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AI can do your taxes now—sort of. The tax software giant Intuit just struck a new deal with OpenAI that will weave AI deeply into its portfolio of financial apps, including the ones many Americans use to file their taxes. In the multiyear deal, Intuit will pay ChatGPT maker OpenAI more than $100 million annually to implement its artificial intelligence models across products like TurboTax, personal finance manager Credit Karma, email marketing platform Mailchimp, and the accounting tool QuickBooks. Through the partnership, Intuit’s products will also become accessible directly through ChatGPT—the latest lucrative business integration for OpenAI. “We are taking a massive step forward to fuel financial success for consumers and businesses, unlocking growth for both companies,” Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi said. “Our partnership combines the power of Intuit’s proprietary financial data, credit models, and AI platform capabilities with OpenAI’s scale and frontier models to give users the financial advantage they need to prosper.” Intuit owns a big swath of the financial software market, and all of those apps will be popping up in ChatGPT soon to steer users toward personalized recommendations for credit cards and loans and to answer their tax and personal finance questions. Intuit has been gravitating toward AI for a while now. Late last year, the company introduced AI-powered features into QuickBooks, inviting its users to automate rote, time-consuming tasks like sending invoices. Intuit insisted that it was being intentional about its implementation of AI, particularly given the rush for every business to boast about its AI capabilities. “The idea is not to just have random sprinkles of AI across the product,” Dave Talach, Intuit senior vice president of the QuickBooks platform, told Fast Company at the time. “We’ve been thoughtful about approaching AI, not just for the sake of AI, but we want it to show up in a cohesive way in the product that is coherent to the customer.” In June, QuickBooks released a set of AI agents for QuickBooks designed to get familiar with a company’s business and operations, taking over tasks to speed up bookkeeping and accounting. At the time, CEO Goodarzi emphasized that the company moved deliberately in building out its AI because it knows that missteps and inaccuracies are high stakes for the financial tools its customers rely on. “If it screws up, it’s a big problem,” he told Fast Company. ChatGPT is a platform now OpenAI’s new partnership with Intuit is the latest third-party integration for ChatGPT, but it’s far from the first. In late September, OpenAI took what it called “first steps toward agentic commerce” with integrations for Shopify and Etsy, and went on to ink a deal with PayPal last month. OpenAI also just introduced a developer kit that would open its hit chatbot platform to third-party apps—a major shift for the chatbot that stands to remake the way that its 700 million-plus weekly users find and do things online. ChatGPT’s first wave of apps included Zillow, Spotify, Canva, and Expedia, with apps from DoorDash, Peloton, Uber, and Target in the works. OpenAI’s recent moves point to the company’s vision of ChatGPT as an all-encompassing hub of utility that gives internet users little reason to go elsewhere. Those decisions coincide with OpenAI’s seismic shift away from its complex nonprofit roots into a more traditional for-profit company, although it technically will still remain under the wing of a nonprofit. “We want to be able to operate and get resources in such a way that we can make our services broadly available to all of humanity, which currently requires hundreds of billions of dollars and may eventually require trillions of dollars,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote in a letter about the decision to change the company’s structure. “We believe this is the best way for us to fulfill our mission and to get people to create massive benefits for each other with these new tools.” View the full article

Like clockwork, 5 p.m. on a Sunday, flashes of unread emails and notifications for tomorrow’s upcoming meetings start. Your shoulders tense, your stomach knots. You have a case of the Sunday scaries. This unsettling feeling is a form of anticipatory anxiety that creeps in as the weekend draws to a close and Monday looms with the responsibilities of the week ahead. If you can relate, you’re not alone: New data suggests the vast majority of workers experience this anxiety, and it also suggests some workers feel it worse than others. Adobe Acrobat surveyed over 1,000 full-time employees and found 82% experience this sense of anxiety before the workweek even begins. For Gen Z respondents, that number creeps up to 94%. It also affects women more often than men. For 31%, the Sunday scaries start before 5 p.m. even hits. That’s despite the fact that those affected spend 72 hours annually working on weekends to get ahead on the demands of the workweek. The scaries are set off by all types of reasons. Looming layoffs or signs of economic uncertainty can lead workers to feel anxious about the near future. Burnout is the main culprit for 55% of respondents, followed by high workloads (50%), project deadlines (33%) and toxic work environments (31%). Even admin-related tasks can add to the sense of dread, with organizing digital files or chasing down signatures mentioned by one in 15 respondents as triggers. The Sunday scaries can affect anyone, but some suffer worse than others, Adobe says: Remote workers, for example, report getting the scaries just a few times per year. Those back in the office report getting them once or twice a month. More than half of Fortune 100 companies now have a full-time office requirement, and research shows nearly 3 in 10 companies will demand five days a week in the office by the end of 2025. While 27% of those surveyed say their Sunday scaries have grown more intense over the past year, onsite workers are 47% more likely than remote workers to say their prework anxiety worsened over that time period. Given the gap, it’s unsurprising workers are willing to quit their jobs for more flexible work, with 17% quitting in the past year because of changes to their working arrangements. It’s not just a feeling. For 35% of those surveyed it manifests physically in headaches, tension, and fatigue, and 42% even lose sleep. It also impacts employers with nearly half respondents (46%) reporting that their Sunday scaries lead to a lack of motivation at a time where employees are already disengaged at work. Anxiety is a normal human emotion. A big week at work or an upcoming important presentation is likely to trigger some feelings of anxiety. But if you spend every Sunday dreading the week ahead, it might require investigating further. View the full article

I’ve straddled both the brand marketing and SEO industries for the past decade now. That dynamic has made it particularly interesting to watch how the concept of brand alignment has seeped into the search marketing vernacular. To quote my favorite baseball player, Yogi Berra, “You can observe a lot just by watching.” I’ve watched and I’ve observed how the conversation about brand alignment for LLM visibility has gone from “nice to have” to an absolute necessity. LLMs can expose a weak brand alignment while rewarding a strong brand alignment with increased visibility. With that, I want to kick things off by better explaining exactly what brand alignment looks like and how you can achieve it. What happens if you don’t have brand alignment? I once had a call with a potential enterprise-level client whose company had recently run a Super Bowl ad. I knew five seconds into the call that I probably didn’t want to work with this client. My take on their situation was that they were in what I call a “maturity inflection point.” This is when a brand has an amazing product or service and they release it in the right way, in the right place, and at the right time. Don’t underestimate how powerful a good product can be when its stars all align. What inevitably happens in such cases is that too much of the success of the company is attributed to marketing (and the marketing was never really that great to begin with). In reality, the success was simply due to the momentum of the initial magical moment where the product was released into perfect conditions. Win every search with AI visibility + traditional SEO Built for how people search today. Track your brand across Google rankings and AI search in one place. Try free for 14 days Get started with Brands in this situation hit a wall almost without exception. They need to take the next evolutionary step into who they are, who they focus on, and how they communicate because their marketing tactics haven’t caught up with where the market and audience are (hence why I call it a “maturity inflection point”). When this happens, brands have two choices: They can pivot and evolve (i.e., mature) They can pay more money to perform When you lose traction because your marketing’s efficacy was riding on the momentum of the product, you have to either evolve or pay more to play more. (I know we’re not talking about LLM visibility yet, but I promise you we have been this whole time.) The potential client I was speaking with was stuck in this very problem, and they were not happy when I recommended option one—pivot and evolve. They also didn’t like option two—spending more money (but that had already happened well before our Zoom call). The major hangup was an inability to understand how brand alignment impacts performance. “What do you mean our brand strategy is making it harder to perform and costing more money? What does one have to do with the other?!” The answer to the question is alignment. They have to do with each other because of alignment. The issue of alignment is not new. It is new for performance marketers (SEOs, etc.), but it is not a new concept. It’s a very old and very important concept that the search marketing industry just wasn’t yet 100% aware of. Now we are aware (and I’ll explain why), but from what I observe, we don’t yet know what “alignment” actually is. In the case I’ve been discussing, it meant aligning the emotional targeting embedded within the Super Bowl ad (which was very good, by the way) with the brand’s homepage. Otherwise, people would (and did) Google the brand (as they, like me, had never heard of them) after watching the ad. Of course, having a good SEO team in place, the brand ranked #1 for its brand name. The issue was, when you got to the site, none of the messaging or USPs from the $5M Super Bowl ad were present on the website. An obvious problem. The user won’t see any emotive alignment and will bounce. This is actually something companies in this situation should take into account. Quite often, you’ll see a brand run search ads (PPC ads) for its own brand name to capture users who hit a specific campaign (such as a Super Bowl ad) and send them to a landing page tailored to and aligned with the campaign. In other words, as opposed to aligning the Super Bowl ad and threading a needle between the emotional pain point it hit on and the homepage, companies instead often spend countless millions of dollars producing and running a campaign such as a Super Bowl ad and then hand Google countless thousands of dollars to run search ads because the actual homepage doesn’t align. Poor alignment produces poorer performance at higher costs. It’s not a new problem. However, when a technology spreads its wings across the entire web and attempts to synthesize this information into an output of two to three paragraphs… brand alignment takes on renewed importance. Actually, I am going to take a mulligan on that. Not renewed importance—renewed focus. Why? Why brand alignment is so important to LLM visibility Brand alignment has always been important for performance. The value of alignment was never in question. Rather, it was the extent to which marketers valued that reality that was “debatable”—until LLMs came along. Alignment across the brand has and does impact performance across the board. We may not have spoken about it in these specific terms, that’s true. SEOs, for example, have spoken about the concept of “brand alignment” in the context of E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). To that end, a good number of SEOs have recommended that sites “stay in their topical lane” so that Google can better see the site as an authority in that topical space (conversely, a disconnected topical focus can water down the site’s identity and authority). I personally spoke about this topic way back at SMX West in 2020. What I described above is the very concept of brand alignment, simply discussed in the context of Google’s algorithm. Conceptually, they are one and the same. To summarize this singular concept: If you don’t build a strong brand identity and express that identity in a consistent way, Google’s algorithm will not identify you as an authority in your vertical. When the above doesn’t happen, marketing becomes more expensive. If we don’t have enough topical focus (and therefore authority) across the site, Google won’t rank it well (all things being equal). If we can’t organically “capture” these keywords, we’re left to either pursue other channels or pay to play on the Google SERP (i.e., run search ads). Thus, poor performance isn’t only a lack of captured opportunities, but also the catalyst for increased performance costs. Along come LLMs The problem with the concept I described above is that it’s very abstract. It’s hard to pinpoint the consequences and the costs of misalignment for performance and marketing budgets (although, definitely not an impossible task). What LLMs did was make this once very ethereal construct incredibly concrete. Companies can now see how LLMs do or don’t properly understand their brands. Brands can see where one LLM understands the brand one way, while another LLM sees things differently. Brands can even literally see old reputations lingering in AI outputs. What’s more, with citations, you can often see who the culprit is. How so? Most medium- to large-sized companies don’t have one team exclusively creating content. At the enterprise level, the split is usually for SEO to handle the blog content and for the brand team to handle things like landing pages and the like. It is quite common for those two teams to not sync extensively. Therefore, it is entirely possible for one content team to highlight one aspect of the company’s offering while another team highlights a different aspect. This is very easy to see from an SEO perspective. The SEO team (who, again, is often running blog content) may see search volume opportunities and create content that speaks to certain elements of the offering because of those metrics. The brand team, having different considerations, may focus on a different aspect of that very same product or service. Which take on the company’s offering do LLMs then adopt? The lack of brand alignment becomes quite visible in an LLM world. As I mentioned, you can often see the culprit in the citations themselves. If the LLM in question (e.g., ChatGPT, AI Mode, etc.) is adopting the wrong brand positioning and the citation leads to a landing page from your own site, then it’s obvious that the team responsible for that page is unaligned. Thus far, we have misalignment between the brand and SEO teams, but the possibilities are really endless. If, for example, the LLM is citing a press release that takes the wrong positioning, then the PR team may need to be consulted. If the citations are from third-party sources, then perhaps the outreach team or owned media team needs to be brought into alignment. And so forth and so on. LLMs make misalignment immediately apparent. This isn’t a hypothetical scenario. What I described above is something I’ve seen firsthand with my own clientele and from conversations I’ve had around the industry. Let me walk you through a fictitious example. For argument’s sake, say Black and Decker wanted to pivot beyond personal lawn care and into industrial-level products (which I get no sense of; I am simply using this as an example). In such a scenario, an LLM output such as the one below would not be ideal: If the brand was looking to expand its offering and become known as a product suitable for industrial lawn care, seeing “… and suitability for smaller yards” appear inside an LLM output would be a red flag. Moreover, from the first citation, we might see that the brand’s own content could be contributing to this perception. Just a quick look at the category page on the Black and Decker website would confirm this: The image used by the brand isn’t of someone cutting the hedges at a business complex or a university. It’s someone in their own yard (remember that this is a fictitious example, and this is actually exactly what the brand wants). You could see the same positioning across any of the brand’s social media. It all readily comes through. The content focuses on personal lawn care, not industrial-level products (which, as a final clarifying reminder, is the brand’s actual positioning and targeting). A social media post from the official Black and Decker accounts uses an image that positions the brand as applicable for smaller home projects. Now again, imagine if the brand wanted to pivot towards industrial-level products. There would be a lot to start aligning. Currently, if we look at how LLMs understand the brand when specifically determining if it is a relevant option at the industrial level, the outlook is problematic and demands much alignment work to be done. A Google AI Overview specifically says the brand is not suitable for industrial use. Once again, the above screenshot shows the parent brand (Stanley Black and Decker) and the product’s website dominating the citations. There would be various teams to align to get LLMs to start seeing the brand differently. After quickly reviewing the citations above, it becomes clear that the company would need to work on the content and language used both on the parent site (Stanley Black and Decker) and on the specific sub-brand site (Black and Decker). That’s already at least two different content teams that would need to align. However, that’s just the start. Even internally, alignment goes way beyond just these two aspects. Look at what Google’s AI Mode returned for the prompt “are black and decker mowers meant for anything but home use”: For starters, there is a citation back to one of the brand’s own support pages, which states: The company’s own support content explicitly says this product is not for commercial use. If the brand were to pivot to commercial use, it would need to align its support content. Now we’re up to a minimum of three internal content teams to align. The issue, however, should the brand ever want to pivot, would be far broader. Look back at the AI summary. Google’s AI Mode is making a conceptual connection between durability and commercial use, such as when it says, “Black & Decker mowers often feature plastic decks and lighter-duty components…” That conceptual connection is supported by what third-party sites are saying. Here’s what the content on MachineFinder says (see the second citation above): The sites that support the LLM output are saying that there is a direct connection between the material used in the product and its durability. You might think this means the brand now has a problem in aligning what third-party content says about its product. This is 100% true. Though it’s not the full story. The brand here would have a product problem. If it wanted to pivot, it would need to either stop using plastic parts so as to be seen as a durable and therefore good commercial option… or it would need to change how the entire industry sees the durability of plastic parts. The latter is most likely not possible, nor time-effective even if it were. Now you need not only several content teams aligned, but also the product team on board. Forget them being a different “team” within marketing… Product is an entirely different part of the company! Moreover, think about how broad a shift that would be. You’d need to update the product and then ensure that every product spec across the web focused on the change in product material. That’s a huge undertaking. And we haven’t even talked about how social media, forums, and other third-party content would factor into the equation. (I feel like I am already overwhelming you!) What are you supposed to do about this? It seems impossible. It’s definitely an uphill battle. It will take time. It is, however, not impossible. In fact, it is fundamentally a two-step process. Step one: Create conceptual alignment Before you can do anything else, you must have conceptual alignment. Otherwise, anything you try to execute will be an uphill battle of trying to herd consistency like it was cattle. How do you do that? How do you create conceptual alignment across the brand? There’s no way around it, you have to do the one thing most companies spend the least amount of “marketing time” on: understanding who you are as a brand. Why do I say this isn’t something that brands spend time on? It’s very simple: It’s hard to do, it’s hard to quantify, and there is no direct or immediate ROI. Instead of ensuring this fundamental of all fundamentals is in place, marketing teams often jump right into performance with the minimums of “brand.” (Essentially, minimal positioning and some messaging.) LLMs and the quest for AI visibility is changing this dynamic, because the only way to develop alignment is to create a unified concept that cuts through every marketing action you take. And the only way to do that is to develop a strong and crystal clear sense of identity. In my opinion, you’re looking to create a brand identity concept that is: Meaningful Clear (you can’t communicate to others what is not clear to you) Differentiated (if you handle the previous two bullets, this usually happens naturally, but not always) How do you do that? Essentially, you are trying to understand yourself (as in your own company/brand). Often, this turns into cliches such as “What is our company culture?” or “What are our values?” To avoid this problem, here are some questions I recommend mulling over and discussing internally: Outside of the income it generates, why do we think our offering is important and worth our time? What is our company history, and why was it created to begin with? What problems do we think affect the health of our industry overall? What mental state do we want our customers and clients to walk away in? What bothers us about how our competitors go about their business and their offering? It’s not about answering these specific questions (although these are good questions, if I do say so myself), it’s about a certain line of thinking. In a nutshell, you want to uncover what is meaningful about what you do and why you do it. Then, take that concept and ensure it is present, at some level, in everything you do. It’s a unified concept that runs throughout all of your marketing (and well beyond). That conceptual unification is both where alignment starts and where it falls apart. I’ll give you an example to make this more concrete. Minivans. (I have four kids, so this example is quite applicable to my life.) Minivan companies often try to position themselves as being “sporty” or something similar. Here’s how Toyota speaks about it on their website: “Mega-style.” It’s a heavy focus on “people feel self-conscious” about driving a minivan. I personally think that is an overgeneralization and that most people “own up” to the minivan stage of life. What if we took this from a different perspective? What are we all about as a minivan company? I want to take some of the questions I proposed above and answer some of them as if I were the marketing team at Toyota or Honda. For the sake of time, I’m just going to answer the last two: What mental state do we want our customers and clients to walk away in? Answer: To feel the level of detail we offer in our design. We want our customers to see and appreciate how much detail we considered. How we tried to preempt all of the needs and uses they would have with the nuance in the design we engineered. What bothers us about how our competitors go about their business and their offering? Answer: We feel that companies trying to position a minivan as what it’s not is disingenuous. A minivan isn’t a sports car. It’s not a fashion statement. It’s a part of your family experience. It’s a part of your family dynamic more than anything else, and our goal is to make that dynamic as healthy, easy, and wholesome as possible (which, when you’re hauling kids from errand to errand, is easier said than done). Who are you? If this is how our fictitious minivan producer answered these questions… Who are they? Based on how they answered the above, what is the unifying concept they can thread together? To answer this question, we have to pull out the themes in the responses. As a point of methodology, always try to think thematically when working on brand and alignment. For our purposes, I am going to pick two themes (methodologically, you have to weed out which themes to focus on and which to put to the side). Themes: We care about every detail. We are about crafting and engineering a profound level of quality and detail into what we do. We care less about the surface-level considerations and more about the deeper dynamics our consumers face. How do we put those two together? What’s the one concept? We craft our product with a unique level of detail so the consumer’s experience can be more genuinely meaningful. Everything this brand does should communicate the absolutely incredible level of attention to detail they have. Everything this brand does should showcase their dedication to detail and why that matters so much. It literally walks right into brand positioning (which would focus on what the family dynamics are and how attention to detail in the vehicle’s engineering helps that dynamic). This is how positioning a brand should work. The positioning should ooze out of the brand identity, making it clear and obvious. This is your rock. This identity concept is what keeps you aligned. It keeps you focused. It creates the consistency in everything that an LLM is looking for. If we were our imaginary minivan company, should we create a landing page that emphasizes our van’s sporty look? No. Should we target keywords about sport design and minivans? No. Should we talk a lot about how much horsepower the engine has on social media? No. Should our booth at the auto convention showcase the edgy new design we have planned for next year? No. Should we talk about how much emphasis on the details we put into the design so that the consumer’s experience is more rewarding? Yes. Should we run a social campaign about how much you deserve a minivan that appreciates you and your family with a level of detail and design that isn’t otherwise available on the market? Yes. Do you see where I’m going with this? If you don’t know who you are as a brand and what your core brand concept is, it will be 100% impossible for you to be aligned and consistent. This will make your LLM visibility far more complex and challenging than you would like it to be. There’s still one more outstanding question. How do I get all of the various teams on board and in sync with the core identity concept our company has developed? Because even if you have the most outstanding core identity concept, it won’t help your LLM consistency if the different teams across the company aren’t aligned with it. Meet our AI Visibility Toolkit Discover how you appear across LLMs like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI, and get AI-powered strategy recommendations. Explore the toolkit Get started with Step two: Create organizational alignment What we are fundamentally left with is an operations question. Which, as a former COO, I appreciate very much. The ops problem is easy to see. You have disparate teams spread across a company that often have nothing to do with each other, impacting each other in a unique way, all thanks to LLMs. Personally, this is a good problem, and one companies have avoided for years but are now forced to tackle (and that’s just the way it goes). My advice? Create a task force. Create a task force and appoint ONE person to lead it, with the goal of improving brand visibility and consistency inside of LLMs. I wouldn’t try to take a current team and put them in charge. That feels like putting a square peg into a round hole. It’s like when you start a project around the house to fix something up and then realize four days in that it’s easier just to tear it all down and start again. Don’t waste time trying to fit a current team into a new context only to realize you have to tear it down and start from scratch. Just start from scratch. The first thing the person running the “LLM task force” should do is form a fraternity. When I worked at Wix, we called them “guilds.” Call it a guild, call it a fraternity, a fellowship, a federation, whatever. Whatever you call it, it is a cross-vertical association of all of the people who touch on and impact how you appear in LLMs. Anyone and everyone (or a representative of them) is a part of this “federation.” (Sorry, I am a Star Trek fan.) Social, knowledge base, UX, product(s), creative, SEO, paid marketing, owned media, PR… every one of these teams should have a representative in this “LLM visibility and consistency federation.” This “federation” is where you are going to sync and communicate the core brand concept so that there is widespread adoption across the company. It’s where every facet of the company that impacts how and when you appear in LLMs comes together and takes back that core concept to their respective teams. This is where the alignment actually happens. And I want to say, this isn’t some sort of “monthly sync” that half of the people don’t show up to. (I see you.) This is something that should come down from leadership, that should be both regular and quantifiable (i.e., there has to be accountability). To the latter, I recommend you create some sort of audit that ties into LLM visibility and consistency data. Divide that audit into categories based on each of the teams that comprise your “federation.” Each team gets an audit report that grades them on their alignment and offers concrete changes that should be implemented. For this, you will 100% need buy-in from leadership (or else the teams will simply ignore the audits and their recommendations). External alignment (as in aligning how LLMs perceive your brand) starts with internal alignment. Alignment sounds complex, but it is doable You got this. Developing the brand alignment you need to create consistency and desirability of messaging within LLMs is very difficult. It’s difficult because it’s a concept we keep hearing about, but it’s vague at the same time. It’s difficult because not only is the notion vague, but even when there is clarity (which I hope I’ve brought some here), it’s very layered. There are so many foundational things that need to be addressed in order for alignment to happen. To me, that’s what makes it so hard. There is so much to be constructed and developed that initially resides beneath the surface. The good news is that once you are able to tackle what lies beneath, alignment is very doable. It’s not something that is out of reach. Which means consistency and alignment within the LLMs themselves is not out of reach. It’s just a new paradigm to consistently adapt to. View the full article

In a significant move aimed at modernizing payout systems for creators and gig workers, Visa has unveiled a pilot program that allows businesses to deliver funds directly to stablecoin wallets. This innovation promises to streamline financial transactions, providing faster access to funds for freelancers and small business owners alike, especially those operating in volatile markets or regions with limited banking infrastructure. Visa’s Direct Stablecoin Payouts pilot, announced at the Web Summit, enables businesses to fund payouts in fiat currency. Recipients can then receive these funds in USD-backed stablecoins like USD Coin (USDC). Chris Newkirk, President of Commercial and Money Movement Solutions at Visa, emphasized the initiative’s focus: “Launching stablecoin payouts is about enabling truly universal access to money in minutes – not days – for anyone, anywhere in the world.” For small business owners, the advantages of this system are manifold. The ability to send payouts nearly instantly means that cash flow can be managed more effectively. For creators, such as digital artists and freelance writers, this could be a game-changer, as they often face delays in receiving payment through traditional banking systems. Research from Visa indicates that speed is critical for creators: 57% reported that immediate access to funds motivates their choice of digital payment methods. With this pilot, small businesses can cater to this demand by leveraging the Visa Direct platform to pay their contractors and partners quickly and transparently. The pilot program introduces a new level of convenience. By utilizing stablecoins, small businesses can ensure that their payments maintain a consistent value despite the fluctuations of traditional currencies. This predictability is crucial for financial planning, especially for those operating internationally or dealing with clients in different monetary zones. Moreover, the blockchain technology underlying stablecoin transactions offers increased transparency. Each transaction is logged permanently, providing an auditable trail that benefits both recipients and businesses. This feature addresses compliance concerns and can simplify record-keeping for audits. This pilot is not without its potential challenges. While it opens new doors, small business owners should consider factors such as regulatory hurdles surrounding stablecoins. The pilot will initially be available to select partners, with a broader rollout planned for the second half of 2026. Business owners interested in participating should keep abreast of evolving regulations and consider whether they can meet KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering) checks required for stablecoin transactions. Additionally, the need for compatible wallets is paramount. Small business owners must ensure that their employees or partners have access to wallets that support stablecoins like USDC, which could pose a barrier for some parties who are less technologically savvy. As Visa continues to enhance its digital payment solutions, it remains committed to bridging the future of money movement with innovative offerings. Newkirk highlighted the broader implications: “Whether it’s a creator building a digital brand, a business reaching new global markets, or a freelancer working across borders, everyone benefits from faster, more flexible money movement.” For small businesses looking to expand their financial solutions, this pilot represents an opportunity to increase operational efficiency and meet the needs of a diverse workforce. The combination of speed, reliability, and transparency in transactions can significantly enhance the working relationship with contractors and clients in today’s fast-paced digital economy. As Visa rolls out this program, small business owners will need to thoughtfully assess how adopting stablecoin payouts could fit within their existing payment workflows and what steps they need to take to ensure a smooth transition. Adapting to new financial technologies is no small feat, but those who embrace it could find themselves at the forefront of the evolving landscape of digital payments. For more detailed information about the pilot, you can read the official announcement from Visa here. Image via Google Gemini This article, "Visa Launches Pilot for Instant Stablecoin Payouts to Gig Workers" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

In a significant move aimed at modernizing payout systems for creators and gig workers, Visa has unveiled a pilot program that allows businesses to deliver funds directly to stablecoin wallets. This innovation promises to streamline financial transactions, providing faster access to funds for freelancers and small business owners alike, especially those operating in volatile markets or regions with limited banking infrastructure. Visa’s Direct Stablecoin Payouts pilot, announced at the Web Summit, enables businesses to fund payouts in fiat currency. Recipients can then receive these funds in USD-backed stablecoins like USD Coin (USDC). Chris Newkirk, President of Commercial and Money Movement Solutions at Visa, emphasized the initiative’s focus: “Launching stablecoin payouts is about enabling truly universal access to money in minutes – not days – for anyone, anywhere in the world.” For small business owners, the advantages of this system are manifold. The ability to send payouts nearly instantly means that cash flow can be managed more effectively. For creators, such as digital artists and freelance writers, this could be a game-changer, as they often face delays in receiving payment through traditional banking systems. Research from Visa indicates that speed is critical for creators: 57% reported that immediate access to funds motivates their choice of digital payment methods. With this pilot, small businesses can cater to this demand by leveraging the Visa Direct platform to pay their contractors and partners quickly and transparently. The pilot program introduces a new level of convenience. By utilizing stablecoins, small businesses can ensure that their payments maintain a consistent value despite the fluctuations of traditional currencies. This predictability is crucial for financial planning, especially for those operating internationally or dealing with clients in different monetary zones. Moreover, the blockchain technology underlying stablecoin transactions offers increased transparency. Each transaction is logged permanently, providing an auditable trail that benefits both recipients and businesses. This feature addresses compliance concerns and can simplify record-keeping for audits. This pilot is not without its potential challenges. While it opens new doors, small business owners should consider factors such as regulatory hurdles surrounding stablecoins. The pilot will initially be available to select partners, with a broader rollout planned for the second half of 2026. Business owners interested in participating should keep abreast of evolving regulations and consider whether they can meet KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering) checks required for stablecoin transactions. Additionally, the need for compatible wallets is paramount. Small business owners must ensure that their employees or partners have access to wallets that support stablecoins like USDC, which could pose a barrier for some parties who are less technologically savvy. As Visa continues to enhance its digital payment solutions, it remains committed to bridging the future of money movement with innovative offerings. Newkirk highlighted the broader implications: “Whether it’s a creator building a digital brand, a business reaching new global markets, or a freelancer working across borders, everyone benefits from faster, more flexible money movement.” For small businesses looking to expand their financial solutions, this pilot represents an opportunity to increase operational efficiency and meet the needs of a diverse workforce. The combination of speed, reliability, and transparency in transactions can significantly enhance the working relationship with contractors and clients in today’s fast-paced digital economy. As Visa rolls out this program, small business owners will need to thoughtfully assess how adopting stablecoin payouts could fit within their existing payment workflows and what steps they need to take to ensure a smooth transition. Adapting to new financial technologies is no small feat, but those who embrace it could find themselves at the forefront of the evolving landscape of digital payments. For more detailed information about the pilot, you can read the official announcement from Visa here. Image via Google Gemini This article, "Visa Launches Pilot for Instant Stablecoin Payouts to Gig Workers" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Google is bringing back its free year of Google AI Pro for U.S. college students, after releasing its new Gemini 3 Pro AI model today. Because so many of the new model's biggest features are hidden behind paywalls, it's not a bad deal, even if it's not the first time Google's done this. The deal follows similar promotions from April and August, although the most recent one ended in October. That this offer is coming so soon after the last one means Google might plan to keep rolling out these trials on a regular basis. How to claim your free year of Google AI Pro as a U.S. college studentTo get your free year of Google AI Pro, first head over to gemini.google/students and click Get Offer. You'll then need to log into your personal Google account, where you'll be prompted to verify your student status using SheerID. After that, Google says it should be a pretty straightforward signup flow, although being over a decade out of college by now, I'm not able to test it personally. Note that you will need to provide a form of payment, and that if you don't cancel the plan by the time the trail is over, your subscription will renew using your provided payment method. You also only have until January 31, 2026 to sign up for the trail. The most likely error you're likely to run into is if your college isn't supported by the trial, which is handled by SheerID. Neither Google nor SheerID are being upfront about which institutions are and aren't supported, but Google says that if you run into issues, you can contact customerservice@sheerid.com or go to the SheerID help center. You also have to be older than 18, which means some freshman might have trouble signing up, and you cannot be on a supervised Google Account, or currently have a Google One subscription through either family sharing or a third party affiliate. Google says you can cancel an existing paid AI Pro plan to swap it for the trial, but you can't try to subscribe using the trial while applying a discount from buying a Pixel phone (which would theoretically apply after the free period ends). There's also some conflicting communication online. The current offer terms state you must "be a resident of the United States," although the current help page for the trial still refers to previous offers, which were offered to other regions as well. I've reached out to Google for clarification, but for now, I would assume the offer only applies to those in the U.S. and expires on January 31, given the information in the Gemini 3 Pro press release. I've also reached out to Google about whether students who've already claimed the free year-long trial can extend their offer time by signing up for the new one, as while the help page mentions that "new and existing Google one members," are eligible, it's unclear whether those already on a free trial count as proper subscribers. I'd guess the answer is probably no, but I'll let you know if Google tells me otherwise. What you get with your free year of Google AI ProYour free year of Google AI Pro comes with a free year of Google One Premium, too, which means it's got some benefits for you even if you're skeptical about AI. For AI users, Google AI Pro offers the following: Higher usage limits for deep research and recent models like Gemini 3 Pro Gemini 2.5 Pro and Gemini 3 Pro in AI Mode Video generation with Veo 3.1 Fast and higher access to Google Flow and image-to-video generation in Veo 3. More remix generations and Veo 3 photo-to-video generations in Google photos 1,000 monthly AI credits Increased NotebookLM access Higher limits in coding tools including Jules, Gemini Code Assist, Gemini CLI Google Home Premium with Gemini features and 30 days of event history For everyone else, you'll still get 2TB of free cloud storage through Google One, which should be handy for all those assignments. Normally, when signing up for a Google One Premium Plan, you also have the option to bundle a YouTube Premium individual plan for a 14% discount, although it's unclear to me whether that's included in the trial, so I've also reached out to Google for clarity on this. And that's it! Personally, I wouldn't see myself using most of those AI features, but the 2TB of cloud storage is good enough that it's probably worth signing up for the trial just for that. Just remember to either be ready to pay the $20/month price once your year is up, or cancel before then. If you're looking for an alternate cloud storage provider once your trail is over, check out this list of the best free and paid cloud storage services for your options. View the full article

Meta has prevailed over an existential challenge to its business that could have forced the tech giant to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp after a judge ruled that the company does not hold a monopoly in social networking. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issued his ruling Tuesday after the historic antitrust trial wrapped up in late May. His decision follows two separate rulings that branded Google an illegal monopoly in both search and online advertising, dealing yet another regulatory blow to the tech industry that for years enjoyed nearly unbridled growth. The Federal Trade Commission “continues to insist that Meta competes with the same old rivals it has for the last decade, that the company holds a monopoly among that small set, and that it maintained that monopoly through anticompetitive acquisitions,” Boasberg wrote in his ruling. “Whether or not Meta enjoyed monopoly power in the past, though, the agency must show that it continues to hold such power now. The Court’s verdict today determines that the FTC has not done so.” Meta, the FTC had argued, has maintained a monopoly by pursuing CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s strategy, “expressed in 2008: ‘It is better to buy than compete.’ True to that maxim, Facebook has systematically tracked potential rivals and acquired companies that it viewed as serious competitive threats.” During his April testimony, Zuckerberg pushed back against the FTC’s contention that Facebook bought Instagram to neutralize a threat. In his line of questioning, FTC attorney Daniel Matheson repeatedly brought up emails — many of them more than a decade old — written by Zuckerberg and his associates before and after the acquisition of Instagram. While acknowledging the documents, Zuckerberg has often sought to downplay the contents, saying he wrote them in the early stages of considering the acquisition and that what he wrote at the time didn’t capture the full scope of his interest in the company. The FTC’s complaint said Facebook also enacted policies designed to make it difficult for smaller rivals to enter the market and “neutralize perceived competitive threats,” just as the world shifted its attention to mobile devices from desktop computers. The social media landscape has changed so much since the FTC filed its lawsuit in 2020, Boasberg wrote, that each time the court examined Meta’s apps and competition, they changed. Two opinions to dismiss the case — filed in 2021 and 2022 — didn’t even mention popular social video platform TikTok. Today, it “holds center stage as Meta’s fiercest rival.” Quoting the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, “that no man can ever step into the same river twice,” Boasberg said the same is true for the online world of social media as well. “The landscape that existed only five years ago when the Federal Trade Commission brought this antitrust suit has changed markedly. While it once might have made sense to partition apps into separate markets of social networking and social media, that wall has since broken down,” he wrote. Facebook bought Instagram — then a scrappy photo-sharing app with no ads and a small cult following — in 2012. The $1 billion cash and stock purchase price was eye-popping at the time, though the deal’s value fell to $750 million after Facebook’s stock price dipped following its initial public offering in May 2012. Instagram was the first company Facebook bought and kept running as a separate app. Up until then, Facebook was known for smaller “acqui-hires” — a type of popular Silicon Valley deal in which a company purchases a startup as a way to hire its talented workers, then shuts the acquired company down. Two years later, it did it again with the messaging app WhatsApp, which it purchased for $22 billion. WhatsApp and Instagram helped Facebook move its business from desktop computers to mobile devices, and to remain popular with younger generations as rivals like Snapchat (which it also tried, but failed, to buy) and TikTok emerged. However, the FTC has a narrow definition of Meta’s competitive market, excluding companies like TikTok, YouTube and Apple’s messaging service from being considered rivals to Instagram and WhatsApp. Meta did not immediately respond to a message for comment. —Barbara Ortutay, AP technology writer View the full article

A reader writes: I’ve been working in the marketing department of a large company for nine years, in a somewhat specialized role. I sit within a smaller subteam originally managed by “Jean-Luc,” who was the kind of manager everyone hopes for — fiercely protective of his team, willing to go to bat for any of us, and fair if it came down to any issues that needed dealing with. At the beginning of the year, Jean-Luc told us that he’d be moving on and assured us he’d be directly responsible for hiring his replacement to ensure a good fit. Two weeks before he left (I’m in the UK and we typically have three-month notice periods), he hired “Kai Wynn,” who seemed very knowledgeable and interested in my specialist area, so I was looking forward to expanding my own knowledge and geeking out about it with her. Sadly, that hasn’t happened. Six months after Kai Wynn took over, she told me and another role specialist (different area) that our roles would be made redundant and a single role would be created, which we were both welcome to apply for. The new role is basically an expansion of the role my colleague is doing, though in an area I have some previous experience in, and my role is going to be outsourced to an agency. We both applied for the role and my colleague got it — not surprising as the interview task and job description were basically what she already does. So I was laid off, with a (thankfully generous) severance. It feels like Kai has set this up deliberately to get rid of me, knowing I wouldn’t have had the experience to compete with my colleague. Some of my other colleagues (the ones I can trust to confide in) have said it all looks suspicious too. It especially stings as I’ve just got a mortgage, so now I’m panicking about being able to get another job to avoid losing my house. I’ve been given an end date of six weeks hence, with a further six weeks pay in lieu of the remaining notice (fairly standard here, I think). Thankfully I work remotely so I don’t have to see her or my other colleagues in person during these last few weeks. I’m also undecided if I want a leaving-do — it’s standard practice in our team when someone leaves of their own accord, but it doesn’t feel appropriate for my situation. I also don’t want to socialize with Kai for obvious reasons! Kai is now being overly nice in our weekly one-on-ones, asking if I’m okay and if I need anything, offering to help me with my CV, and even sending me job listings that match my skill set. It’s coming across as really two-faced and insidious, and I’m having to hold myself back from saying, “No, I’m not okay — you’ve kicked me out of the job I love!” She’s now asked me to do a handover in my last few weeks for the agency and my colleague who got the role, which feels like a real kick in the teeth. Honestly, I feel so hurt by how she’s gone about this that I’m tempted to just refuse, and let her deal with the fallout, but that feels unfair to my other colleagues who would be left to try and unpick my processes without documentation. How should I handle my feelings of resentment towards her until I leave? It’s completely understandable to feel resentment toward a new manager who came in and eliminated your job … but I think you’re reading more into it than probably happened. If Kai felt your team didn’t need both roles and would be better served by combining them into one (or if she needed to make budget cuts and judged this the least-bad of the places to cut), it makes sense that this happened. It doesn’t mean it was personal or that she set out to get rid of you specifically or was engaging in any double-dealing; it’s much more likely that it’s just what she judged made the most sense for the business (even though that doesn’t make it suck any less for you personally). It’s also possible that the decision came from above her. I also wouldn’t assume she deliberately set you up to compete against your coworker while knowing for sure that you wouldn’t get the job; she might have figured it was fairer to let you both interview for it. (If she hadn’t offered that and instead had just laid you off from the get-go, you might have resented that she didn’t even give you a chance to compete for the job. Or maybe you personally wouldn’t have, but a lot of people would!) It also makes sense that she’s being nice in your one-on-ones and offering to help in your job search. Managers should be supportive of people whose jobs are cut and should be doing exactly the things she’s doing. You don’t have to like her or respect her judgment or anything like that — you’re allowed to feel bitter! — but it’ll be easier to make peace with what happened if you don’t look at it as dishonesty or back-stabbing. None of that means that this isn’t awful for you. It is. But acting in your own interests would mean taking her up on her offers to help with your CV and or at least to send you job listings, and even asking if she knows of any openings she can connect you with. You don’t have to; it’s your prerogative to decide you can’t stomach that … but why not get some benefit on your way out? With the handover work, you don’t need to go above-and-beyond, but you should at least do it at a level that won’t make her retract those offers of help or change the kind of reference you might get from the company in the future. The post how do I deal with the two-faced manager who laid me off? appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, came in at 1.957 million, up slightly from 1.947 million in the prior week. View the full article

Social media content pillars are crucial themes that shape your brand’s messaging strategy. They guarantee that your content aligns with both your values and your audience’s interests. By defining 3-5 key pillars, you can maintain focus, avoid content fatigue, and promote a balanced mix of variety and consistency. Comprehending how to create and implement these pillars can greatly improve your engagement levels and strengthen your brand narrative. But how do you align these pillars with your business goals? Key Takeaways Social media content pillars are key themes that guide structured messaging, aligning content with brand values and audience interests. Establishing 3-5 pillars prevents content burnout while balancing variety and consistency in social media strategies. Content pillars streamline creation, enhance team collaboration, and foster a consistent narrative across all platforms. Regularly measuring engagement metrics helps evaluate the effectiveness of content pillars and refine strategies for better audience interaction. Utilizing content pillars can lead to higher engagement rates, driving community interaction and strengthening brand presence online. Understanding Social Media Content Pillars During traversing the vast terrain of social media, comprehending content pillars is essential for effective brand communication. Social media content pillars serve as key themes or overarching topics that help you structure your messaging. By establishing 3-5 content pillars, you can maintain focus as you provide variety, which prevents content burnout and boosts audience engagement. Content pillar examples might include educational posts, behind-the-scenes insights, or customer testimonials. Implementing a pillar content strategy simplifies the content creation process, allowing for better planning and collaboration among your team. Aligning your content with specific pillars not just meets audience expectations but also encourages a consistent brand narrative, in the end enhancing trust and loyalty over time. The Importance of Content Pillars in Social Media Strategy Content pillars are fundamental to any effective social media strategy, as they guarantee your messaging aligns with both your brand values and your audience’s interests. By categorizing your content into specific themes, you can streamline your creation process, reducing burnout and allowing for focused, meaningful posts. Utilizing 3-5 content pillars helps maintain a balance between variety and consistency, preventing overwhelm for both your strategy and your audience. This approach improves engagement by clearly communicating what followers can expect, nurturing trust through relevant content that meets their needs. Additionally, regularly tracking the performance of your content pillars allows you to identify successful patterns and areas for improvement, ensuring your social media presence continues to evolve effectively. How to Create Effective Content Pillars To create effective content pillars, you need to start by defining core themes that resonate with your audience’s interests and pain points. Aligning these themes with what your customers care about guarantees your content remains relevant and engaging. Finally, mapping each pillar to specific content formats and social media channels enables you to leverage the strengths of each platform for better audience engagement. Define Core Themes Creating effective content pillars is essential for guiding your social media strategy, as they serve as the backbone of your messaging. Start by defining core themes that resonate with your brand values, aiming for 3 to 5 key themes. Conduct an audience analysis to understand their demographics, preferences, and pain points; this insight helps tailor your pillars effectively. Next, perform a social media audit to review existing content, identifying successful themes and gaps. Each pillar should have a clear purpose linked to broader marketing goals, such as increasing brand awareness or enhancing audience engagement. Finally, use a content calendar to organize and schedule posts, ensuring you deliver consistent and varied content that keeps your audience engaged without redundancy. Align With Audience Interests How can you guarantee your content pillars resonate with your audience? Start by conducting thorough audience research to uncover their demographics, preferences, and pain points. This guarantees your content aligns with their interests. Utilize social listening tools to monitor trending topics and conversations, refining your pillars accordingly. Develop 3-5 core themes that reflect your brand values during addressing your audience’s specific needs, creating a focused yet diverse strategy. Regularly analyze competitors’ content performance to identify gaps and opportunities, keeping your pillars relevant. Finally, test and iterate based on audience feedback and engagement metrics, allowing for continuous adaptation and improvement of your content strategy over time. This systematic approach will help you create effective content pillars that truly resonate. Map Content Formats Mapping content formats is essential for aligning your content pillars with the most effective delivery methods. By matching each pillar to suitable formats like videos, infographics, or blog posts, you can engage diverse audience preferences. Each content pillar needs a clear purpose, guiding you to choose the right types, such as tutorials for educational pillars and product showcases for promotional ones. Utilizing templates can streamline your process, creating consistent messaging during remaining adaptable. Regularly evaluating performance reveals which formats resonate best, allowing for continuous improvement. Diversifying formats within each pillar nurtures creativity and keeps your audience engaged. Content Pillar Format Type Purpose Educational Tutorials Teach and inform Promotional Product Showcases Highlight offerings Inspirational Quotes Motivate and uplift Entertaining Memes Engage and amuse Informative Blog Posts Provide in-depth insights Examples of Content Pillars Across Different Industries Even though each industry may tailor its content pillars to meet specific audience needs, there are some common themes that emerge across various sectors. In the fashion industry, you’ll often see product showcases and sustainability initiatives. The travel sector highlights destination features and guest testimonials to attract bookings. Healthcare focuses on health tips and patient stories, cultivating trust with audiences. In food and beverage, menu highlights and behind-the-scenes content drive foot traffic, whereas e-commerce brands leverage product highlights and customer reviews to engage shoppers. Aligning Content Pillars With Business Goals To effectively drive business success, aligning your content pillars with your overall objectives is vital. Each piece of content should contribute to your overarching goals, such as brand awareness or sales growth. Here are four key strategies to take into account: Define Purpose: Clearly outline the intent behind each content pillar to create resonating messages. Maintain Consistency: Keep a coherent narrative across platforms to strengthen your brand identity and customer loyalty. Link to KPIs: Tailor content to specific performance indicators, such as using educational content to boost website traffic. Regularly Review: Adjust your pillars based on any shifts in business strategy to guarantee ongoing relevance and effectiveness. Measuring the Impact of Content Pillars on Engagement To measure the impact of your content pillars on engagement, start by reviewing key engagement metrics like likes, shares, and comments. These statistics provide valuable insights into how well your content resonates with your audience. Engagement Metrics Overview Comprehending engagement metrics is crucial for evaluating how well your content pillars resonate with your audience. By measuring engagement, you can assess the effectiveness of your content strategies. Here are four key engagement metrics to focus on: Likes: Indicate general approval and interest in your content. Shares: Show how often your audience values your content enough to share it with others. Comments: Reflect direct audience interaction and feedback, revealing deeper insights into preferences. Saves: Highlight content that your audience finds useful, encouraging future visits. Tracking these metrics over time lets you identify which pillars engage your audience most. Analyzing Content Performance Analyzing content performance is crucial for grasping how effectively your content pillars engage your audience. By examining metrics like engagement rates, click-through rates, and audience growth, you can gain insights into each pillar’s resonance with your target demographic. Regular reviews, ideally every month, allow you to pinpoint successful strategies and identify areas needing improvement. High-performing content pillars can drive community interaction, with specific themes achieving up to 30% higher engagement. Utilizing analytics tools enables you to track key performance indicators and visualize growth trends, making data-driven decisions easier. Furthermore, engaging in social listening and analyzing audience feedback can deepen your awareness of content effectiveness, helping you tailor your messaging to better meet audience preferences and improve overall engagement. Frequently Asked Questions What Are Content Pillars and Why Are They Important? Content pillars are strategic themes that help you organize your social media content. They’re important as they provide a clear framework, ensuring your posts align with your brand values and audience interests. What Are the 5 Pillars of Social Media? The five pillars of social media content include educational, inspirational, promotional, community-building, and behind-the-scenes content. Educational content shares valuable insights and tips, building your authority. Inspirational posts nurture connections by highlighting success stories. Promotional content informs your audience about new offerings, blending sales with value. Community-building encourages interaction and feedback, strengthening relationships with your followers. Finally, behind-the-scenes content provides transparency, helping your audience feel more connected to your brand and its values. What Are the 4 Pillars of Content? The four pillars of content are Educational, Inspirational, Promotional, and Community-Building. Educational content delivers valuable insights, establishing your authority and trust. Inspirational content connects emotionally through real stories and achievements, making your brand relatable. Promotional content effectively highlights new offerings, blending information with value. Finally, Community-Building content encourages interaction and dialogue, creating a sense of belonging among your audience. Each pillar plays an essential role in engaging and retaining your audience effectively. What Are the Three Pillars of Social Media? The three pillars of social media are educational, inspirational, and promotional content. Educational content shares valuable information, like tips and tutorials, establishing your brand as an authority. Inspirational content connects with your audience emotionally through authentic stories and successes, nurturing community. Promotional content highlights your offerings, balancing sales with insights to keep your audience engaged. Together, these pillars create a thorough strategy that improves engagement and strengthens brand loyalty among your followers. Conclusion In summary, social media content pillars are crucial for creating a structured and effective content strategy. By defining clear themes, you can align your messaging with both brand values and audience interests, leading to greater engagement. Developing these pillars helps streamline content creation and maintain consistency, in the end promoting a cohesive brand narrative. As you implement and measure their impact, you’ll find that well-defined content pillars can greatly improve your social media presence and drive community interaction. Image via Google Gemini This article, "What Are Social Media Content Pillars and Why Matter?" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Social media content pillars are crucial themes that shape your brand’s messaging strategy. They guarantee that your content aligns with both your values and your audience’s interests. By defining 3-5 key pillars, you can maintain focus, avoid content fatigue, and promote a balanced mix of variety and consistency. Comprehending how to create and implement these pillars can greatly improve your engagement levels and strengthen your brand narrative. But how do you align these pillars with your business goals? Key Takeaways Social media content pillars are key themes that guide structured messaging, aligning content with brand values and audience interests. Establishing 3-5 pillars prevents content burnout while balancing variety and consistency in social media strategies. Content pillars streamline creation, enhance team collaboration, and foster a consistent narrative across all platforms. Regularly measuring engagement metrics helps evaluate the effectiveness of content pillars and refine strategies for better audience interaction. Utilizing content pillars can lead to higher engagement rates, driving community interaction and strengthening brand presence online. Understanding Social Media Content Pillars During traversing the vast terrain of social media, comprehending content pillars is essential for effective brand communication. Social media content pillars serve as key themes or overarching topics that help you structure your messaging. By establishing 3-5 content pillars, you can maintain focus as you provide variety, which prevents content burnout and boosts audience engagement. Content pillar examples might include educational posts, behind-the-scenes insights, or customer testimonials. Implementing a pillar content strategy simplifies the content creation process, allowing for better planning and collaboration among your team. Aligning your content with specific pillars not just meets audience expectations but also encourages a consistent brand narrative, in the end enhancing trust and loyalty over time. The Importance of Content Pillars in Social Media Strategy Content pillars are fundamental to any effective social media strategy, as they guarantee your messaging aligns with both your brand values and your audience’s interests. By categorizing your content into specific themes, you can streamline your creation process, reducing burnout and allowing for focused, meaningful posts. Utilizing 3-5 content pillars helps maintain a balance between variety and consistency, preventing overwhelm for both your strategy and your audience. This approach improves engagement by clearly communicating what followers can expect, nurturing trust through relevant content that meets their needs. Additionally, regularly tracking the performance of your content pillars allows you to identify successful patterns and areas for improvement, ensuring your social media presence continues to evolve effectively. How to Create Effective Content Pillars To create effective content pillars, you need to start by defining core themes that resonate with your audience’s interests and pain points. Aligning these themes with what your customers care about guarantees your content remains relevant and engaging. Finally, mapping each pillar to specific content formats and social media channels enables you to leverage the strengths of each platform for better audience engagement. Define Core Themes Creating effective content pillars is essential for guiding your social media strategy, as they serve as the backbone of your messaging. Start by defining core themes that resonate with your brand values, aiming for 3 to 5 key themes. Conduct an audience analysis to understand their demographics, preferences, and pain points; this insight helps tailor your pillars effectively. Next, perform a social media audit to review existing content, identifying successful themes and gaps. Each pillar should have a clear purpose linked to broader marketing goals, such as increasing brand awareness or enhancing audience engagement. Finally, use a content calendar to organize and schedule posts, ensuring you deliver consistent and varied content that keeps your audience engaged without redundancy. Align With Audience Interests How can you guarantee your content pillars resonate with your audience? Start by conducting thorough audience research to uncover their demographics, preferences, and pain points. This guarantees your content aligns with their interests. Utilize social listening tools to monitor trending topics and conversations, refining your pillars accordingly. Develop 3-5 core themes that reflect your brand values during addressing your audience’s specific needs, creating a focused yet diverse strategy. Regularly analyze competitors’ content performance to identify gaps and opportunities, keeping your pillars relevant. Finally, test and iterate based on audience feedback and engagement metrics, allowing for continuous adaptation and improvement of your content strategy over time. This systematic approach will help you create effective content pillars that truly resonate. Map Content Formats Mapping content formats is essential for aligning your content pillars with the most effective delivery methods. By matching each pillar to suitable formats like videos, infographics, or blog posts, you can engage diverse audience preferences. Each content pillar needs a clear purpose, guiding you to choose the right types, such as tutorials for educational pillars and product showcases for promotional ones. Utilizing templates can streamline your process, creating consistent messaging during remaining adaptable. Regularly evaluating performance reveals which formats resonate best, allowing for continuous improvement. Diversifying formats within each pillar nurtures creativity and keeps your audience engaged. Content Pillar Format Type Purpose Educational Tutorials Teach and inform Promotional Product Showcases Highlight offerings Inspirational Quotes Motivate and uplift Entertaining Memes Engage and amuse Informative Blog Posts Provide in-depth insights Examples of Content Pillars Across Different Industries Even though each industry may tailor its content pillars to meet specific audience needs, there are some common themes that emerge across various sectors. In the fashion industry, you’ll often see product showcases and sustainability initiatives. The travel sector highlights destination features and guest testimonials to attract bookings. Healthcare focuses on health tips and patient stories, cultivating trust with audiences. In food and beverage, menu highlights and behind-the-scenes content drive foot traffic, whereas e-commerce brands leverage product highlights and customer reviews to engage shoppers. Aligning Content Pillars With Business Goals To effectively drive business success, aligning your content pillars with your overall objectives is vital. Each piece of content should contribute to your overarching goals, such as brand awareness or sales growth. Here are four key strategies to take into account: Define Purpose: Clearly outline the intent behind each content pillar to create resonating messages. Maintain Consistency: Keep a coherent narrative across platforms to strengthen your brand identity and customer loyalty. Link to KPIs: Tailor content to specific performance indicators, such as using educational content to boost website traffic. Regularly Review: Adjust your pillars based on any shifts in business strategy to guarantee ongoing relevance and effectiveness. Measuring the Impact of Content Pillars on Engagement To measure the impact of your content pillars on engagement, start by reviewing key engagement metrics like likes, shares, and comments. These statistics provide valuable insights into how well your content resonates with your audience. Engagement Metrics Overview Comprehending engagement metrics is crucial for evaluating how well your content pillars resonate with your audience. By measuring engagement, you can assess the effectiveness of your content strategies. Here are four key engagement metrics to focus on: Likes: Indicate general approval and interest in your content. Shares: Show how often your audience values your content enough to share it with others. Comments: Reflect direct audience interaction and feedback, revealing deeper insights into preferences. Saves: Highlight content that your audience finds useful, encouraging future visits. Tracking these metrics over time lets you identify which pillars engage your audience most. Analyzing Content Performance Analyzing content performance is crucial for grasping how effectively your content pillars engage your audience. By examining metrics like engagement rates, click-through rates, and audience growth, you can gain insights into each pillar’s resonance with your target demographic. Regular reviews, ideally every month, allow you to pinpoint successful strategies and identify areas needing improvement. High-performing content pillars can drive community interaction, with specific themes achieving up to 30% higher engagement. Utilizing analytics tools enables you to track key performance indicators and visualize growth trends, making data-driven decisions easier. Furthermore, engaging in social listening and analyzing audience feedback can deepen your awareness of content effectiveness, helping you tailor your messaging to better meet audience preferences and improve overall engagement. Frequently Asked Questions What Are Content Pillars and Why Are They Important? Content pillars are strategic themes that help you organize your social media content. They’re important as they provide a clear framework, ensuring your posts align with your brand values and audience interests. What Are the 5 Pillars of Social Media? The five pillars of social media content include educational, inspirational, promotional, community-building, and behind-the-scenes content. Educational content shares valuable insights and tips, building your authority. Inspirational posts nurture connections by highlighting success stories. Promotional content informs your audience about new offerings, blending sales with value. Community-building encourages interaction and feedback, strengthening relationships with your followers. Finally, behind-the-scenes content provides transparency, helping your audience feel more connected to your brand and its values. What Are the 4 Pillars of Content? The four pillars of content are Educational, Inspirational, Promotional, and Community-Building. Educational content delivers valuable insights, establishing your authority and trust. Inspirational content connects emotionally through real stories and achievements, making your brand relatable. Promotional content effectively highlights new offerings, blending information with value. Finally, Community-Building content encourages interaction and dialogue, creating a sense of belonging among your audience. Each pillar plays an essential role in engaging and retaining your audience effectively. What Are the Three Pillars of Social Media? The three pillars of social media are educational, inspirational, and promotional content. Educational content shares valuable information, like tips and tutorials, establishing your brand as an authority. Inspirational content connects with your audience emotionally through authentic stories and successes, nurturing community. Promotional content highlights your offerings, balancing sales with insights to keep your audience engaged. Together, these pillars create a thorough strategy that improves engagement and strengthens brand loyalty among your followers. Conclusion In summary, social media content pillars are crucial for creating a structured and effective content strategy. By defining clear themes, you can align your messaging with both brand values and audience interests, leading to greater engagement. Developing these pillars helps streamline content creation and maintain consistency, in the end promoting a cohesive brand narrative. As you implement and measure their impact, you’ll find that well-defined content pillars can greatly improve your social media presence and drive community interaction. Image via Google Gemini This article, "What Are Social Media Content Pillars and Why Matter?" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Not every Black Friday deal is as sweet as it seems. With electronics in particular, that fresh price tag might mean getting tricked into buying a cheaper model of the thing you actually want. Or, you could be buying last year's model that has actually been on sale since the summer—maybe even at a better price a few months ago. Here’s how to avoid impulse buying a misleading Black Friday “deal” and make sure you’re getting the best bang for your buck. Why you shouldn't impulse buy electronics on Black Friday When you see products like food, clothes, or home goods with a big ol’ Black Friday tag slapped on them, it's probable safe to take advantage of that deal. Chances are it is the same exact product you'd find on other days of the year. The same can’t be said for a TV. Many electronics sold during Black Friday are special "doorbusters" or retailer-exclusive models produced specifically for the holiday shopping season. These versions often feature cheaper components, fewer features, or lower specifications than their regular counterparts. A 55-inch TV from a reputable brand might look identical to the year-round model, but it could have a lower refresh rate, inferior panel technology, or fewer HDMI ports. So sure, you can go with the cheaper TV on Black Friday, but think about the value of what you’re buying. In the same vein, that "amazing deal" on a laptop might be on last year's processor or a smartphone that's about to be replaced. Retailers clear out aging inventory during Black Friday, and while the discount looks impressive, you're buying technology that's already outdated. The issue isn't that the tech is an older model, but that it has actually been at this low a price—or lower!—since the summer. Alternatively, some deeply discounted electronics are refurbished units or open-box returns that have been repackaged. Again, while this isn't necessarily bad, impulse buyers may not realize what they're purchasing. How to tell if a Black Friday sale is a good dealThe key phrasing here is impulse buying. Black Friday is psychologically engineered to trigger impulse purchases. Limited-time offers, countdown clocks, and "while supplies last" warnings create artificial urgency that short-circuits rational decision-making. When you're caught up in the moment, it's easy to convince yourself you need a new tablet, smartwatch, or gaming console, even if you hadn't considered buying one before. In order to avoid a low-key scam, you should do your research. The easiest way to tell that you’re getting the correct product is by checking the model or serial number. And with online shopping, finding and double-checking those numbers is quick and easy. Seriously, don't just compare prices—compare specs. Look at processor speeds, RAM, storage capacity, screen resolution, refresh rates, and connectivity options. A $300 laptop isn't a deal if a slightly more expensive model offers significantly better performance that will last you years longer. If you do see a deal that catches your eye, it could pay to wait. Cyber Monday, post-Christmas sales, and even January clearances often feature electronics deals that rival or beat Black Friday prices, all without the famous chaos and pressure. Then again, you risk more “out-of-stock” results if you wait, so the risk is up to you, depending on the popularity of the item you’re eyeing (and how badly you want it). The bottom line: Don’t fall victim to a falsely-advertised lower-quality product, and make the most of holiday deals by doing a little research ahead of time. View the full article

A reader writes: I recently took a new job in my same industry and city. In my new role, I’ll have a team of eight reporting to me in various capacities and functions. During the interview process, I got a brief read-out of the team and a high level talent assessment. Nothing stood out as an issue. On my first day, I met the team reporting to me. One of the people on the team is someone that worked for me before and who I terminated for cause due to performance at my previous company. What do I communicate to my management team and/or HR about this situation? It feels weird to say nothing because ultimately, this could be a management issue — I’m sure this employee doesn’t feel great about the situation. On the other hand, I don’t want to risk harming this person’s reputation at this company if they are doing a good job so far. This person is pretty new here, too, and my impression is they are either doing a better job in this role or management has not yet identified an issue with their performance. I answer this question — and two others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here. Other questions I’m answering there today include: Why do people respond to emails with a phone call? Setting boundaries on requests for help from a significant other’s network The post my new employee is someone I fired at my old job appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

Social media group has beaten antitrust suit brought by the Federal Trade CommissionView the full article

In November, 41% of builders reported cutting prices, a record in the post-Covid period, according to Tuesday's report. More broadly, 65% reported using sales incentives, unchanged from the prior two months. View the full article

Work management tools are essential for teams looking to streamline tasks, improve collaboration and boost productivity. The best work management tools combine automation, reporting and integrations to help teams manage projects more efficiently. Whether you’re a small business or enterprise, choosing the right tool can save time, reduce errors and provide visibility into every aspect of work. What Are Work Management Tools? Work management tools are software solutions designed to help teams plan, organize and track tasks and projects. They centralize workflows, making it easier to assign tasks, monitor progress and communicate updates. These tools often include features for collaboration, resource management and reporting, allowing managers and team members to work together efficiently. They can be used across industries for project management, operations and day-to-day team tasks. By using work management tools, organizations can gain visibility into project performance, improve accountability and reduce wasted time. They help ensure that deadlines are met and resources are allocated effectively, making work more predictable and efficient. What Features Make the Best Work Management Tools? The best work management tools include several key features that enhance productivity and team coordination. These features support task tracking, collaboration and resource management while providing data for informed decision-making. Below are essential features to look for: Task management: Create, assign and prioritize tasks to keep projects on track Team collaboration: Enable communication, file sharing and real-time updates Workflow automation: Automate repetitive tasks and approvals to save time Timesheets: Track hours worked for better project and payroll management Workload management: Balance team workloads to prevent bottlenecks Resource management: Monitor availability and allocation of people and equipment Cost tracking: Track budgets and expenses to ensure financial control 2025 Best Work Management Tools Rankings Here are the top work management tools for the year, selected for their features, ease of use and ability to help teams manage tasks, resources and projects efficiently. Each tool offers unique advantages depending on team size, workflow complexity and budget considerations. These tools simplify collaboration, improve visibility and keep projects on schedule while helping managers track resources and costs effectively. 1. ProjectManager/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/auth0-pm-logo-dark.png ProjectManager is a full-featured work management tool designed to help teams plan, execute and track projects in real time. It combines task management, resource allocation and reporting to give managers a clear view of progress and potential risks. Its flexibility supports multiple project views, including Gantt charts, kanban boards and task lists, making it easy to adapt to any workflow. Schedule With Gantt Charts With ProjectManager, teams can create visual timelines for all project tasks, set dependencies and adjust schedules using drag-and-drop functionality. Gantt charts provide a clear overview of deadlines and project progress, helping managers identify delays early and make informed decisions. Plus, all four types of task dependencies can be linked to avoid cost overruns. It can also filter for the critical path and set a baseline to track progress in real time, while AI Project Insights offers instant summaries and recommendations. This keeps the entire team aligned and ensures projects stay on track. /wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Ai-insights-lightmode-gantt-gpt5.png Track Your Resources ProjectManager allows managers to monitor team availability, assign tasks based on skillsets and prevent overallocation. The color-coded workload chart provides real-time insights into workloads and project capacity, allowing managers to forecast future needs and optimize productivity. It also helps in balancing tasks across teams to reduce bottlenecks and improve efficiency. The team page offers a daily or weekly overview that can be filtered by progress and priority, as well as update tasks without leaving the page. /wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-Light-2554x1372-1.png Streamline Payroll The tool tracks hours worked through integrated and secure timesheets, enabling managers to monitor labor costs and project budgets accurately. Payroll data can be exported for quick processing, reducing administrative work and ensuring team members are compensated correctly. This integration improves financial oversight and helps teams maintain profitability while tracking project performance. /wp-content/uploads/2024/05/timesheet-lightmode-good-version-lots-of-tasks.png All this and real-time dashboards and reporting powered by AI, which offers instant summaries and insightful recommendations, is why ProjectManager is at the top of our list. Click here to start a 30-day free trial! Verdict: Best Online Construction Scheduling Software for Construction Project Management ProjectManager Pros & Key Features Real-time dashboards for instant project visibility Multiple project views, including Gantt charts, kanban boards and task lists Task automation to streamline workflows Collaboration tools for team communication and file sharing Resource planning and workload management Cost tracking and integrated timesheets Cloud-based accessibility for remote teams Improved communication and project efficiency ProjectManager Cons & Limitations Interface can be complex for first-time users Advanced reporting features may overwhelm smaller teams Higher pricing compared with simpler work management tools Requires onboarding to use all features effectively ProjectManager Pricing Team: $14.00/user/month Business: $26.00/user/month Enterprise: contact sales for a custom quote ProjectManager Reviews G2 review: 4.4/5 Capterra review: 4.1/5 Highlighted User Reviews “ProjectManager works very well with both large and small-scale projects. Being able to use this with anything from a project involving only two members of staff, to hundreds, has been invaluable.” Peter W – from Capterra “We used to manage our projects, resources, and reporting in different systems. Enter ProjectManager. We have consolidated systems and work more efficiently.” Jeffrey M – from Capterra “Having the full scope of activities and who is responsible to do it, plus the time tracking is excellent.” Flavio M – from G2 “It has an excellent accounting system capable of calculating the time that a person has used to develop a task that was assigned to him, I like being able to collaborate with all my colleagues in the Finance sector through ProjectManager.” Jesus C – from G2 “The UI of the application is user-friendly, and it helps to identify what we are looking for with minimal effort.” Pavan H – from G2 2. Asana/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/asana-logo-vector-4.png Asana is a popular work management tool that is easy to use and has a clean interface. It allows teams to manage tasks, track projects, and collaborate in real time. Its flexibility supports multiple views, including lists, boards and calendars, making it suitable for a variety of workflows and project types. /wp-content/uploads/2024/03/8b4f812cc973f4543d46248c3af59a9be202ab62.jpg However, Asana has limitations. It lacks advanced resource management features, detailed cost tracking and native timesheet functionality. Reporting options are somewhat basic, which can make it difficult for larger teams or complex projects to get the full visibility they need. These gaps may require additional tools to fill. Verdict: Best Work Management Tools for Small Teams Asana Pros & Key Features Intuitive, user-friendly interface Task and project tracking Multiple project views: list, board, calendar Real-time team collaboration and communication Flexible workflows suitable for various project types Asana Cons & Limitations Limited resource management capabilities Basic reporting and analytics No native timesheet or cost tracking May require third-party integrations for complex project needs Asana Pricing Premium plan: $10.99/user/month, billed annually Business plan: $24.99/user/month, billed annually Asana Reviews G2 review: 4.4/5 Capterra review: 4.5/5 Highlighted User Reviews “I can create tasks, set their dates, routines, collaborate with my teammates, see their tasks, private my tasks, and so much more.” Shivam K – from G2 “The dashboard view is the main benefit; it helped me organize the work into stages and gave me a clear picture of how far along the team was.” Carrie C – from G2 3. Monday.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Monday_logo.png Monday.com is a versatile work management tool that allows teams to visualize projects with customizable boards, timelines and dashboards. Its automation capabilities streamline repetitive tasks and it supports collaboration through updates, file attachments and comment threads. Teams can manage workflows efficiently and adapt the platform to a wide range of project types. /wp-content/uploads/2023/10/monday.com-gantt-chart-2.webp However, Monday.com has drawbacks. Advanced reporting and resource management features are limited without premium plans. Its pricing can be higher than other tools, and smaller teams may find the interface overwhelming at first. Some users also rely on integrations for full timesheet, cost tracking and analytics functionality. Verdict: Best Work Management Tools for Simple Projects Monday.com Pros & Key Features Customizable project boards and dashboards Task automation and workflow management Multiple project views: timeline, kanban, calendar Team collaboration with comments and file sharing Flexible and scalable for different project types Monday.com Cons & Limitations Advanced reporting and resource management are limited to higher plans Higher pricing compared to simpler tools Interface can be overwhelming for smaller teams Requires integrations for full timesheet and cost tracking Monday.com Pricing Pro: $7 per user/month (maximum of 10 users) Business: $25 per user/month (minimum of 3 users) Monday.com Reviews G2 review: 4.4/5 Capterra review: 4.5/5 Highlighted User Reviews “I truly recommend using Monday.com to small to medium scale enterprises because of its ease of use.” Vikas G – from G2 “I really like the Monday.com work management interface.” Luiz Fernando J – from G2 4. Smartsheet/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/smartsheet-logo.svg Smartsheet is a work management tool that combines the familiarity of spreadsheets with advanced project management features. It offers Gantt charts, dashboards, automation and collaboration tools that allow teams to plan, track and manage work efficiently. Resource allocation, reporting and workflow customization help teams of any size stay organized and aligned on project goals. /wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Smartsheet-Timeline-GA-1.png However, Smartsheet may not be ideal for all users. Its interface can be complex for beginners and requires training. Some features, such as advanced reporting and resource management, may need higher-tier plans. Smaller teams might find it overwhelming and rely on integrations for full timesheet, cost tracking and analytics capabilities. Verdict: Best Work Management Tools for Spreadsheet Users Smartsheet Pros & Key Features Combines spreadsheet interface with advanced project management Gantt charts and dashboards for project visibility Automation and workflow customization Collaboration tools for team updates and file sharing Resource allocation and reporting features Smartsheet Cons & Limitations Complex interface that requires training Advanced features often need higher-tier plans May be overwhelming for smaller teams Integrations needed for full timesheet and cost tracking Smartsheet Pricing Pro: $7/user/month (maximum of 10 users) Business: $25/user/month (minimum of 3 users) Smartsheet Reviews G2 review: 4.4/5 Capterra review: 4.5/5 Highlighted User Reviews “Smartsheet is a great platform for data visualization and project management.” Pathan I – from Capterra “Easily allows a sharable document that concurrent users can view and make live changes to.” Steven K – from G2 5. Notion/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Notion-600x218.png Notion is a flexible work management tool that allows teams to organize projects, tasks and documentation in one platform. Its customizable databases, kanban boards, calendars and wikis make it easy to manage workflows and centralize information. Teams can collaborate in real time and track progress with a simple, intuitive interface that adapts to various project types. /wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Notion-Gantt-chart.png However, Notion may not meet the needs of all project teams. It lacks advanced resource management, cost tracking and automated reporting features found in dedicated project management software. Large teams or complex projects may find it challenging to scale and require additional tools for workload balancing and analytics. Verdict: Best Work Management Tools for Notetaking Notion Pros & Key Features Flexible platform for tasks, projects and documentation Customizable databases, kanban boards, calendars and wikis Real-time collaboration for teams Intuitive interface adaptable to different project types Centralizes information and workflows in one place Notion Cons & Limitations Lacks advanced resource management features No built-in cost tracking or automated reporting May be difficult to scale for large teams Requires additional tools for workload balancing and analytics Notion Pricing Free Plus: $12/user/month Business: $18/user/month Enterprise: Contact sales Notion Reviews G2 review: 4.7/5 Capterra review: 4.3/5 Highlighted User Reviews “It is versatile and user-friendly. I like it as a note-taking and planning tool.” Haocheng L. – from Capterra “Ease of use and cross-compatibility with other software like Asana, etc.” Laura S. – from Capterra 6. ClickUp/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/ClickUp-logo1-600x231.png ClickUp is one of the most popular work management tools because it offers a wide range of features that help teams organize tasks, manage workflows and track productivity. It combines project management, time tracking and collaboration in one place, giving users flexibility to customize their workspace. Its templates, automation options and integrations make it a solid choice for teams looking to centralize their work processes. /wp-content/uploads/2023/12/clickup-gantt-chart-view.png However, ClickUp can feel overwhelming for new users due to its feature-heavy interface and steep learning curve. Some teams find that performance slows with large projects or complex boards. While it’s one of the most comprehensive work management tools, its customization options can require time to set up and maintain, making it less ideal for teams that prefer simplicity and quick onboarding. <span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span> Verdict: Best Work Management Tools for Customization ClickUp Pros & Key Features All-in-one platform for project, task and time management Customizable dashboards and workflows Built-in templates and automation options Strong integrations with other work management tools Real-time collaboration features for teams ClickUp Cons and Limitations Complex interface can be difficult for beginners Performance issues with large or detailed projects Setup and customization require extra time May be too advanced for teams that prefer simpler tools ClickUp Pricing Unlimited: $7/user/month, billed annually Business: $12/user/month, billed annually Enterprise: contact sales ClickUp Reviews G2 review: 4.7/5 Capterra review: 4.6/5 Highlighted User Reviews “Good for operational tasks and customer support.” Hovhannes G – from G2 “ClickUp sits right in the middle between typical task management tools and business platforms.” Pawel M – from Capterra 7. Wrike/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/wrike-logo_color_black_RGB-600x120.png Wrike is a reliable option among work management tools, offering strong project planning, task tracking and reporting capabilities. It provides customizable dashboards, Gantt charts and workflow automation that help teams stay aligned on deliverables. Its real-time visibility into projects makes it suitable for marketing, operations and IT teams that need clear insight into workload and deadlines. /wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Wrike-Scheduling-Screenshot.avif However, Wrike’s interface can feel cluttered for smaller teams, and setup often takes time due to its advanced customization options. Some users report that navigation feels unintuitive at first, especially when managing multiple workspaces. While Wrike can be a useful work management tool, its cost and complexity may not suit teams seeking a straightforward, budget-friendly solution. Verdict: Best Work Management Tools for Marketing Wrike Pros & Key Features Comprehensive project and task management tools Customizable dashboards and workflow automation Built-in Gantt charts and time tracking Strong reporting and workload visibility Collaboration tools that improve team communication Wrike Cons and Limitations Interface can feel cluttered for smaller teams Steeper learning curve for new users Setup and customization require time and effort Pricing may be high for smaller organizations Wrike Pricing Pro: $7/user/month (maximum of 10 users) Business: $25/user/month (minimum of 3 users) Wrike Reviews G2 review: 4.4/5 Capterra review: 4.1/5 Highlighted User Reviews “Wrike has become essential in my day and keeps me organized and on top of my tasks.” Paige T – from G2 “Productivity has been enhanced by removing essential but repetitive chores.” Denise S – from G2 8. Microsoft Planner/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Microsoft-Planner-logo-e1721403784754.webp Microsoft Planner is a simple and accessible option among work management tools, especially for teams already using Microsoft 365. It integrates seamlessly with Outlook, Teams and SharePoint, making it easy to assign tasks, track progress and share updates. Its intuitive kanban-style boards are ideal for visual task tracking and quick collaboration on small to medium projects. /wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Microsoft-Planner-Grid.png However, Microsoft Planner lacks the depth and flexibility of more advanced work management tools. It does not include Gantt charts, resource tracking or robust reporting features. Larger teams managing complex projects may find it limiting and cross-project visibility is minimal. It can’t even import old Microsoft Project files. While Planner works well for basic task coordination, it’s not built for comprehensive project management. Best Work Management Tools for Microsoft Users Microsoft Planner Pros & Key Features Seamless integration with Microsoft 365 apps Simple Kanban-style boards for task tracking Easy collaboration through Teams and Outlook Quick setup with minimal learning curve Ideal for small to medium-sized teams Microsoft Planner Cons and Limitations Lacks Gantt charts and advanced scheduling tools No resource or workload management Limited reporting and analytics Minimal cross-project visibility Microsoft Planner Pricing Before diving into the pricing plans available for Microsoft Planner, it’s important to understand that there are two main versions of this software: Microsoft Planner Basic and Microsoft Planner Premium. Microsoft Planner Basic Pricing Plans This is the version that is included in most Microsoft 365 subscriptions. Good for lightweight task management. Starts from $6 to $22 per user per month, billed annually. Price varies depending on the Microsoft 365 subscription. Microsoft 365 Business Basic: $6.00/user/month, billed annually Microsoft 365 Business Standard: $12.50/user/month, billed annually Microsoft 365 Business Premium: $22.00/user/month, billed annually Microsoft 365 Apps for Business: $8.25/user/month, billed annually Microsoft Planner Premium Pricing Plans The next level up, for users or teams needing more advanced project management features. Planner Plan 1: $10.00/user/month, billed annually Planner and Project Plan 3: $30.00/user/month, billed annually Planner and Project Plan 5: $55.00/user/month, billed annually For more detailed information about each of these Microsoft Planner plans and the features that are available for each pricing tier, visit our Microsoft Planner blog. Microsoft Planner Reviews G2 review: 4.2/5 Capterra review: 4.3/5 Highlighted User Reviews “Overall, my experience with Microsoft Planner has been very positive, as it has helped my team share tasks and establish procedures to follow.” Alvaro G – from G2 ”User Interface and its simplicity to manage tasks and allocate to agents.” Hitesh A. – from G2 9. Microsoft Lists /wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Microsoft-Lists-Logo.webp Microsoft Lists is an addition to Microsoft’s suite of work management tools. It helps teams organize, track and manage information in a structured way, making it great for tracking assets, tasks and workflows. Its integration with Teams, Power Automate and SharePoint allows users to create customized workflows and automate repetitive tasks without leaving the Microsoft ecosystem. /wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Microsoft-Lists-Screenshot.jpg However, Microsoft Lists is not a full-featured project management solution. It lacks features like Gantt charts, time tracking and resource management. While it’s flexible for organizing data, it can feel limited for managing complex projects that require scheduling, collaboration and reporting tools. Teams seeking more robust work management tools may find Lists too basic. Best Work Management Tools for Simple Task Management Microsoft Lists Pros & Key Features Fully integrated with Microsoft 365 apps Highly customizable list-based tracking system Supports automation through Power Automate Works well for managing structured data and workflows Accessible within Teams and SharePoint Microsoft Lists Cons and Limitations No Gantt charts or timeline views Lacks resource and time tracking features Limited collaboration tools compared to other platforms Not ideal for managing complex, multi-phase projects Microsoft Lists Pricing Microsoft Lists doesn’t have a separate price; it’s included in several Microsoft 365 subscription plans. Microsoft 365 Business Basic: $4.40/user/month Microsoft 365 Business Standard: $9.29/user/month Microsoft 365 Business Premium: $22/user/month Microsoft List Reviews Capterra Review: 4.0/5 Highlighted User Reviews We use Microsoft Lists to track client training records. Using Power Apps, we’ve been able to set reminders of upcoming expiry dates sent directly to the client.” Scott R. – from Capterra “Known Microsoft environment and integration with other Microsoft tools make it easy to use for simple task tracking.” Filip S. – from Capterra 10. Trello /wp-content/uploads/2022/02/trello-600x123.png Trello is a simple and visually appealing option among work management tools. It uses a Kanban board layout that makes task tracking easy and intuitive. Teams can quickly create cards, assign tasks and track progress across projects. Its drag-and-drop functionality and integrations with tools like Slack and Google Drive make it accessible for both small teams and individuals managing day-to-day tasks. /wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Trello-kanban-board.webp Despite its ease of use, Trello can feel limited for larger or more complex projects. It lacks advanced features like time tracking, resource management and reporting tools. As projects grow, managing many boards becomes cumbersome and can lead to clutter. While great for small teams, Trello may not meet the needs of organizations requiring detailed planning and analytics. Verdict: Best Work Management Tools for Kanban Trello Pros & Key Features Easy-to-use kanban board interface Quick task creation and drag-and-drop organization Integrates with popular tools like Slack and Google Drive Highly visual design ideal for small teams Free plan available with core features Trello Cons and Limitations Lacks time tracking and resource management Limited reporting and analytics capabilities Can become cluttered as projects expand Not suited for complex or multi-phase project planning Trello Pricing Standard: $5/user/month, billed annually Premium: $10/user/month, billed annually Enterprise: $17.50/user/month, billed annually Trello Reviews G2 review: 4.4/5 Capterra review: 4.5/5 Highlighted User Reviews “It allows me to add collaborators, sort my boards, add due dates, notes for each item and assign labels (plus more). All in all, it’s a very useful tool for organization and communication on collaborative tasks with your team.” – Sarah E, from G2 “The fact that the price is worth it, makes it great. It is also so easy to use and manage. I love it.” – Zoe S. from Capterra What Are the Main Benefits of Using Work Management Tools? Work management tools help teams plan, organize and execute tasks efficiently while keeping everyone aligned on priorities. They improve communication across departments and provide real-time insights into project progress, resource allocation and budgets. By consolidating multiple functions into a single platform, these tools reduce manual work, prevent errors and allow teams to focus on delivering value. The following sections explain the primary benefits of adopting work management tools and how they enhance overall project performance. Increased Operational Productivity and Efficiency Work management tools streamline task assignments and workflow processes, reducing time wasted on repetitive work. Teams can collaborate in real-time, track project progress and prioritize tasks effectively. Automation features, such as task reminders and recurring assignments, allow teams to focus on strategic initiatives instead of administrative work, boosting overall operational productivity and efficiency. Improved Visibility into Resource Utilization and Costs These tools provide detailed dashboards and reporting features that show how resources are allocated and used. Managers can monitor labor, equipment and budget consumption in real-time. By having clear visibility into resource utilization and costs, teams can avoid over-allocation, identify bottlenecks and optimize spending to ensure projects remain on track and within budget. Accurate Performance Tracking Work management tools allow project managers to measure key performance indicators and track progress against milestones. Teams can monitor task completion, deadlines and overall project health. With centralized data and automated reporting, performance tracking becomes more accurate, enabling data-driven decisions and timely adjustments to improve outcomes and meet project objectives. Related Work Management Content For readers interested in learning more about work management tools, check out the links below. They lead to articles with free templates, work plan examples and much more. 9 Work Templates for Excel and Word 5 Work Plan Examples You Can Learn From Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) Guide How to Write a Work Proposal (with Example & Template) How to Make an Annual Work Plan (Example Included) What Is a Statement of Work? Definition & Examples ProjectManager is online project and portfolio management software that connects teams, whether they’re in the office or out in the field. They can share files, comment at the task level and stay updated with email and in-app notifications. Get started with ProjectManager today for free. The post 10 Best Work Management Tools 2025 (Free & Paid) appeared first on ProjectManager. View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. No sooner do you dive into the DIY home repair and maintenance rabbit hole (a hole lined with all the money you'll save!) than you start to collect tools. Some of them will be single-use items that you'll store in your garage or toolshed for decades like a museum exhibit. But sometimes even these tools can surprise you by being way more useful than you might initially imagine. For me, the mini chainsaw was one of those tools. This one, specifically (I considered others, but I really wanted a one-handed, cordless option because I live in a small, urban house, not a sprawling farm that runs on firewood and steam). I bought it specifically for landscaping/pruning chores, but it’s quickly proven to be one of the most useful little tools I own—so useful, in fact, that I think every DIYer should have one. Here are just a few ways I put it to good use. Greenworks 24V Brushless Mini Chainsaw $90.99 at Amazon $99.99 Save $9.00 Shop Now Shop Now $90.99 at Amazon $99.99 Save $9.00 PruningThe initial use-case for the mini-chainsaw was for pruning back invasive branches and vines from my neighbor’s yard, which is almost sentient in its determination to colonize my property. I love my neighbors, and it’s not a point of conflict, but if I don’t stay on top of that situation, my whole house will be enveloped by a creeping vine that’s been colonizing their yrad so long it’s almost structural, and I’d never see the sun again due to the encroaching branches of their backyard trees. The mini chainsaw is perfect for this work. It slices right through the (surprisingly thick and robust) vines, as well as the tree branches. As it's a one-handed tool, I can safely wield it from a ladder without risking my fingers (or more critical body parts). Cutting through more than just branchesIf you think you only use chainsaws on lumber—cutting firewood, or clearing fallen trees—you’re wrong. What’s great about a chainsaw in general is that it slices through dense, thick material like that with ease. I’ve used mine to cut through stuff like PVC when doing minor plumbing work around the house, and it worked a charm. It’s also great for quick cuts on wood. While I wouldn’t use a chainsaw in place of a circular saw or table saw for precision cuts, it’s been a real time-saver to just trim a bit here and there, especially after I’ve secured a 2x4 in place with screws only to realize I miscalculated the initial cut by a quarter inch. The mini chainsaw just lops off the excess without drama. Some folks online claim they’ve used mini chainsaws to make quick cuts in drywall, but I’m not sure I’m going to try that. I'm sure it works, but it sure seems like unnecessary overkill. Demo workEvery DIY project starts with demo and removal, and a mini chainsaw has become an essential tool. For example, when I re-did a deck recently, I had to pull up and haul off all the old planks and structure. The mini chainsaw made it easy to cut everything down to a more manageable size so I wasn’t navigating 10-foot boards through the house. It was a fast, easy way to reduce a lot of cumbersome junk and prevent a bit of the inevitable damage I caused (to my back as well as my house). Having fun while DIYingThis isn't really a use-case, but it's worth mentioning all the same: mini chainsaws are fun to use. The ability to just press a button and slice away anything that’s irritating you is well worth the price all by itself. (If you're like me, the opportunity to make your own chainsaw noises while you use it is just an added, unnecessary bonus.) View the full article

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We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. With the holiday season just around the corner, deals on VR headsets are selling fast. The Meta Quest 3 continues to remain the gold standard in this arena. Right now, the more affordable but equally popular Meta Quest 3S (128GB with a Gorilla Tag bundle) is $249.99 (originally $299.99) on Amazon, marking a 17% discount and its lowest price ever, according to price-tracking tools. Meta Quest 3S VR Headset 128GB $299.99 at Amazon Get Deal Get Deal $299.99 at Amazon PCMag gave this headset an Editor’s Choice Award and dubbed it the “Best Affordable VR Headset”; this detailed review praises its fast processor, color-pass-through camera, and versatility across many games and apps. The Meta Quest 3 can work standalone or tethered to a PC. It has a 1,832-by-1,920 per-eye resolution, which is slightly grainier than the pricier Quest 3 but still crisp, and supports up to 120Hz refresh rate. The processor is on par with the Quest 3, but this sale model only has 128GB of storage, compared to the Quest 3’s 512 GB. While the battery is smaller, it’s longer-lasting (2.5 hours vs. 2.2 hours) due to the lower-resolution display. The headset features intuitive Meta Quest Touch Controllers identical to the Quest 3’s, but they must be in view of the headset to track accurately. The Meta Quest Library has a huge selection of experiences; that said, it’s better for gaming and gamified education, art, and exercise apps than for a serious work tool. While the graphics aren’t as sharp as the Quest 3 and have a narrower field of view, it offers an equally compelling VR experience for a lower price tag ($250 less), making the Meta Quest 3S a fantastic budget VR headset. Our Best Editor-Vetted Tech Deals Right Now Apple AirPods 4 Wireless Earbuds — $117.00 (List Price $129.00) Apple iPad 11" 128GB A16 WiFi Tablet (Blue, 2025) — $299.00 (List Price $349.00) Shark AV2501AE AI XL Hepa- Safe Self-Emptying Base Robot Vacuum — $294.99 (List Price $649.99) Amazon Fire HD 10 (2023) — $69.99 (List Price $139.99) Sony WH-1000XM5 — $248.00 (List Price $399.99) Blink Outdoor 4 1080p Wireless Security Camera (5-Pack) — $159.99 (List Price $399.99) Ring Floodlight Cam Wired Plus 1080p Security Camera (White) — $99.99 (List Price $179.99) Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Plus — $24.99 (List Price $49.99) NEW Bose Quiet Comfort Ultra Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones — $298.00 (List Price $429.00) Deals are selected by our commerce team View the full article

Google’s Gemini 3 Pro powers AI Mode with deeper reasoning, upgraded query fan-out, and new generative layouts. The post Google Brings Gemini 3 To Search’s AI Mode appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

The most closely watched earnings report of the quarter is tomorrow. That’s when AI chipmaking giant Nvidia will announce its third-quarter results. Ahead of those results, Nvidia shares are currently down in Tuesday trading. But NVDA shares aren’t the only chip stock that is falling today. Here’s which other chip companies are seeing significant stock price declines today, and the likely reason why. Chip stocks fall across the board As of the time of this writing, major chipmaking giants and the companies that supply them are seeing their share prices fall. These include: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMD): down 5.6% Arm Holdings plc (Nasdaq: ARM): down 3.9% ASML Holding N.V. (Nasdaq: ASML): down 2.2% Broadcom Inc. (Nasdaq: AVGO): down 1.7% Intel Corporation (Nasdaq: INTC): down 2.8% Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU): down 5.1% NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA): down 2.8% QUALCOMM Incorporated (Nasdaq: QCOM): down 2.6% Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE: TSM): down 2.6% The fall in chip stocks is part of a broader decline across multiple markets today. Currently, the S&P 500 is down 0.87%, the Dow is down 1%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq is down 1.3%. Perhaps the most significant driver behind today’s market falls is the growing fear that the tech sector is in an AI bubble, and that if that bubble pops, it could send shockwaves not just through the stock markets but also through the economy. The impact of an AI bubble popping in the broader economy is part of the reason even non-AI-related stocks are down today. In addition to chip companies, other major tech players are also seeing their shares sink this morning, especially those that have a considerable amount of exposure to AI, including Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT), down 2.5%; Amazon.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN), down 3.2%; Alphabet Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG), down 1%; and Meta Platforms, Inc. (Nasdaq: META), down 2.4%. Tech giants with more limited AI exposure, such as Apple, are trading relatively flat. Currently, shares in Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) are up about a tenth of a percent. Why are chip stocks in particular focus? Chip stocks are being scrutinized by investors today for one key reason: AI chip giant Nvidia announces its third-quarter earnings for fiscal 2026 tomorrow. As Fast Company previously reported, investor expectations for those earnings are high. Nvidia previously forecast revenue of between $52.9 billion and $55 billion for the quarter. But investor consensus estimates show that most investors expect Nvidia to come in on the high end of that spectrum. A series of consensus estimates shows that investors expect Nvidia to report revenue between $54.8 billion and $55.2 billion. But, a little more than 24 hours before Nvidia reveals if it’s met investors’ expectations, Wall Street seems to be getting the jitters, as investors and the media increasingly question whether the AI bubble is about to burst. It is likely that if Nvidia doesn’t hit the lofty expectations many expect, it will be taken as a sign that an AI bubble is upon us. The sell-off in chip stocks this morning is likely due to investors taking some profits in case Nvidia misses its estimates. Given that Nvidia acts as a bellwether for other chip companies and the AI sector as a whole, it is no surprise that investor jitters ahead of Nvidia’s earnings are spilling over to the stocks of other chipmaking companies. View the full article

In an age where efficiency and cost savings are paramount, Amazon Business has launched innovative AI-powered solutions that may reshape the purchasing landscape for small businesses. These tools, unveiled at the recent Amazon Business Reshape conference, offer significant benefits designed to simplify procurement processes, enhance operational efficiency, and help businesses save time and money. Amazon has introduced the Amazon Business Assistant, a tool that utilizes artificial intelligence to provide personalized purchasing guidance. This feature aims to optimize procurement by offering tailored suggestions based on user behavior and purchase history. According to Shelley Salomon, vice president of Amazon Business, “Now, with new, AI-enhanced tools, we’re empowering organizations to reduce costs, make data-driven buying decisions, and get support when and where they need it.” One of the key features of the Amazon Business Assistant is its ability to recommend more efficient buying methods. The assistant is easily accessible, sitting conveniently in the bottom corner of the user’s Amazon Business account. It provides instant, interactive recommendations that improve the shopping experience by making it easier to manage account settings and purchasing decisions. Small business owners can also benefit from a new tool called Savings Insights, available for U.S. Business Prime members. This feature analyzes purchase history and pricing patterns, presenting a user-friendly dashboard that identifies savings opportunities. Business Prime members can utilize this analytics tool to find Quantity Discounts, lower price options, and subscription savings, reducing the time spent on identifying budget-friendly choices. Adding to the arsenal of tools is Spend Anomaly Monitoring, a feature designed for U.S. Business Prime Enterprise plan administrators. This tool helps monitor unusual purchasing patterns, flagging significant deviations from typical spending to prevent overspending or misuse of resources. With its streamlined dashboard, administrators can quickly assess Four specific areas that may raise red flags, enhancing accountability without imposing restrictive limitations on purchasing. Through collaboration with AWS and Deloitte, Amazon Business also announced comprehensive AI solutions targeting industrial sectors, including manufacturing and utilities. These tools emphasize proactive decision-making based on real-time data analysis, which could prove invaluable for small businesses that rely on precise supply chain management. The forthcoming industrial manufacturing solution, set to launch in early 2026, aims to forecast possible disruptions in inventory and streamline order management. For small businesses, the implications of Amazon’s newly launched AI tools are substantial. Owners can expect more efficient procurement processes, reduced operational costs, and enhanced decision-making capabilities. This is especially relevant for businesses grappling with tight margins and a competitive marketplace. However, potential challenges lie ahead as well. Small business owners will need to navigate the learning curve associated with integrating these advanced technologies. Additionally, reliance on AI solutions may create concerns regarding data security and customer privacy, particularly as companies manage sensitive purchasing information. The increasing sophistication of the AI solutions under Amazon Business aims to not only help small businesses today but prepare them for the future. As Shelley Salomon notes, the goal is to create a “faster, smarter, and more transparent buying experience,” transforming traditional procurement processes and making them accessible to businesses of all sizes. As Amazon Business enhances its offerings and solidifies its role within various sectors globally, small business owners would do well to explore these new tools. They can leverage the capabilities of the Amazon Business Assistant, Savings Insights, and Spend Anomaly Monitoring to gain a competitive edge, ultimately improving their bottom line. Image via Google Gemini This article, "Amazon Unveils AI Business Assistant to Streamline Procurement Processes" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

In an age where efficiency and cost savings are paramount, Amazon Business has launched innovative AI-powered solutions that may reshape the purchasing landscape for small businesses. These tools, unveiled at the recent Amazon Business Reshape conference, offer significant benefits designed to simplify procurement processes, enhance operational efficiency, and help businesses save time and money. Amazon has introduced the Amazon Business Assistant, a tool that utilizes artificial intelligence to provide personalized purchasing guidance. This feature aims to optimize procurement by offering tailored suggestions based on user behavior and purchase history. According to Shelley Salomon, vice president of Amazon Business, “Now, with new, AI-enhanced tools, we’re empowering organizations to reduce costs, make data-driven buying decisions, and get support when and where they need it.” One of the key features of the Amazon Business Assistant is its ability to recommend more efficient buying methods. The assistant is easily accessible, sitting conveniently in the bottom corner of the user’s Amazon Business account. It provides instant, interactive recommendations that improve the shopping experience by making it easier to manage account settings and purchasing decisions. Small business owners can also benefit from a new tool called Savings Insights, available for U.S. Business Prime members. This feature analyzes purchase history and pricing patterns, presenting a user-friendly dashboard that identifies savings opportunities. Business Prime members can utilize this analytics tool to find Quantity Discounts, lower price options, and subscription savings, reducing the time spent on identifying budget-friendly choices. Adding to the arsenal of tools is Spend Anomaly Monitoring, a feature designed for U.S. Business Prime Enterprise plan administrators. This tool helps monitor unusual purchasing patterns, flagging significant deviations from typical spending to prevent overspending or misuse of resources. With its streamlined dashboard, administrators can quickly assess Four specific areas that may raise red flags, enhancing accountability without imposing restrictive limitations on purchasing. Through collaboration with AWS and Deloitte, Amazon Business also announced comprehensive AI solutions targeting industrial sectors, including manufacturing and utilities. These tools emphasize proactive decision-making based on real-time data analysis, which could prove invaluable for small businesses that rely on precise supply chain management. The forthcoming industrial manufacturing solution, set to launch in early 2026, aims to forecast possible disruptions in inventory and streamline order management. For small businesses, the implications of Amazon’s newly launched AI tools are substantial. Owners can expect more efficient procurement processes, reduced operational costs, and enhanced decision-making capabilities. This is especially relevant for businesses grappling with tight margins and a competitive marketplace. However, potential challenges lie ahead as well. Small business owners will need to navigate the learning curve associated with integrating these advanced technologies. Additionally, reliance on AI solutions may create concerns regarding data security and customer privacy, particularly as companies manage sensitive purchasing information. The increasing sophistication of the AI solutions under Amazon Business aims to not only help small businesses today but prepare them for the future. As Shelley Salomon notes, the goal is to create a “faster, smarter, and more transparent buying experience,” transforming traditional procurement processes and making them accessible to businesses of all sizes. As Amazon Business enhances its offerings and solidifies its role within various sectors globally, small business owners would do well to explore these new tools. They can leverage the capabilities of the Amazon Business Assistant, Savings Insights, and Spend Anomaly Monitoring to gain a competitive edge, ultimately improving their bottom line. Image via Google Gemini This article, "Amazon Unveils AI Business Assistant to Streamline Procurement Processes" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Tuesday morning was a stark reminder of how fragile the global internet really is. Websites from X to ChatGPT went offline as Cloudflare, the company they rely on for web infrastructure services, experienced a massive outage. A huge number of sites and services across the world contract Cloudflare for cybersecurity protections, as well as to route traffic through servers local to each user, all in the name of performance and reliability. Ironic, of course, given today's events. When the public experiences such a massive internet outage, speculation runs awry. What caused this? Was it a simple bug on Cloudflare's part, or something malicious? Are bad actors attacking Cloudflare, and the sites that rely on it? But, as it turns out, the reason appears to be closer to the former than the latter. Cloudflare's outage was a glitchIn a statement to Mashable, Cloudflare confirmed that the company had identified the cause of the issue, and had rolled out a fix to patch it. In addition, Cloudflare is adamant there is no reason to believe a cyberattack caused this outage. This is the full statement: "Many of Cloudflare's services experienced a significant outage today beginning around 11:20 UTC. It was fully resolved at 14:30 UTC. The root cause of the outage was a configuration file that is automatically generated to manage threat traffic. The file grew beyond an expected size of entries and triggered a crash in the software system that handles traffic for a number of Cloudflare's services. To be clear, there is no evidence that this was the result of an attack or caused by malicious activity. We expect that some Cloudflare services will be briefly degraded as traffic naturally spikes post incident but we expect all services to return to normal in the next few hours. A detailed explanation will be posted soon on blog.cloudflare.com. Given the importance of Cloudflare's services, any outage is unacceptable. We apologize to our customers and the Internet in general for letting you down today. We will learn from today's incident and improve." It seems the reason for the outage was a preventative measure meant to block a potential cyberattack. While that goal is obviously important, it shows how complex these systems really are: One glitch with one cybersecurity protocol spun out of control, and took down the network en masse. View the full article