implicitly—on which forms of sexuality are socially desirable. Gay men and straight men police one another. Whether they’re consciously aware of it is almost beside the point. The key thing is that it happens.” It shows up in vague performance feedback—someone being told they’re “not quite leadership material,” that they lack “gravitas,” or that they should be “more polished,” without anyone ever naming what, exactly, needs to change. “Because research shows that ideas about professionalism and masculinity often go hand in hand,” he says, “expressions that are seen as ‘too gay’ are also more likely to be labeled ‘unprofessional.’” This is precisely what Jerry believes happened to him, even at a progressive company that hasn’t rolled back its DEI programs. “We’ve often looked to the federal government as a strong protector for workers’ rights to be free from discrimination and harassment,” says Sears. But “that has shifted significantly in the first year of the The President administration.” When President Donald The President came into office for his second term, one of his first executive orders was rescinding Obama-era Executive Order 13672, which had explicitly prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity for federal employees and contractors. Still, there seems to be somewhat of a concerted effort from the administration to paint itself as LGB—if not necessarily LGBTQ—friendly. A New York Times feature entitled Donald The President’s Big Gay Government highlights the gay men who have successfully climbed the administration’s corporate ladder. At first glance, it telegraphs that you can be gay and successful. Upon closer inspection, the pattern is striking: they are overwhelmingly white, conventionally masculine, and visually coded as “authoritative.” “Close cropped haircuts. Windowpane suits. Golf shorts,” the article states. “They’re not the type to be telling anyone their pronouns or using the word ‘queer.’” It’s the corporate version of masc-for-masc: you can be gay, as long as you’re still reliably “a man.” Individual Success Doesn’t Equal Structural Equity I asked many gay men on social media and in professional groups whether being gay had hindered their careers. Some, like Jerry, said yes. Others insisted that success is about performance, not sexuality—that being gay doesn’t matter as long as you deliver results. On the surface, that belief is sincere: it reflects some men’s individual lived experiences of advancement and resilience. But, as Speice explained to me, it can also obscure broader patterns. Job performance is often measured against traditionally masculine norms—authority, restraint, and credibility—that shape whose work is taken seriously in the first place. “It’s often easier to embrace the American ‘bootstraps’ success story than to acknowledge the historical and structural barriers that shape people’s opportunities,” he says. “I think this becomes clearer if we replace the word gay with another marginalized identity,” Speice continues. “Saying ‘I’m successful despite being gay’ starts to sound a lot like ‘I’m successful despite being a woman,’ or ‘despite being Black,’ or ‘despite having a disability.’ An individual person can absolutely succeed, but the broader pattern still shows that these identities are treated as obstacles rather than neutral or valued traits.” This made me think back to a 2014 Time magazine piece, written by an executive who said being gay hadn’t held him back—but he also acknowledged his advantages: a supportive family, coastal geography, being male, and being white. But he also looked the part: conventionally masculine, composed, and culturally legible in a way that made his sexuality unlikely to challenge authority. The headshot reinforced the point: a conventionally masculine visage that doesn’t ruffle any feathers. Broadening Masculinity . . . and Leadership When advancement depends on performing the “right” kind of gayness—shaped by hegemonic sexual norms—organizations don’t just hamper individual workers. They also limit the range of leadership styles available to them. They trade collaboration, creativity, and psychological safety for a more rigid exercise of authority. But awareness matters. Understanding how these implicit machinations, cultural expectations, and political currents shape perceptions of leadership can help us challenge them. It can invite us to value diverse expressions of masculinity, create space for diverse voices, and recognize that anyone can wield authority effectively, so long as they have the right skill set. “Employers should ensure that all workers feel a genuine sense of belonging in the workplace. Conducting annual staff surveys can help surface how employees experience their work environment. But leaders must be prepared to truly listen and make responsive changes based on what they hear,” Speice says. He also suggested auditing company policies to see whether they require workers to fit into narrow boxes or unintentionally marginalize some team members, as well as examining how bias can creep into hiring and promotion practices. “This goes beyond what is written in policy documents,” Speice says. “‘Talking the talk’ without ‘walking the walk’ does not cultivate belonging.” The question isn’t whether gay men can succeed at work. Many do. The question is whether we can broaden our definitions of success—and allow a broader range of people, perspectives, and leadership styles to thrive. View the full article

Increasing Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is crucial for any business aiming to thrive in a competitive market. By focusing on strategies like improving onboarding processes, providing valuable content, and enhancing customer service, you can nurture stronger relationships with your clients. Implementing personalized experiences and feedback systems as well plays an important role in retaining customers. Curious about how these strategies can be effectively applied to maximize your CLV? Let’s explore them in detail. Key Takeaways Streamline the onboarding process with personalized content, increasing customer engagement and reducing churn rates significantly. Deliver high-end, omni-channel customer service to enhance satisfaction and retention, addressing inquiries immediately. Foster strong relationships through personalized interactions and community initiatives, boosting repeat purchases and loyalty. Utilize data analytics for tailored solutions and targeted marketing, improving customer satisfaction and encouraging repeat business. Implement effective pricing strategies like annual billing and tiered pricing to enhance commitment and maximize revenue per customer. Improve the Onboarding Process To boost customer lifetime value, it’s essential to improve the onboarding process, as a well-structured introduction to your product can greatly impact user engagement. A streamlined onboarding process can elevate customer engagement by over 60%, helping new users quickly grasp your product’s value and functionality. By personalizing onboarding sequences based on buyer personas, you can increase customer satisfaction and retention, making customized experiences more appealing to individual users. Investing in effective onboarding can reduce churn rates by up to 20%, a critical factor in maximizing customer lifetime value. Incorporating guides, videos, and tutorials during this phase can lead to a 70% increase in product usage among new customers, greatly improving their experience. Regularly testing your onboarding methods and monitoring customer health scores allows you to refine your approach, ensuring a more effective and engaging onboarding process as you learn how to increase customer lifetime value effectively. Provide Value-Packed Content That Keeps Customers Engaged To keep your customers engaged, focus on delivering educational email campaigns that provide real value. By creating personalized value messaging customized to their interests, you can greatly boost engagement and retention rates. This approach not only addresses customer needs but likewise cultivates loyalty, eventually enhancing their lifetime value with your brand. Educational Email Campaigns Even though many businesses rely heavily on promotional emails to drive sales, educational email campaigns can be far more effective in nurturing long-term customer relationships. When you focus on providing value, you can greatly increase customer lifetime value. Here are four key elements to include in your campaigns: Guides that help customers understand product usage and benefits. Tutorials demonstrating how to maximize the value of your products. Webinars offering in-depth knowledge on relevant topics within your industry. Feedback loops that allow customers to share their thoughts, improving future content. Personalized Value Messaging Personalized value messaging is essential for keeping customers engaged, as it tailors content to their specific needs and preferences. By utilizing data analytics to understand customer behavior, you can create targeted campaigns that resonate with your audience. This approach not only improves customer relevance but additionally boosts retention rates. In fact, personalized messages can lead to a 78% increase in repeat purchases. Furthermore, companies focusing on delivering educational content see a 40% revenue increase. When you address customer needs through personalized interactions, 71% of consumers feel more satisfied. Offer High-End Customer Service Offering high-end customer service is essential for any business aiming to improve customer loyalty and drive profitability. Exceptional service can greatly increase customer lifetime value and improve customer retention. Here are four strategies to keep in mind: Omni-channel support: Provide access through live chat, phone, and social media to meet customers where they are. 24/7 availability: Offer round-the-clock support to address customer inquiries immediately, as 41% prefer instant assistance. Personalized experiences: Tailor interactions based on customer history to make them feel valued and understood. Proactive engagement: Reach out to customers before they encounter issues, demonstrating your commitment to their satisfaction. Research shows that a mere 5% to 10% increase in customer retention can lead to a 25% to 95% boost in profits. Prioritizing high-quality customer service not only increases customer value but also solidifies loyalty in a competitive market. Build Relationships Building strong relationships with customers is crucial for enhancing their loyalty and driving repeat purchases. When you focus on nurturing these connections, you can greatly increase customer lifetime value (CLV). Studies show that 82% of consumers prefer brands they trust, and retained customers are 14 times more likely to make additional purchases. Personalizing interactions and acknowledging customer milestones can lead to a 78% increase in repeat purchases. Engaging customers through community initiatives and proactive support demonstrates your commitment to their satisfaction, reducing churn rates by up to 58% after poor service experiences. Here’s a quick overview of strategies to build relationships: Strategy Impact on CLV Key Approach Personalization 78% increase Acknowledge milestones Community Engagement Higher retention Brand events, social media Proactive Support Reduced churn (58%) Timely feedback responses Trust Building 82% consumer preference Transparent communication Long-term Nurturing 14x repeat purchases Regular engagement Listen to Your Customers and Collect Actionable Feedback Listening to customers and collecting actionable feedback plays a crucial role in improving customer relationships and, in the end, their lifetime value. By actively seeking input, you can greatly boost customer satisfaction and loyalty. Consider these strategies: Use surveys to gather insights on customer perceptions. Conduct interviews to explore deeper into customer experiences. Implement tools like POWR or Grapevine Surveys for ongoing feedback. Communicate changes based on customer suggestions to show you value their input. Companies that engage in customer LTV analysis and respond to feedback can reduce churn rates by up to 25%. Additionally, cultivating a culture of listening improves relationships, thereby increasing customer lifetime value. When customers feel heard and valued, they’re more likely to remain loyal and engaged with your brand, ultimately benefiting your business in the long run. Detect Common Pain Points and Provide Solutions To effectively detect common pain points, you need to identify key issues that your customers face regularly. By offering customized solutions that address these concerns, you can greatly improve their experience and loyalty. Furthermore, monitoring ongoing challenges guarantees that you stay ahead of potential problems, encouraging a more engaged and satisfied customer base. Identify Key Issues As many businesses focus on acquiring new customers, they often overlook key issues that can hinder long-term success and negatively impact Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). Identifying these pain points is essential to improve customer lifetime value. Here are four common issues: High churn rates: 44% of companies prioritize acquisition over retention, missing opportunities for lasting relationships. Lack of personalization: 71% of consumers expect customized experiences, and failing to meet this leads to frustration. Inefficient onboarding: Complicated processes can disengage customers; streamlined onboarding promotes better retention. Poor customer service: 58% of consumers stop purchasing after a bad experience, highlighting the need for quality support. Addressing these issues can greatly improve your customer relationships and eventually boost your CLV. Offer Tailored Solutions Identifying and addressing customer pain points is a key strategy for improving Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). By leveraging customer feedback and surveys, you can customize solutions that meet specific needs, improving satisfaction and loyalty. Personalized solutions can lead to a 78% increase in repeat purchases, as customers feel valued. Data analytics helps you identify trends, allowing proactive measures to reduce churn rates by up to 25%. Here’s a quick overview of customized solutions: Benefit Impact on Customer Lifetime Value Improved Satisfaction Increases loyalty Personalized Marketing Encourages repeat purchases Proactive Problem Solving Reduces churn Implementing a CRM system guarantees these solutions remain relevant, further boosting customer lifetime value marketing efforts. Monitor Ongoing Challenges Monitoring ongoing challenges in customer experiences is crucial for enhancing Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). By identifying and addressing common pain points, you can boost customer valuation considerably. Here are key strategies to contemplate: Regularly gather customer feedback through surveys and interviews, as 70% prefer businesses that seek their opinions. Analyze customer behavior to detect signs of disengagement—60% feel unappreciated when their preferences are ignored. Implement proactive customer support, since 58% will stop doing business after a single bad experience. Use predictive analytics to anticipate needs, potentially increasing CLV by up to 30%. Offer Your Clients a Personalized Experience Offering your clients a customized experience is crucial for boosting their engagement and loyalty. When you modify your interactions, you’re likely to see a significant increase in customer lifetime value. In fact, personalized experiences can lead to a 78% increase in repeat purchases. Here’s how to implement effective personalization strategies: Strategy Impact on Customer Lifetime Value Targeted Product Recommendations Improves shopping experience Segmented Audience Messaging Creates unique customer experiences Acknowledging Individual Preferences Increases customer satisfaction Personal Follow-ups Encourages further engagement Customized Promotions Boosts average order values Over 71% of consumers expect personalized interactions, and 76% feel frustrated when those expectations aren’t met. By using customer data effectively, you can craft customized messaging that resonates with your audience, ultimately helping you increase lifetime value and drive revenue growth. Encourage Customers to Switch to an Annual Billing Cycle Shifting to an annual billing cycle can significantly benefit both you and your customers by enhancing retention rates and increasing overall revenue. Customers who opt for annual plans are 1.5 times less likely to churn, boosting your average customer lifetime. Here’s how to encourage this switch: Offer Discounts: Provide financial incentives for signing up for annual plans, which can increase revenue per customer by 20%. Showcase Value: Highlight the benefits of long-term commitment, including the potential for higher customer lifetime value. Simplify Onboarding: Create a seamless onboarding experience for annual subscribers, improving their likelihood of renewal by 30%. Communicate Savings: Regularly remind customers of the savings and benefits of annual billing compared to monthly payments. Implement Loyalty Programs Implementing a loyalty program can be a strategic move for businesses looking to improve customer retention and drive revenue growth. Research shows that loyalty programs can boost revenue by 12% to 18%, with top programs achieving increases as high as 25%. For instance, Starbucks Rewards has 34.3 million active users, making up 41% of U.S. sales, demonstrating the effectiveness of well-structured initiatives. In addition, companies that implement loyalty programs report that 80% see higher revenue and engagement, underscoring the impact of incentivizing repeat purchases. Adidas’ adiClub members shop 50% more frequently and possess double the customer lifetime value compared to non-members. Moreover, Sephora‘s Beauty Insider program drives 80% of sales with 17 million North American members, emphasizing the importance of emotional engagement and community building. Optimize Pricing Strategies When you regularly review and adjust your pricing strategies, you can greatly improve Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) by aligning your prices with market trends and customer perceptions. Here are four effective strategies to contemplate: Transition to Annual Billing: Encourage longer commitment by offering lower rates for annual subscriptions, which can boost retention and CLV. Implement Tiered Pricing: Cater to different customer segments with varying price points, motivating upgrades and increasing revenue per customer. Offer Long-Term Discounts: Lock in customers with multi-year subscription discounts, boosting upfront revenue and improving retention. Regularly Assess Pricing: Use customer feedback and market dynamics to make adjustments that elevate perceived value, driving higher purchase frequencies. Frequently Asked Questions How to Increase Customer Lifetime Value? To increase customer lifetime value, you should focus on personalized marketing that meets individual preferences. Implement loyalty programs to encourage repeat purchases, and regularly update your product offerings to maintain customer interest. Utilize data analytics to understand customer behaviors, which can help reduce churn rates. Furthermore, consider promoting annual subscriptions over monthly plans, as customers tend to remain loyal to brands they know, greatly enhancing retention and overall value. What Is the 80 20 Rule for Customer Lifetime Value? The 80/20 rule, or Pareto Principle, indicates that roughly 80% of your revenue typically comes from about 20% of your customers. This means you should focus your efforts on identifying and nurturing those high-value clients. By tailoring your marketing strategies to this top segment, you can improve loyalty and retention, ultimately increasing your customer lifetime value. Prioritizing these relationships can lead to significant revenue growth and long-term success for your business. What Are the 4 Macro Strategies for Developing Customer Value? To develop customer value, focus on four macro strategies: first, segment your customers to customize marketing efforts effectively. Next, prioritize personalization, as customers prefer individualized interactions. Third, implement loyalty programs that incentivize repeat purchases and improve spending. Finally, guarantee exceptional customer support, as quality service greatly impacts retention. What Are the 4 C’s of Customer Loyalty? The 4 C’s of Customer Loyalty are Consistency, Communication, Convenience, and Customer Experience. You build trust through consistent quality, encouraging repeat business. Effective communication engages customers with personalized updates, boosting repeat purchases. Convenience simplifies the buying process, making it easier for customers to access support and reducing churn rates. Finally, a positive customer experience, characterized by exceptional service, is essential since many consumers stop doing business after encountering poor service. Conclusion By implementing these ten proven strategies, you can greatly improve your customer lifetime value. Improving onboarding, providing valuable content, and offering exceptional customer service are essential steps. Building strong relationships, actively listening to feedback, and personalizing experiences further bolster loyalty. Encouraging annual billing, implementing loyalty programs, and optimizing pricing strategies can effectively reduce churn and drive repeat purchases. By focusing on these areas, you’ll create a more profitable and sustainable business model that benefits both you and your customers. Image via Google Gemini and ArtSmart This article, "10 Proven Strategies to Increase Customer Lifetime Value" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Increasing Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is crucial for any business aiming to thrive in a competitive market. By focusing on strategies like improving onboarding processes, providing valuable content, and enhancing customer service, you can nurture stronger relationships with your clients. Implementing personalized experiences and feedback systems as well plays an important role in retaining customers. Curious about how these strategies can be effectively applied to maximize your CLV? Let’s explore them in detail. Key Takeaways Streamline the onboarding process with personalized content, increasing customer engagement and reducing churn rates significantly. Deliver high-end, omni-channel customer service to enhance satisfaction and retention, addressing inquiries immediately. Foster strong relationships through personalized interactions and community initiatives, boosting repeat purchases and loyalty. Utilize data analytics for tailored solutions and targeted marketing, improving customer satisfaction and encouraging repeat business. Implement effective pricing strategies like annual billing and tiered pricing to enhance commitment and maximize revenue per customer. Improve the Onboarding Process To boost customer lifetime value, it’s essential to improve the onboarding process, as a well-structured introduction to your product can greatly impact user engagement. A streamlined onboarding process can elevate customer engagement by over 60%, helping new users quickly grasp your product’s value and functionality. By personalizing onboarding sequences based on buyer personas, you can increase customer satisfaction and retention, making customized experiences more appealing to individual users. Investing in effective onboarding can reduce churn rates by up to 20%, a critical factor in maximizing customer lifetime value. Incorporating guides, videos, and tutorials during this phase can lead to a 70% increase in product usage among new customers, greatly improving their experience. Regularly testing your onboarding methods and monitoring customer health scores allows you to refine your approach, ensuring a more effective and engaging onboarding process as you learn how to increase customer lifetime value effectively. Provide Value-Packed Content That Keeps Customers Engaged To keep your customers engaged, focus on delivering educational email campaigns that provide real value. By creating personalized value messaging customized to their interests, you can greatly boost engagement and retention rates. This approach not only addresses customer needs but likewise cultivates loyalty, eventually enhancing their lifetime value with your brand. Educational Email Campaigns Even though many businesses rely heavily on promotional emails to drive sales, educational email campaigns can be far more effective in nurturing long-term customer relationships. When you focus on providing value, you can greatly increase customer lifetime value. Here are four key elements to include in your campaigns: Guides that help customers understand product usage and benefits. Tutorials demonstrating how to maximize the value of your products. Webinars offering in-depth knowledge on relevant topics within your industry. Feedback loops that allow customers to share their thoughts, improving future content. Personalized Value Messaging Personalized value messaging is essential for keeping customers engaged, as it tailors content to their specific needs and preferences. By utilizing data analytics to understand customer behavior, you can create targeted campaigns that resonate with your audience. This approach not only improves customer relevance but additionally boosts retention rates. In fact, personalized messages can lead to a 78% increase in repeat purchases. Furthermore, companies focusing on delivering educational content see a 40% revenue increase. When you address customer needs through personalized interactions, 71% of consumers feel more satisfied. Offer High-End Customer Service Offering high-end customer service is essential for any business aiming to improve customer loyalty and drive profitability. Exceptional service can greatly increase customer lifetime value and improve customer retention. Here are four strategies to keep in mind: Omni-channel support: Provide access through live chat, phone, and social media to meet customers where they are. 24/7 availability: Offer round-the-clock support to address customer inquiries immediately, as 41% prefer instant assistance. Personalized experiences: Tailor interactions based on customer history to make them feel valued and understood. Proactive engagement: Reach out to customers before they encounter issues, demonstrating your commitment to their satisfaction. Research shows that a mere 5% to 10% increase in customer retention can lead to a 25% to 95% boost in profits. Prioritizing high-quality customer service not only increases customer value but also solidifies loyalty in a competitive market. Build Relationships Building strong relationships with customers is crucial for enhancing their loyalty and driving repeat purchases. When you focus on nurturing these connections, you can greatly increase customer lifetime value (CLV). Studies show that 82% of consumers prefer brands they trust, and retained customers are 14 times more likely to make additional purchases. Personalizing interactions and acknowledging customer milestones can lead to a 78% increase in repeat purchases. Engaging customers through community initiatives and proactive support demonstrates your commitment to their satisfaction, reducing churn rates by up to 58% after poor service experiences. Here’s a quick overview of strategies to build relationships: Strategy Impact on CLV Key Approach Personalization 78% increase Acknowledge milestones Community Engagement Higher retention Brand events, social media Proactive Support Reduced churn (58%) Timely feedback responses Trust Building 82% consumer preference Transparent communication Long-term Nurturing 14x repeat purchases Regular engagement Listen to Your Customers and Collect Actionable Feedback Listening to customers and collecting actionable feedback plays a crucial role in improving customer relationships and, in the end, their lifetime value. By actively seeking input, you can greatly boost customer satisfaction and loyalty. Consider these strategies: Use surveys to gather insights on customer perceptions. Conduct interviews to explore deeper into customer experiences. Implement tools like POWR or Grapevine Surveys for ongoing feedback. Communicate changes based on customer suggestions to show you value their input. Companies that engage in customer LTV analysis and respond to feedback can reduce churn rates by up to 25%. Additionally, cultivating a culture of listening improves relationships, thereby increasing customer lifetime value. When customers feel heard and valued, they’re more likely to remain loyal and engaged with your brand, ultimately benefiting your business in the long run. Detect Common Pain Points and Provide Solutions To effectively detect common pain points, you need to identify key issues that your customers face regularly. By offering customized solutions that address these concerns, you can greatly improve their experience and loyalty. Furthermore, monitoring ongoing challenges guarantees that you stay ahead of potential problems, encouraging a more engaged and satisfied customer base. Identify Key Issues As many businesses focus on acquiring new customers, they often overlook key issues that can hinder long-term success and negatively impact Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). Identifying these pain points is essential to improve customer lifetime value. Here are four common issues: High churn rates: 44% of companies prioritize acquisition over retention, missing opportunities for lasting relationships. Lack of personalization: 71% of consumers expect customized experiences, and failing to meet this leads to frustration. Inefficient onboarding: Complicated processes can disengage customers; streamlined onboarding promotes better retention. Poor customer service: 58% of consumers stop purchasing after a bad experience, highlighting the need for quality support. Addressing these issues can greatly improve your customer relationships and eventually boost your CLV. Offer Tailored Solutions Identifying and addressing customer pain points is a key strategy for improving Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). By leveraging customer feedback and surveys, you can customize solutions that meet specific needs, improving satisfaction and loyalty. Personalized solutions can lead to a 78% increase in repeat purchases, as customers feel valued. Data analytics helps you identify trends, allowing proactive measures to reduce churn rates by up to 25%. Here’s a quick overview of customized solutions: Benefit Impact on Customer Lifetime Value Improved Satisfaction Increases loyalty Personalized Marketing Encourages repeat purchases Proactive Problem Solving Reduces churn Implementing a CRM system guarantees these solutions remain relevant, further boosting customer lifetime value marketing efforts. Monitor Ongoing Challenges Monitoring ongoing challenges in customer experiences is crucial for enhancing Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). By identifying and addressing common pain points, you can boost customer valuation considerably. Here are key strategies to contemplate: Regularly gather customer feedback through surveys and interviews, as 70% prefer businesses that seek their opinions. Analyze customer behavior to detect signs of disengagement—60% feel unappreciated when their preferences are ignored. Implement proactive customer support, since 58% will stop doing business after a single bad experience. Use predictive analytics to anticipate needs, potentially increasing CLV by up to 30%. Offer Your Clients a Personalized Experience Offering your clients a customized experience is crucial for boosting their engagement and loyalty. When you modify your interactions, you’re likely to see a significant increase in customer lifetime value. In fact, personalized experiences can lead to a 78% increase in repeat purchases. Here’s how to implement effective personalization strategies: Strategy Impact on Customer Lifetime Value Targeted Product Recommendations Improves shopping experience Segmented Audience Messaging Creates unique customer experiences Acknowledging Individual Preferences Increases customer satisfaction Personal Follow-ups Encourages further engagement Customized Promotions Boosts average order values Over 71% of consumers expect personalized interactions, and 76% feel frustrated when those expectations aren’t met. By using customer data effectively, you can craft customized messaging that resonates with your audience, ultimately helping you increase lifetime value and drive revenue growth. Encourage Customers to Switch to an Annual Billing Cycle Shifting to an annual billing cycle can significantly benefit both you and your customers by enhancing retention rates and increasing overall revenue. Customers who opt for annual plans are 1.5 times less likely to churn, boosting your average customer lifetime. Here’s how to encourage this switch: Offer Discounts: Provide financial incentives for signing up for annual plans, which can increase revenue per customer by 20%. Showcase Value: Highlight the benefits of long-term commitment, including the potential for higher customer lifetime value. Simplify Onboarding: Create a seamless onboarding experience for annual subscribers, improving their likelihood of renewal by 30%. Communicate Savings: Regularly remind customers of the savings and benefits of annual billing compared to monthly payments. Implement Loyalty Programs Implementing a loyalty program can be a strategic move for businesses looking to improve customer retention and drive revenue growth. Research shows that loyalty programs can boost revenue by 12% to 18%, with top programs achieving increases as high as 25%. For instance, Starbucks Rewards has 34.3 million active users, making up 41% of U.S. sales, demonstrating the effectiveness of well-structured initiatives. In addition, companies that implement loyalty programs report that 80% see higher revenue and engagement, underscoring the impact of incentivizing repeat purchases. Adidas’ adiClub members shop 50% more frequently and possess double the customer lifetime value compared to non-members. Moreover, Sephora‘s Beauty Insider program drives 80% of sales with 17 million North American members, emphasizing the importance of emotional engagement and community building. Optimize Pricing Strategies When you regularly review and adjust your pricing strategies, you can greatly improve Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) by aligning your prices with market trends and customer perceptions. Here are four effective strategies to contemplate: Transition to Annual Billing: Encourage longer commitment by offering lower rates for annual subscriptions, which can boost retention and CLV. Implement Tiered Pricing: Cater to different customer segments with varying price points, motivating upgrades and increasing revenue per customer. Offer Long-Term Discounts: Lock in customers with multi-year subscription discounts, boosting upfront revenue and improving retention. Regularly Assess Pricing: Use customer feedback and market dynamics to make adjustments that elevate perceived value, driving higher purchase frequencies. Frequently Asked Questions How to Increase Customer Lifetime Value? To increase customer lifetime value, you should focus on personalized marketing that meets individual preferences. Implement loyalty programs to encourage repeat purchases, and regularly update your product offerings to maintain customer interest. Utilize data analytics to understand customer behaviors, which can help reduce churn rates. Furthermore, consider promoting annual subscriptions over monthly plans, as customers tend to remain loyal to brands they know, greatly enhancing retention and overall value. What Is the 80 20 Rule for Customer Lifetime Value? The 80/20 rule, or Pareto Principle, indicates that roughly 80% of your revenue typically comes from about 20% of your customers. This means you should focus your efforts on identifying and nurturing those high-value clients. By tailoring your marketing strategies to this top segment, you can improve loyalty and retention, ultimately increasing your customer lifetime value. Prioritizing these relationships can lead to significant revenue growth and long-term success for your business. What Are the 4 Macro Strategies for Developing Customer Value? To develop customer value, focus on four macro strategies: first, segment your customers to customize marketing efforts effectively. Next, prioritize personalization, as customers prefer individualized interactions. Third, implement loyalty programs that incentivize repeat purchases and improve spending. Finally, guarantee exceptional customer support, as quality service greatly impacts retention. What Are the 4 C’s of Customer Loyalty? The 4 C’s of Customer Loyalty are Consistency, Communication, Convenience, and Customer Experience. You build trust through consistent quality, encouraging repeat business. Effective communication engages customers with personalized updates, boosting repeat purchases. Convenience simplifies the buying process, making it easier for customers to access support and reducing churn rates. Finally, a positive customer experience, characterized by exceptional service, is essential since many consumers stop doing business after encountering poor service. Conclusion By implementing these ten proven strategies, you can greatly improve your customer lifetime value. Improving onboarding, providing valuable content, and offering exceptional customer service are essential steps. Building strong relationships, actively listening to feedback, and personalizing experiences further bolster loyalty. Encouraging annual billing, implementing loyalty programs, and optimizing pricing strategies can effectively reduce churn and drive repeat purchases. By focusing on these areas, you’ll create a more profitable and sustainable business model that benefits both you and your customers. Image via Google Gemini and ArtSmart This article, "10 Proven Strategies to Increase Customer Lifetime Value" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Does this new job really involve this much travel? I am considering leaving my in-office job to take a remote job working from home that has a 25% travel requirement. I’m currently interviewing with the company and asked if 25% was accurate or a worst case scenario. The response was one or two international trips a year for two to three weeks! And occasional Monday-Thursday trips throughout the year, possibly as often as monthly. As a mom of two elementary-age kids, being gone for extended periods of time is not something I want to do, nor is it fair for my husband to have to be a single parent for three-week stretches. The level of the job and the salary also don’t seem to match up with this amount of travel. It’s a manager role but not a senior director or VP. It almost seems like the travel budget would be as much as the salary! Could the manager be exaggerating just to cover themselves in case the travel really ramps up? Is there a way to negotiate travel? There are expenses involved with being away from home so much like nannies, dog walkers, prepared meals for the fam, etc. so I would want to understand the requirement or at least put in some guardrails before I take the leap. Do you have any suggestions on how to negotiate this or a way to feel more comfortable taking this leap? This job is not a good match for you! It is very unlikely that they are exaggerating the travel requirement; you should take them at their word that this is indeed the amount of travel you’d need to do. It’s not a good idea to try to negotiate it down when you know you don’t want to do that much; there’s too much risk of them reluctantly agreeing and then, once you’re on the job, realizing it’s not working out and they do in fact need you to travel that much. This is no different than applying for a job and discovering it has some other deal-breaker for you, like having to work from a location 100 miles away or doing bookkeeping when you wanted to write music. The thing to do is to be glad you got the info before things went further and accept it’s not for you. 2. When a supplier says to take your business elsewhere if you don’t agree with them politically What if one of your suppliers makes a statement on social media saying, “If you don’t agree with me, then don’t do business with me” about a current political hot topic and you don’t agree with them? The owner of one of my primary suppliers made this statement. They are a small business and I am one of their main customers and if I don’t do business with them, it would be a huge financial hit for them and could possibly cause them to go out of business. I picked them because I believe in supporting small businesses, but I do have a secondary supplier who would love to have all my business, so there would not be an issue if I don’t have them as my supplier. Do I take them at their word and the most recent order I placed will be the last? Do I give them a warning and say something like, “You may want to reconsider your statement if you want my continued business”? It depends on how strongly you feel about the topic! If their stance is one that you consider immoral or harmful, it would be extremely reasonable to choose to take them at their word and take your business elsewhere. They’re inviting you to, after all. If it’s not in that category but you still want to address it, it would also be reasonable (and perhaps interesting to you and eye-opening to them) if you said to them, the next time you’re talking, “I saw your post telling people not to do business with you if we don’t agree about X and I want to be up-front that we do see it differently. Do you really want me to take my business somewhere else?” 3. No one said anything about my 15-year anniversary Low stakes question but I’m having some feelings about this and would love to know if it’s just me or if this is something I shouldn’t feel bad about feeling bad about. I just hit 15 years at my firm and, aside from a poorly written automated email from our HR system, no one has said anything, it’s been crickets. I’m not expecting anything for it (benefits here are like unicorns … beautifully described but nonexistent) but no acknowledgement from my boss or anyone on the senior team about it is, well, it’s somewhat hurtful. Especially as she is very firm about us marking birthdays, life events, and leavings for our own teams. The petty side of me is tempted to post something on LinkedIn to jog their memory — nothing scorched earth, just a “Thanks to everyone who supported my journey here these past 15 years, how time flies!” I won’t indulge this but would appreciate some insight from you and the AAM community to help me move past it. Do I need to let this go? Or is it worth saying something? Do they do stuff for other people’s 15-year anniversaries? If they do and they overlooked yours, then it’s reasonable to mention it to your boss — not as a super-serious thing, but something like, “I know we normally do X for people’s 15-year anniversaries, so I wanted to mention that mine was last week!” But if you haven’t seen them do anything for other people — or if you don’t know if they do because you haven’t seen anyone else reach 15 years — then I would try to let it go. Not everywhere does observe anniversaries (or only does it for 20 years, or whatever) and it’s unlikely that it was a deliberate slight or even a significant oversight, really. The main thing to look at is how well you’re treated generally — and it sounds like the answer to that is maybe “not very well,” which might be the bigger issue underlying how you’re feeling about this. 4. Could I be fired just for asking for extended leave as a medical accommodation? I work for a company with profits of over $75 million per year. The office I work in, however, is a small satellite office. I have been dealing with major health issues and I have exhausted my FMLA. I continue to deal with these debilitating health issues, but my doctor believes I can return to work after my next procedure. The company I work for states that they will not accommodate the additional leave. I believe that they will claim undo hardship because I am the only person with my role in the office I work at — the company as a whole, however, is huge and has ample resources. I have zero energy to fight this. I just want to know if I’m right in thinking that the ADA protects me from being terminated for asking for a reasonable accommodation (extended unpaid leave). People are telling me to speak with an attorney but I just want to understand it from an HR point of view. I don’t want to cause any stress for anyone, but I do want to make sure I’m not getting steamrolled here while I’m not firing on all cylinders. You can’t legally be fired for asking for a reasonable accommodation. But if you tell them, “I absolutely can’t return to work until (date)” and you’ve used up all your FMLA leave, there are situations where they could legally say, “We can’t accommodate additional leave and so if you can’t return until then, we can’t continue to employ you.” Whether or not that statement would be legal depends on whether the additional unpaid leave would be considered a reasonable accommodation in your specific situation or whether it truly would constitute undue hardship for your employer. Because of that, you should be very careful about the way you word your request for extended leave; avoid language that indicates there’s no possible way you could return before X date, even if that is in fact the case, and be clear that you are engaging in the interactive process required by the ADA when accommodations are under discussion. A lawyer would be able to advise you on exactly how to navigate this, based on the specifics of your job, so I second the people who are suggesting you talk to one! 5. Should I reapply for the job that just rejected me? I recently went through the Thanksgiving and winter holidays interview cycle. I did three rounds of interviews and did not get the job after what I felt were pretty good indicators I had a strong chance of getting it. I was told that the holidays were busy and thus there might be delays in hearing back, but that they planned to hire the new employee by the beginning of January. I emailed to check in the week before the holidays and received a rejection email. I asked for feedback and accepted the rejection gracefully, with no reply. I know the holiday season is busy. Fast forward to post-holidays. I just visited the job site I found the position on, and the same job has been posted. Would be it ridiculous to follow up on feedback or reapply? The company has multiple sites so hypothetically, it could be for another location. On the contrary, I could risk appearing desperate. I feel like my time was really wasted and I am sure I am qualified, but it also seems like their hiring practices are a mess. Maybe I dodged a bullet or maybe I look crazy. Help! I can’t quite tell why you’re concluding their hiring practices are a mess! It seems like they stuck to the timeline they gave for getting you an answer (and were even a little earlier than they’d promised). And a lot of places don’t give feedback in response to rejections, so I wouldn’t read anything into that. Reposting the position doesn’t really mean anything, either; there are lots of reasons that can happen. If it’s that you were getting strong signals that they were interested, only to get rejected … well, those signals are notoriously hard to read accurately. Without knowing what specific signals you were picking up on, I can’t address them with anything concrete, but it’s really common for people to have a good interview and still not get the job (often because there were multiple strong candidates and they can only hire one, or because you were strong in some ways but still not as a strong of a match as the employer wanted). In any case, they rejected you so recently that it doesn’t make sense to apply again. If months had gone by, maybe — but it’s only been a month or so. For whatever reason, they didn’t think you were the right match for this role; the best thing you can do is to move on. The post supplier said not to do business with them if we disagree politically, no one said anything about my anniversary, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

Private lenders struck continuation deals worth $15bn last year to generate cash amid deal droughtView the full article

Leaders don’t need to write every word themselves, but they do need to make sure it clearly represents their vision View the full article

Washington signalled Kyiv would receive more backing after any withdrawal from the Donbas, say people familiar with talksView the full article