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In 2025, managing paid search isn’t just about adjusting bids or split testing ad copy. It’s about navigating a complex, data-rich environment where performance depends heavily on the supporting tools you use. Today, PPC professionals are expected to handle cross-channel attribution, rapidly test creative, track micro-conversions, and make sense of fragmented reporting dashboards. With Google constantly rolling out changes – like Performance Max, Consent Mode v2, and new AI-generated ad formats – staying ahead means building the right tool stack. These 10 tools give you the edge to move faster, think smarter, and drive better results. 1. Google Ads Editor Category: Core campaign management Google Ads Editor is a downloadable application from Google that allows you to: Make bulk edits. Manage campaigns offline. Push large-scale changes faster than the web UI. It’s ideal for anyone managing multiple campaigns or complex accounts with frequent adjustments. Why it’s useful It provides unmatched control and speed when building or editing campaigns. Unlike the web interface, you can: Duplicate campaigns. Filter by advanced criteria. Work without internet connectivity. Use case Let’s say you’re launching a multi-location campaign for a franchise client with region-specific ad copy. Google Ads Editor allows you to: Clone campaigns. Update location-specific assets. Upload all at once without toggling between interfaces. 2. Looker Studio Category: Reporting and dashboards Looker Studio is Google’s free data visualization and dashboard tool. It enables marketers to build live, interactive reports and integrates seamlessly with Google Ads, GA4, and other data sources for streamlined performance reporting. Why it’s useful It turns raw PPC data into visual dashboards that are easy to understand and share. This is great for tracking KPIs across campaigns or providing transparent client reporting. Use case Create a live Performance Max performance dashboard segmented by asset group and conversion value to show clients exactly which creative is driving results. Dig deeper: 5 things your Google Looker Studio PPC Dashboard must have 3. Supermetrics Category: Data integration Supermetrics is a powerful ETL (extract, transform, load) tool that pulls data from advertising platforms into: Google Sheets. Excel. BigQuery. Looker Studio. It’s essential for automating performance tracking across platforms. Why it’s useful Instead of exporting CSVs manually, Supermetrics automates your reporting pipeline and helps combine paid search data with other sources like Meta, HubSpot, or Shopify. Use case Combine Supermetrics + Looker Studio to visualize daily budget pacing against monthly goals for each campaign in your manager account. 4. ChatGPT Category: Creative + strategic assistant ChatGPT is an advanced language model from OpenAI that can generate human-like responses, making it incredibly versatile for marketing tasks. It excels at ideation, writing, data analysis, and more – and when accessed via the API, it becomes an automation powerhouse for repetitive or creative workflows. Why it’s useful It acts like a hybrid strategist, analyst, and copywriter. You can use the ChatGPT web app for quick campaign brainstorms or integrate it via the API to scale and automate campaign creation, feed enrichment, ad audits, and QA at a level that’s not possible manually. Use cases Instantly generate headline and description variants tailored to intent, location, or user stage. Build a script that rewrites hundreds of Google Shopping titles based on structured data (e.g., brand, category, size) to improve CTR. Use GPT to parse and summarize Search Term Reports, then suggest negative keywords or new ad groups. Generate custom performance summaries by connecting campaign data via the API and having GPT auto-write client-facing reports. Analyze conversion data and surface recommendations based on patterns GPT identifies in time-of-day, device, or query performance. Generate headline variations for a lead gen form ad that includes a unique value prop and dynamically inserts a location. Dig deeper: ChatGPT for PPC: 17 strategic prompts you can use today 5. Zapier Category: Workflow automation Zapier is a no-code automation platform that connects your apps and services together. It helps streamline repetitive tasks between Google Ads and tools like: Slack. Google Sheets. CRMs. Email platforms. Why it’s useful It lets you automate everything from budget alerts to campaign pausing without needing dev help. It is ideal for scaling workflows or minimizing manual checks. Use case Auto-pause campaigns when a “pause” flag is checked in a Google Sheet that your account managers use for budget tracking. Get the newsletter search marketers rely on. Business email address Sign me up! Processing... See terms. 6. CallRail Category: Conversion attribution (lead gen) CallRail is a call tracking and attribution tool that links phone calls back to your Google Ads campaigns. It tracks which sources, keywords, or ads are driving inbound calls, and even supports offline conversion imports. Why it’s useful For lead gen and local service businesses, form submissions aren’t enough. CallRail lets you measure calls as conversions, qualify leads, and attribute revenue to calls. Use case Attribute high-value phone calls to specific keywords or campaigns and use offline conversion imports to optimize bidding strategies. 7. Hotjar Category: Landing page optimization Hotjar is a UX insights tool that helps marketers visualize how users behave once they arrive on your site. It includes heatmaps, session recordings, and surveys to identify friction points in the user journey. Why it’s useful You can directly observe what users do after clicking your ad. Are they scrolling, clicking CTAs, or getting stuck? It’s essential for diagnosing poor conversion rates even when traffic quality is strong. Use case Watch recordings of visitors from a high-CTR but low-converting campaign to identify friction points on the landing page and improve conversion rate. 8. Google Search Console Category: Technical QA and organic insights Google Search Console is a free tool from Google that helps you monitor and troubleshoot your website’s performance in organic search. It also plays a key role in diagnosing landing page health for paid campaigns. Why it’s useful Slow-loading or poorly indexed pages impact Quality Score. GSC shows crawl errors, speed issues, and query-level insights that help improve PPC landing page performance. Use case Discover organic queries driving high impressions but low clicks, then test those as exact match keywords in your Search campaigns. 9. Feedonomics Category: Shopping feed management Feedonomics is a full-service feed optimization platform used by retailers to manage product data across multiple shopping and marketplace channels. It allows deep customization of feed content and structure. Why it’s useful Shopping campaigns live or die by feed quality. Feedonomics lets you clean, enrich, and segment product feeds in ways Google Merchant Center alone can’t support. Use case Set up rules to append dynamic product features (e.g., wattage, size, material) into titles based on category to improve Shopping CTR. 10. Rich Results Test Category: Structured data and SEO The Rich Results Test is a free Google tool that checks whether your pages are eligible for rich snippets in search results based on your schema markup. It’s useful for ensuring your structured data is correctly implemented. Why it’s useful Structured data impacts both SEO and PPC, particularly for Shopping, Performance Max, and local listings. Ensuring proper markup improves visibility in free and paid listings. Use case Validate schema on key landing pages to ensure your product and location data is eligible for display enhancements in free listings and Performance Max. Final thoughts PPC in 2025 is about more than just managing campaigns – it’s about mastering the ecosystem around them. Whether you’re managing lead generation for local businesses, scaling Shopping campaigns, or reporting on ROAS across 15 accounts, the 10 tools above represent the backbone of a modern PPC workflow. They’ve earned their place through day-to-day utility, strategic leverage, and tight integration with Google Ads. If you’re building out your PPC tool stack, start with what fills your most pressing gaps – whether that’s reporting, automation, conversion tracking, or feed optimization. And don’t forget to revisit your stack quarterly. As platforms evolve, so should your tools. View the full article

Hellmann’s. Axe. Ben & Jerry’s. Dove. Nutrafol. Pepsodent. Vaseline. When a brand exists within a CPG behemoth like Unilever, it can struggle to get dedicated design attention. So often, it doesn’t—and as a result, its brand can get a bit dusty on the shelf. That’s what happened to Lipton with an identity from 2014 that hewed closer to the 1999 Burger King logo than a modern leader of the tea industry. But now, with a new owner, Lipton is launching a fresh look as it celebrates 135 years in business and expands its product line. The big business of teaLipton is the titan of tea. Its products (which include Tazo, Pukka, PG Tips, and more) are sold in more than 100 countries and make up the largest tea business in the world. Moreover, tea is big business: Fueled in part by the focus on health in the beverage category, tea is projected to grow by more than 75% to $122.59 billion in 2033. CVC Capital Partners bought the Lipton family of brands in 2022 for $5.07 billion. Yet in spite of those that promise, the company has been facing what S&P Global dubbed “weaker-than-anticipated performance” last fall. And, well, that’s a design opportunity. Following the acquisition, Lipton started taking stock of its core identity, and is now rolling out its new branding, with new plans and products to boot. “If you look at what Lipton did from an innovation standpoint for the five years prior to 2023, it probably wasn’t very much,” says Racquel Harris Mason, president of Lipton Teas and Infusions North America. “And what you’ll see in America [now] is Lipton launching over 15 new flavors, new SKUs, in the next six months. So it’s really a wonderful renovation of this historical brand.” Sir Lipton’s legacyWhen he founded his eponymous tea brand in 1890, Thomas Lipton was on a mission to democratize a drink that was then traditionally associated with the upper classes. And as those numbers above attest, he indeed succeeded, and brought low-cost tea to the masses by setting up alternative distribution channels to circumvent the established trade. Of course, being a global tea behemoth in 2025 presents its own design problems, with rituals and aesthetic preferences varying by culture and country. Lipton Global Chief Marketing Officer Moritz von der Linden says the company’s numerous markets previously operated in a relatively decentralized environment with a fair amount of autonomy. As a result, the packs had become crowded with added elements, Lipton’s trademark yellow branding was waning in some territories as other colors were being brought in—and ultimately the product was becoming difficult to spot on shelves. “That’s where we said, we need to do something,” von der Linden notes. “We need to make sure that we bring this back to the brilliant basics [and] play our distinctive assets to their strengths again, making sure that everybody can recognize [Lipton] when they walk into a store from 50 meters away.” So von der Linden and his colleagues set out to establish Lipton’s first uniform global identity, partnering with the Paris-based agency Team Creatif. The team first looked to the past—in particular, Thomas Lipton’s original tin boxes. von der Linden says their bold lettering inspired the typography of the new logo, which returns to an all-caps treatment and is intended to play off of the pride the team feels around the brand and its status in the category. As an homage to the brand’s legacy, the team added the founding year of 1890 to its signature “cartouche” label, a move von der Linden says hadn’t been done in decades. “If you think about a lot of brands that are appealing to Gen Z . . . these heritage brands really do mean something,” Harris Mason says. “My children are 26, 24 and 21, and they were like, Oh, my god, that’s so cool. In a weird way, that heritage does give us a modern cool factor because of the deep authenticity of the brand.” To give the tea a bit more of a premium feel, the team tweaked the Lipton yellow to a slightly darker shade. They also added a leaf to nod at the health aspects of drinking tea. “[We’re] bringing nature into the package, and reminding people in this era of everything being artificial that tea has been around for 3,000 years,” says Harris Mason. “It’s crushed leaves in a bag.” That little leaf differentiates the brand away from ready-to-drink beverages. It’s a small element, but “in its brutal simplicity, a tea leaf makes a big difference,” says von der Linden. Finally, the team modernized the logo on the whole by paring down the 3D nature of the cartouche, greatly scaling back the “sun” element, and selecting Arpona as a primary typeface that echoes the letterforms of the refreshed logo. A new LiptonThe new brand is currently making its way to shelves, and should be comprehensive in all markets by the end of the year. Currently, Unilever and Pepsi still operate a separate Lipton bottled drink venture, but Harris Mason says she regularly meets with the team there, and they love the new work. (“I would be very surprised if this does not get adopted,” von der Linden notes.) Ultimately, their hope is that the design work will bring more people to the brand—and that innovation and new products will keep them there. To that end, they have launched a Lipton black tea speciality category, and the first two entries are an English Breakfast and an Earl Grey that tastes like the usual cardamom classic, but with a hint of citrus. Those products have officially rolled out with the new branding. On deck for the summer is a fruit and herbal range, as well as zero-sugar iced tea powders. Do they have any fears that the new products may cannibalize their other brands, such as Tazo? Harris Mason says the company is very intentional about Lipton’s positioning—a tea that’s more affordable and approachable. “[It’s about] making sure that we’ve kept the core but we’ve also innovated to have a broader portfolio of more relevant offerings, so that we can really have a tea for everyone and live up to what Sir Thomas Lipton wanted to do in democratizing tea,” Harris Mason says. “There’s so much new innovation coming. It’s not just a new design; it’s a new Lipton.” View the full article

Google is testing a new link feature in the search results, it is in the form of a link box, in the search result snippet, that when you click on it, it anchors you down on the page to a specific portion of that text.View the full article

Google is testing removing the site names from the search result snippets and just showing the site's URL at the top - title link - position of the snippet. View the full article

John Michael Ormerod was allegedly involved in the procurement of oil tankersView the full article

Google is once again testing a light blue color, cyan, for its title links in the search results. Google tested this on and off quite a lot over the years, but Google is testing it again.View the full article

Philippe Lazzarini says ‘primary intent’ of US-backed proposal is to push population south and even out of stripView the full article

Changes to content won’t hold rankings if your site has technical issues or poor structure. This edition of Ask An SEO looks at why. The post Ask An SEO: Why Didn’t My Keywords Come Back After I Changed My Page Content? appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Microsoft Bing announced some interesting updates for IndexNow including how it works now with product schema and that Shopify now supports it and soon Amazon will. This will help Bing and search engines that use IndexNow have more accurate and up-to-date products for their shopping results and shopping ads.View the full article

Google Ads has added explanations for your performance changes directly in the charts and graphs in your Google Ads console. You can click the highlighed section of the graph to see explanations for your performance changes, like cost increases or decreases. View the full article

Google announced it has deprecated the Account level control for non personalized ads within Google AdSense's settings in privacy and messaging. Instead, Google said "use the IAB TCF framework for collecting and communicating users' consent decisions in the EEA, UK, and Switzerland."View the full article

Some Republicans warn that a tax-cutting budget will destroy the party’s standing with working-class votersView the full article

Microsoft's Jordi Ribas announced they are partnering with creators to showcase how they use Copilot Search in Bing. Copilot Search in Bing was launched in early April, as its new AI powered search feature.View the full article

In the entertainment industry, as in life, change is the only constant. It wasn’t that long ago that streaming services such as Netflix were the outsiders making waves and altering the way audiences watched movies. Today, there’s a new kid on the block rapidly growing in popularity. Vertical dramas, essentially a 90-minute soap opera broken down into one-minute episodes viewed—you guessed it—vertically on smartphones, are here to shake things up even further. (I know this firsthand as an actor who has recently worked on some of these projects.) Joey Jia, the CEO of Crazy Maple Studios, is at the forefront of this movement. His content creation company was named one of 2024’s TIME100 Most Influential Companies and has offices in Shenzhen, Beijing, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, Canada, Mexico, and the Philippines. Under this banner, Jia created ReelShort in 2022, a short-form video-streaming app, when he realized there was an opportunity to marry growing romance book trends and Asian micro dramas. “I noticed there is a trend,” Jia told Fast Company. “People started shooting short-form content, especially five minutes long, 10 minutes long. That inspired me to have this idea: What if we revamp the video industry?” Jia decided to put stories into one-minute bite-size content, made specifically for mobile phones as a way of testing how the market would respond. Spoiler alert: It responded well. ReelShorts’s production on track to triple in 2025 as compared to 2024. While Crazy Maple Studios declined to share revenue figures, it says it’s seen impressive growth in monthly active users, from around 45 million in October to between 55 to 60 million monthly active users. Suffice it to say, it’s in demand, paving the way for a story format that might be the future of scripted entertainment. At the intersection of art and tech The growing popularity of vertical dramas could never have occurred without the proper technology in place. The first smartphone, the Simon Personal Communicator, was invented by IBM in 1992, but it would take 18 years before these devices made their way to everyone’s pockets. Apple’s iPhone, famously announced to the world by Steve Jobs in 2007, played a big role in spreading the adoption of smartphones. The next stepping stone to verticals was social media. When TikTok was first released in 2016, it further trained users to create and view videos vertically. Instagram strengthened this habit when the app released its similar Reels feature in 2020. The stage was set for professional creators to monetize this technology. How China got there first In 2019, the Chinese company iQIYI released a special feature on its app dubbed the Vertical Video Zone, which comprised 25 sets of video, all shot in portrait mode to be viewed on a mobile phone. Around the same time, the Chinese social media platform Kuaishou unveiled “Kuaishou Small Theatre” on its app. This comedy-centered, short-form content would lead to the “micro-drama” brand Xingmang Micro Drama. By 2023, the platform would have over 94 million paid users. That same year, the larger micro-drama industry in China brought in $5.3 billion, making it 70% as large as the country’s traditional film industry. According to DataEye, a Shenzhen-based research firm, micro-dramas out-earned domestic box office sales the following year, as the Los Angeles Times reported. The American company Quibi, led by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman, tried to put its own spin on this trend, launching in April of 2020. This app utilized “turnstyle” technology that allowed viewers to watch content both vertically and horizontally. However, its short-form videos were expensive to make, running about 10 minutes utilizing Hollywood stars. Just seven months after its creation, Quibi was forced to shut down due to low subscriber counts. ‘Emotion-driven stories,’ made for humans by humans Jia saw a potential opening in the American market and learned from Quibi’s failure. He attributes ReelShorts’s success to its focus on “emotion-driven stories.” Plot is “the missing component,” he says, “So our job is to come up with a feel-good moment, feel-good stories, and we always have data to make sure we are on the right track. So our stories are evolving.” Vertical dramas tend to use well-known, over-the-top storytelling tropes, such as enemies to lovers, Cinderella-type makeovers, and corporate revenge. Some even explore fantasy plotlines, such as werewolves and different historical eras. ReelShorts’s subscription service differs from traditional streamers because it is not a flat monthly fee. The first 10 or so episodes are free, but to see the story’s conclusion, users have to pay based on consumption. This forces writers to make sure their content is fast-paced but not so quick that the audience gets lost. “There is a fine balance between the story beats and the emotions. So this is really tricky,” Jia mused. Jia trains directors, producers, and screenwriters in-house and does not utilize artificial intelligence. “I think of creativity coming from a human being, so I don’t trust AI, to be honest,” Jia explained. He also uses simple, inexpensive sets and costumes, and unknown nonunion actors. What does the future hold? When asked if Jia thinks vertical dramas complement or disrupt the traditional movie and television industry, he replied: “I think it’s a disruptor. I think mobile entertainment will become a brand-new industry in the next few years. It will coexist with a traditional film industry, but it will bypass and beat the size so it gets bigger and bigger.” He thinks colleges will in the not-so-distant future add this format to its film school curriculum. As more and more people forgo traditional movie theaters while staying glued to their phones throughout much of the day, his predictions don’t feel that far-fetched. Indeed, the average ReelShort user might surprise you. “We initially thought the majority of our audience is like a teenager and younger demographic—but no, it’s full spectrum,” Jia explained. Jia has already been approached by big-name studios but finds it difficult to work with established intellectual properties because of all the rules and hoops to jump through. Verticals are inexpensive to make and move quickly, with a movie essentially completed in about 11 days. That doesn’t mean he isn’t open to bigger collaborations. In the next five years, Jia aims to prove that this space has merit, saying he feels there is still very much a stigma attached to it. “There’s wide opportunity here,” he says. “So the door is always open.” Jia is not alone in this space. Shelly Caldwell founded DramaBox, a mobile TV series company, in 2022. Similarly, ShortMax, a Chinese-based media company, was created in 2023 by Jiuzhou Wenhua. Other players in the game include FlexTV and LokShorts. Even Netflix is dipping its toe in the pool. It recently announced that for some select users, its app will begin testing a vertical video feed. Meanwhile, ReelShort is expanding into new genres, such as action. Undercover Prison King, the story of a private prison owner who poses as an inmate to reveal corruption, is performing very well. The recent in-person premiere of Wings of Fire: The Dragonslayer Is My Ex-Lover in Culver City successfully signaled verticals’ legitimacy to the larger City of Angels. Jia also recently launched ReelShort Publishing House, a new division that will novelize popular romance titles on the app, a full circle moment for the man who saw the desire for this content early on. With a distribution deal with Amazon already in place, audiences may soon find themselves asking which came first, the vertical or the novel? As the way we consume media continues to evolve, Jia’s foresight appears to have been the fulfillment of a prophecy of sorts. What direction is the future of entertainment going? It appears to be vertical. View the full article

If you’ve been around here a while, you’ll know that crunching the numbers to figure out the best time to post on all major social media platforms is basically our love language. And now we have enough data to add Threads to our roster, too! Because even though Threads uses an algorithm to decide what you (and your target audience) sees in the feed, when you post still has an impact. And now we have the data to prove it. We analyzed hundreds of thousands of Threads posts sent through Buffer — 730K posts, to be precise — to figure out if some time slots stood out in terms of post performance. (Spoiler: there were a few.) Our primary metric for this study was median engagement by hour, day, and content type. Let’s break down what we found. Jump to a section: The best time to post on Threads The best time to post on Threads at a glance The best time to post on Threads on Monday The best time to post on Threads on Tuesday The best time to post on Threads on Wednesday The best time to post on Threads on Thursday The best time to post on Threads on Friday The best time to post on Threads on Saturday The best time to post on Threads on Sunday The best and worst days to post on Threads The best content type to post on Threads Checklist for high-performing Threads posts The best time to post on ThreadsThe best time to post on Threads is 7 a.m. on Wednesday. Posts published then had the highest median engagement — that is likes, replies, and reposts — across all the data we analyzed. Other high-performing times were 7 a.m. – 9 a.m. on weekdays, especially Tuesday through Friday. So, generally speaking, most weekday mornings are great windows to aim for. An interesting ‘outlier’ time that popped up in our study was 1 a.m. on Sunday. As you can see from the heatmap graph above, it ranks in the top five posting times for Threads. It’s proof that, while the hours with the highest median engagement rates tend to be between 7 and 9, it can still be worth experimenting with other posting times to see what works best for your audience. As always, I like to look at social media platform demographics to paint a clearer picture of why this is the case (though it’s only theoretical). Threads, which burst onto the scene mid-2023, now boasts around 350 million monthly active users. And, as of February 2025, almost a third (around 29%) of Threads users were aged between 25 and 34 years, Statista reports. The 18-24-year-old cohort comes in second place, at 20%. It’s a fair assumption, then, that most Threads users are part of the workforce, and prefer to check their feeds before locking in at work for the day. Interestingly, these times lines up pretty well with our analysis the best time to post on Twitter/X, where optimal times are early to mid-mornings on weekdays as well. 🌎Wait, what time zone? To make this data easier to understand, our data scientist Bufferoo has done some mathematical magic to make the recommended time zones universally applicable. In other words, no need to convert — consider all the recommendations local time. Whether you're in EST (Eastern Standard Time), PST (Pacific Standard Time), or IST (Indian Standard Time), the times apply to you.The best time to post on Threads at a glanceHere are the top posting times for each day of the week, based on median engagement: Monday: 7 a.m., 9 a.m., 8 a.m.Tuesday: 7 a.m., 9 a.m., 3 p.m.Wednesday: 7 a.m., 9 a.m., 8 a.m.Thursday: 9 a.m., 7 a.m., 11 p.m.Friday: 7 a.m., 9 a.m., 8 a.m.Saturday: 7 a.m., 9 a.m., 12 a.m.Sunday: 1 a.m., 7 a.m., 9 a.m.The best time to post on Threads on MondayThe best time to post on Threads on Monday for maximum engagement is 7 a.m., with other optimal posting times at 9 a.m. and 8 a.m. The best time to post on Threads on TuesdayThe best time to post on Threads on Tuesday is 7 a.m., followed closely by 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. The best time to post on Threads on WednesdayThe best time to post on Threads on Wednesday is 7 a.m., with 9 a.m. and 8 a.m. also being strong posting windows. Wednesday is the best day of the week to post on Threads in terms of general engagement, so it’s well worth adding to your content calendar. The best time to post on Threads on ThursdayOn Thursday, the best time to post on Threads is 9 a.m., with 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. also performing well. The late evening slot is one of the few high-performers in our analysis — so add this to your calendar if you’re a night owl poster. The best time to post on Threads on FridayThe best time to post on Friday is 7 a.m., with 9 a.m. and 8 a.m. also being optimal posting times for maximum engagement. The best time to post on Threads on SaturdayThe best time to post on Threads on Saturday is 7 a.m., with other peak hours at 9 a.m. and 12 a.m. (midnight). That said, Saturday had the second lowest overall engagement, so you might want to schedule your Threads posts for weekdays instead. The best time to post on Threads on SundayThe best time to post on Threads on Sunday is 1 a.m., with 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. also being peak times to post for maximum engagement on this slower day. Sunday was just a smidge lower than Saturday in terms of total engagement, making it the worst day to post on Threads. 💡Just as there’s no one-size-fits-all best time to post, there’s no single best time to post across all social media platforms. Here’s the best time to post on Instagram, the best time to post on Twitter/X, and the best time to post on LinkedIn.The best and worst days to post on ThreadsBased on overall daily engagement, Wednesday is the best day to post on Threads. It’s followed closely by Friday and Thursday — midweek is clearly prime Threads time. On the flip side, Sunday sees the lowest engagement overall, with Saturday not far behind. If you’re batch-scheduling content for the week, you might want to give those weekend posts a second thought. ⚡Post consistently on Threads with Buffer: Buffer helps you kickstart meaningful conversations — and grow your following — with planning, scheduling, and analytics tools. Start for free →The best content type to post on ThreadsAs an added bonus, we also explored what type of content performed best on Threads. We discovered that posts with images had the highest engagement, followed by videos. Here’s how the formats ranked in terms of median engagement per post: 📸 Picture: 5.17%🎥 Video: 5.14%🔗 Link: 3.78%✍️ Text: 3.23%To put that into perspective, posts with images performed 0.58% better than videos, 36.77% better than links, and 60.06% better than text. While Threads may feel like a casual, text-driven space, visuals still stop the scroll. It’s worth experimenting with eye-catching images or short, engaging videos to stand out in the feed. That said, I’d suggest taking this data with a pinch of salt — it doesn’t mean you have to suddenly start creating carousels or videos in order to grow on Threads. The best content format for you is the one you can create most consistently. Checklist for high-performing Threads postsA word to the wise: good post timing won’t save a mediocre post. While timing can help give a solid posts a little boost, it’s not the key to social media success. The quality of your content and relevance for your audience will always be the most important factor when it comes to performance on Threads (and any social media platform, really). Here are some quick tips to help you tick all the boxes. 💡For more guidance, check out How to Get More Followers on Threads: 9 Tactics to Help You Grow.Find and own your nicheThreads rewards specificity. Whether you’re into music theory, social media strategy, or mushroom art, leaning into your interests helps attract the right kind of followers — and better conversations. Use tags to reach the right peopleThreads tags work more like topic signals than old-school hashtags. Thoughtfully tagging your posts helps them reach like-minded folks, and shows Threads what conversations you want to be part of. Here’s a great example from Buffer’s Hailley Griffis, who regularly uses tags to make sure her posts show up in the right circles: Prioritize conversation, not broadcastingComments are currency on Threads, and highly prioritized by the Threads algorithm. Spark discussions with open-ended questions or takes people want to respond to — and don’t forget to reply and jump into other people’s threads, too. Here’s a great conversation starter by Threads creator Lennox Saint. Talk about what’s happening nowJust like on X, timeliness matters. Whether it’s a viral moment or a news headline, joining active conversations can boost your reach and make your content feel more relevant. Annie-Mai’s Girl Power Marketing shares tips, tricks, trends, and the latest social media news to keep her content current. Keep it real (and helpful)Threads feels more “people-first” than many other platforms — and users seem to reward kindness, honesty, and vulnerability. Share useful thoughts, be a little weird, and don’t be afraid to show your human side. Gabby Beckford regularly shares high-value tips and tricks for her fellow travel enthusiasts. Post consistentlyThreads moves fast. If you’re serious about growth, post as often as you’re able — even just quick thoughts or a response on someone else’s post. This tends to correlate with faster growth, especially in the early stages of building your audience. Jump on low-lift trendsEngaging with trends like #GoodMorning or “Algorithm, connect me with people who like…” can introduce you to new audiences — especially when paired with authenticity. Brands in particular see strong views with tongue-in-cheek trends like this: Every Threads audience is differentWhile posting on Threads at specific times may yield brilliant results, it’s important to remember that all audiences have different behaviors. The times in this guide are general — they’re worth experimenting with, but it’ll take some work to find your personal best time to post on Threads. What have you found most helpful when determining your best time to post on Threads? Let us know @buffer on Threads — we love to chat over there! More Threads resources📚 We Analyzed 1.7M Posts from X, Threads, and Bluesky: Here’s What We Learned📚 I Posted to Threads Consistently for A Month — Here’s What Happened📚 7 Creators on Threads to Watch (+Lessons to Learn From Their Content)📚 How These 7 Brands on Threads Are Growing on the PlatformView the full article

I’ve served the NASA space program for many years as an adviser, research scientist, flight surgeon—and astronaut. My career has encompassed both in-flight and non-flight contributions to NASA, supporting space missions, space medicine, and research in advancing human space flight. Space exploration encompasses a fair amount of uncertainty by nature. The space program’s early days were fraught with a number of crew losses, including the Apollo 1 mission, and the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle missions. The challenges of space flight were on full display during the Apollo 13 crew’s near-disastrous mission on the way to the moon in 1970. We all know those infamous words: “Houston, we have a problem.” But the determination of a mission control team led by flight director Gene Kranz—marked by the phrase “failure is not an option”—ended in a successful mission. Anyone, though, can pick up smart leadership lessons from space travel, even if you’re not headed to the moon yourself. Here’s how the best leaders think like astronauts. Recognize The Power of Vision Every great leader starts with a vision. Whether you are leading a company, a team, or a personal endeavor, the ability to see beyond present circumstances and chart a course for the future is what separates extraordinary leaders from the rest. When I first dreamed of becoming an astronaut, I had no road map. The road ahead was full of uncertainty, doubts, and obstacles. After determining that doctors were needed in the space program, my pathway was set. My goal was to become a physician with the knowledge and skills to work in space. But I learned early on that it’s not about having all the answers—it’s about having the courage to pursue a vision, adapt to challenges, and inspire others along the way. In business, just as in space exploration, those who succeed are the ones who remain focused on their mission despite adversity. Turn the Vision into a Mission The mark of a good leader is their ability to transform the vision into tangible goals and objectives for the mission. We accomplish this at NASA through extensive training and mission preparation. The flight crew and mission support team dedicate countless hours to training in simulators and facilities, preparing for every scenario, whether it’s smooth sailing or unforeseen challenges. They focus on identifying the critical factors for success, then conduct “nominal” training for ideal outcomes and “off-nominal” training to tackle potential setbacks. We have a saying in the Astronaut Corps: “Fly as you train.” Training reflects conditions similar to those of the mission so we’re best prepared for the unexpected. Once those conditions are clear, we set high expectations to drive high performance. People and organizations can achieve amazing things when they know what’s expected of them. The most successful leaders embrace challenges, set high expectations, remain adaptable, and focus on the greater impact of their work. Let High Expectations Drive High Performance Leaders who expect mediocrity will get just that, while those who challenge their teams to push beyond limits foster excellence. On my second flight, STS–63 in February 1995, we had multiple challenges. During my spacewalk, my fellow crew member and I experienced unexpected extreme temperatures of -165°F at orbital night and +200°F during the day, which exceeded the temperature capability of the space suit. There were other malfunctions on the mission, like issues with critical equipment on the spacecraft that almost canceled our rendezvous with the Russian space station. NASA’s training program assumes that astronauts must be prepared for the unknown. The same principle applies in business. Leaders must prepare their teams for challenges that may not yet exist, setting expectations that encourage innovation, accountability, and excellence. If you want to see growth in your organization, ask yourself: Are you setting high-enough expectations? Are you fostering a culture where your team is encouraged to reach beyond what they believe is possible? Success is often the result of leaders who challenge their teams to think bigger, work harder, and embrace bold ideas. Buckle into Resilience in Challenging Times One of the most valuable leadership lessons is understanding that failure is not the enemy—complacency is. Some of the best business leaders I have met share one trait: they’re not afraid of failing. They see failure as feedback, as a necessary component of growth. I also had moments of uncertainty during my first flight—STS-55 in April 1993. As we were about to launch, one of the three main engines of the Space Shuttle Columbia failed 2.5 seconds before liftoff. Fortunately, the safety system worked, cutting the fuel to the engine while simultaneously putting out the ensuing fire. This event certainly got my attention, as we say when things don’t go well. I’m lucky to be here today. During my astronaut training and missions, I faced countless setbacks. Physical demands of endless hours of spacewalk training underwater in the neutral buoyancy facility pushed me to my limits, technical challenges of microgravity simulation forced me to rethink strategies, and high-stakes flight simulations that exposed weaknesses I needed to improve. Had I let failure define me, rather than energize me, I would never have made it to space. Resilience is just as crucial for leadership in life and business. Markets change, competitors arise, and setbacks occur. The best leaders are those who are resilient and thrive to adapt, learn, and continue forward with an unwavering commitment to their goals. Maintain Confidence in the Face of Adversity Great leaders possess both confidence and humility. Confidence allows you to make bold decisions, take risks, and lead with conviction. But humility ensures that you remain open to new ideas, feedback, and growth. In my career at NASA, in venture capital, and as an entrepreneur, I’ve worked with some of the most brilliant minds in science, engineering, and business. The leaders who stand out are those who strongly believe in their abilities yet understand they don’t have all the answers. They surround themselves with talented individuals, listen more than they speak, and remain adaptable in the face of change. In your leadership journey, have the confidence to make difficult decisions and the humility to recognize that leadership is a lifelong learning process. Build a Legacy of Impact After my time at NASA, I joined SpaceHab as an SVP and chief medical officer, contributing to one of the pioneering companies in commercial spaceflight. In 2002, I founded a venture capital firm focused on telemedicine and healthcare technologies. Later, I founded the Harris Foundation and Institute, which has been involved in math and science education for over 25 years. Leadership is not just about personal success—it’s about the impact you leave behind. For business leaders, this means looking beyond profit margins and quarterly results. It means fostering a culture where employees feel valued, innovation thrives, and measuring success by long-term impact rather than short-term gains. Ask yourself: How do you envision the legacy you wish to leave as a leader? Are you investing in people? Are you creating a vision that extends beyond yourself? Leadership lessons from space Leadership is a journey of vision, mission, expectation, resilience, and confidence. The most successful leaders embrace challenges, set high expectations, remain adaptable, and focus on the greater impact of their work. As you lead your organization, your team, or even your own personal ambitions, remember that the key to success lies not in avoiding obstacles and uncertainty, but in using them as stepping stones to greater achievements. View the full article

A year ago today, Microsoft unveiled what it believed would be the future of home computing. Copilot+ PCs, optimized to harness the power of AI, were introduced with the promise of revolutionizing how we interact with our laptops and desktops. The reaction, however, was far from enthusiastic. Critics mocked the addition of an AI button on the keyboard, likening it to the redundant action keys from late-1990s PCs. More concerning was the backlash to Recall, a feature designed to continuously record user activity to provide smarter assistance. Many found the idea invasive. Public alarm grew when it became clear that Recall stored this data off-device, raising serious privacy concerns—particularly with sensitive tasks like entering bank details. The feature was eventually, well, recalled. “Copilot+ PCs are finally here. You don’t want one—yet,” read one scathing op-ed published in Computer World at the time. Fast-forward a year, and the landscape has shifted. AI adoption continues to grow, and the once-ridiculed concept of agentic AI has gained traction. That shift in sentiment has helped normalize features like Recall, which quietly returned in the April 2025 Windows 11 update. This time, it’s opt-in rather than opt-out, and stores screenshots locally instead of on the cloud. In the background, Microsoft has been refining its AI offerings. The company’s updated Copilot+ strategy seems more measured, and after a year of growing accustomed to AI in our daily lives, users may now be more ready for what these devices offer. Microsoft says Copilot+ PCs accounted for “up to 15% of premium-priced U.S. laptops” during the 2024 holiday quarter—the first specific sign of market traction. Analysts at Gartner predict that by the end of 2026, every enterprise PC sold will be AI-equipped, with consumer adoption expected to follow soon after. Persistence also plays a role in adoption. “It’s become more and more prominent in Windows 11 in particular,” says Catherine Flick, a researcher in AI and ethics at the University of Staffordshire. “People who might otherwise be skeptical or not want to touch it, might just go in because it’s so conveniently there,” she says. “It doesn’t seem to cost anything at the moment, so yeah, basically people are going to use it.” Every new user represents a win for Microsoft, helping to normalize AI as part of everyday workflows. While there may still be no single “killer app” that compels users to buy an AI-powered PC, growing familiarity can be just as powerful as clever marketing. With momentum building, the moment for Copilot+ PCs may have finally arrived. View the full article

Some office buildings are simply not blessed with natural light. Maybe they’re standing in the shadows of something taller. Or perhaps their windows are mostly oriented to the dark north instead of the sunny southwest. Or maybe they’re so big and wide that sunlight can’t find its way into their murky depths. Whatever the reason, the lack of natural light presents problems ranging from additional energy usage to diminished human well-being and productivity. CBT, an architecture firm based in Boston, has been exploring unique ways of solving these problems. Using passive design approaches that require no additional energy, the firm is finding innovative ways to bring more natural light deeper into office buildings. There’s no single solution, according to Tyler Lombardi, an associate principal at CBT, but there is an increasingly accessible toolbox of approaches that architects can use to bring more light into buildings, including reflective surfaces and finishes, data-informed adjustments to building facades, and even curving walls that bend light in a space. Lombardi says these approaches have been put to work in recent office projects, including for law firms and financial services companies. He says these industries have tended to prioritize private offices with good views, turning an office building’s perimeter into well-lit spaces and the rest of the floor into a dark pit. “They’re all 90-degree angles and it’s very rigid, ” he says of these projects, noting that many of the firm’s clients are confidential. “We’re trying to find ways to make that space feel more visually connected.” To do so, CBT has altered floor plans to include curving walls that wind their way into the center of a floor. “We’ll use the natural light coming in from a courtyard or a balcony or an exterior window and then we’ll shape the wall so that the light is exposed 40 or 50 yards down,” Lombardi says. Reflective paints or shiny surfaces can also be deployed strategically to milk even more brightness from this distant light. The interventions can be very subtle. Even shadows inside a room can build up. So, working with lighting designers, Lombardi says he’s been on projects that have focused on minute details like the edges of shelving units, which can be beveled and smoothed to cast a shadow line that’s less harsh. Technology plays a large role in this work, Lombardi says, with 3D modeling programs capable of performing light and contrast studies while projects are in the design phase. Small changes to wall curves or window heights can translate into significant increases in light at certain times of the day, or different ways of moving light into a room. “You really get into the details of certain nominal dimensions that will work for washing light versus bending light versus reflecting light,” he says. “It can be very technical and very complex, but a successful project may hide those complexities.” Many of the design interventions that can make a space brighter are actually simple material choices. CBT uses its physical modelmaking shop to test out some of these materials, including paints with glossy finishes or metals with various amounts of sheen. “The nature of being in the design world, everyone’s looking for the latest and greatest product or material or strategy or tech tool,” Lombardi says. “When it comes down to some of these architectural principles we have to sometimes remind ourselves, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time.” View the full article

Yair Golan says Israel not ‘acting like a sane country’, as UK, France and Canada threaten action in response to offensiveView the full article

The year, 1993. A rudimentary computer-generated T. rex—a reptilian skin stretched over a wire frame—played on a loop in a computer at Industrial Light & Magic in California. Three film legends—VFX supervisor Dennis Muren, animator Phil Tippett, and director Steven Spielberg—watched silently as the implications sank in. “Cinema history changed,” Rob Bredow recounts in his April 2023 TED Talk, which has just been published on YouTube. Tippett, a stop-motion pioneer, dryly told Spielberg, “I feel like I’m going extinct.” As most movie buffs know, that line landed in Jurassic Park. Tippett’s fear, however, turned out to be unfounded. The legendary effects company fused Tippett’s stop-motion puppetry with nascent CGI, using a “dinosaur input device”—a rigged armature with motion encoders—to digitize frame-by-frame animation. The result? A seismic shift that expanded artists’ tool kits worldwide and opened a new era in filmmaking. Bredow was only 19 when that happened. Now, as SVP of creative innovation for Lucasfilm and chief creative officer of ILM, he sees a direct parallel to today’s artificial intelligence debates. “Headlines say, ‘AI is coming for our jobs,’” he says in the TED Talk. From the Dykstraflex—the computer-controlled motion camera that enabled Star Wars’s iconic dogfights—to the StageCraft—a 270-degree LED curved wall that projected hyperrealistic 3D environments for The Mandalorian and now many other shows and movies—Bredow argues that ILM’s 50-year history is a demonstration of how technological leaps redefine, rather than replace, artistry. Stop-motion transformed and merged with 3D effects. So did physical models, full-size sets, and matte paintings. Just like it’s happening now with AI. “Innovation thrives when old and new technologies are blended,” Bredow argues. ILM was late to the AI game. This became painfully obvious when the effects company created a rejuvenated version of Mark Hamill for the Season 2 finale of The Mandalorian (despite fans cheering on Luke Skywalker’s return to the screen). Done with traditional computer face tracking and 3D models—the same technique used to create Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin and Princess Leia—Return of the Jedi Luke was slammed for being unrealistic. Then a Star Wars fan and AI aficionado called Shamook re-created the scene using AI. The former took hours. The latter took weeks. There was no doubt about which one looked more realistic. The difference was so obvious that the company realized it had to act: ILM hired Shamook days after the deepfake remake was released. He worked on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, where ILM merged generative AI, trained on Harrison Ford’s past performances, with a meticulously handcrafted CG model to de-age the actor. The AI captured Ford’s micro-expressions; artists fine-tuned subtleties like eye moisture and skin texture. Ford himself said it was pretty good and really felt like him. Because it did. AI is just another tool in the toolboxThe ethos that now guides its AI integration has been in ILM’s DNA since its origin. It was what drove George Lucas to pair engineers with artists to solve visual storytelling challenges. “We’re designed to be creative beings,” Bredow says. “We love seeing tech and creativity work together.” Bredow hinted at ILM’s embrace of AI tools in a Fast Company interview back in August 2024: “I do see a path forward with some combination of the algorithmic tools that we’ve had and some machine learning-based tools that we either already have or can imagine developing, that are really going to help accelerate artist workflows.” Now he has made clear that AI has reached a point in which it is just another toolbox in ILM’s toolbox. His stance about the technology is one that I have been seeing more and more since independent filmmaker Paul Trillo, one of the pioneers in using generative AI for his shorts, told me the same years ago. Trillo thinks that AI will enable indie projects to achieve blockbuster-grade VFX: “It is just a powerful tool in a creative’s arsenal.” It’s just too bad that the example that Bredow presented in the TEDTalk was so underwhelming: A video that shows some uninspired sci-fi animals that looked like Photoshop-made images quickly turned to video using Kling, a commercial AI video generation tool developed by Chinese tech company Kuaishou. He described it as ILM’s “moving mood board,” but it falls short of what you would expect from the mother of all VFX houses. But his points and the lesson from ILM’s half-century of visual innovation stand. The Dykstraflex didn’t kill cinematography—it birthed a new process and visual language. CGI dinosaurs didn’t erase animators—they just demanded hybrid skills. Now, as AI reshapes VFX, Bredow says we are witnessing another T. rex moment: one where artists, armed with generative tools, push storytelling beyond current limits. Adaptation is nonnegotiable. New tools should be embraced as long as they are not unethically taking advantage of other people’s artwork. “The next game changer,” he said, “will light up screens worldwide.” The credits won’t fade on human creativity. Hordes of people’s names will keep rolling. At least for a few more years to come. View the full article

Dallas and Houston are just 250 miles apart, but a train trip between the two cities currently takes more than 23 hours, including a seven-hour stopover in San Antonio’s Amtrak station. The Texas Central high-speed rail project aims to change that. The proposed project would cut the travel time down between the nation’s fourth- and fifth-largest metro areas to 90 minutes, using Japanese technology to propel the trains 200-plus mph. It also would include a stop in the Brazos Valley. Former President Joe Biden’s Department of Transportation was eager to help advance the project. Amtrak came aboard in August 2023 to determine if it was viable. The DOT also issued a $63.9 million planning grant last year. But the DOT under President Donald The President quickly reversed course. Last month, the department announced that it had rescinded the grant and that Amtrak would no longer be involved in the project. “If the private sector believes this project is feasible, they should carry the preconstruction work forward, rather than relying on Amtrak and the American taxpayer to bail them out,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stated in the news release announcing that the department was canceling the $63.9 million grant. The move comes as the U.S. continues to lag behind other wealthy countries in its pursuit of high-speed rail—a mode of transport that’s safer, more efficient, and more sustainable than traveling by car. High-speed trains can cover the 820 miles between Beijing and Shanghai in a little over four hours. In Europe, a new high-speed train connecting Paris and Berlin launched in December. Even though it’s a red state, Texas has recently been pursuing high speed rail—and it could certainly use it. For example, Houston ranks among the 10 most congested cities in the country and among the 10 most polluted. The state of Texas hasn’t gone a day without a death on its roads since November 7, 2000. High-speed rail in a pro-car administration The The President administration’s early actions show that the next four years are likely to be challenging for high-speed rail projects. The DOT has set its sights on two of the country’s three most advanced high-speed rail projects. In February, it announced a review of a high-speed rail project in California—another state with air quality and congestion issues—that would connect San Francisco and Anaheim. Eric Goldwyn, an assistant professor at New York University’s Marron Institute of Urban Management, said it’s not a great moment to be working on a high-speed rail project—particularly one that needs public funding. That said, it’s not totally clear how the The President administration will come down on projects that rely on private financing. “Right now, it sort of has the feeling of dramatic statements coming from USDOT and dramatic gestures, but less substantive actions,” Goldwyn said. The President’s DOT seems to favor privately funded projects. In the announcement about the California High Speed Rail probe, the department praised Brightline, a private company that operates a rail line between Orlando and Miami and plans to open another line between the Los Angeles area and Las Vegas in 2028. Even those projects require public support, including a $3 billion grant for Brightline West—of which the company has spent $98 million thus far. The San Bernardino County Transportation Authority also received $25 million from the federal government for Brightline West stations in Hesperia and Victor Valley, California. The long and winding history of Texas Central The Texas Central project has seen many iterations since it first kicked off in 2014. In fact, the state’s efforts to build high-speed rail go back to 1989 when it created the Texas High Speed Rail Authority. As for Texas Central, it appeared to be dead when transportation projects nationwide slowed to a halt during the pandemic, but the partnership with Amtrak helped to revive it. Peter LeCody has been advocating for high-speed rail in Texas since the early 2000s and has watched the entire Texas Central battle play out. LeCody, who’s the president of the Texas Rail Advocates, sees a line between the two cities as a no-brainer. “You’ve got two of the largest population areas in the country that really don’t have much of a transportation system, unless A. you want to drive, or B. you want to fly,” he said. Now, he said the project is on the “10-yard line,” because of the regulatory hurdles it has cleared. The FRA approved the route in 2020. The Texas Supreme Court ruled that the Texas Central project had eminent domain authority in 2022. The preference for privately backed rail projects could portend well for the Texas project. As Amtrak exits the project, Texas Central has turned to the private sector. Kleinheinz Capital Partners, a Fort Worth-based hedge fund, became the lead investor on the project earlier this year, although they declined to share specifics about how much they had invested so far. (Kleinheinz Capital did not respond to a request for an interview but in a statement said the project was “shovel ready” and would create new jobs in Texas. “We agree with Secretary Duffy that this project should be led by the private sector, and we will be proud to take it forward.”) A representative from Texas Central told Texas legislators the project could be completed in 80 to 86 months during an April 17 hearing. John Kleinheinz, the company’s CEO, told the Houston Chronicle that he believes the The President administration is “interested in this deal” if it comes from the private sector. Kleinheinz, a longtime Republican donor, will likely be looking to bring aboard additional investors to push the project across the finish line. The DOT news release stated that the project cost is $40 billion. A project with bipartisan support—kind of Despite having some bipartisan support, skeptics and opponents remain. In November, State Representative Brian Harrison filed a bill seeking to strip Texas Central of its eminent domain authority. State Representative Cody Harris filed a bill that would bar the state from spending on a high-speed rail project operated by a private entity. It also would forbid the state from spending money to alter the roadway for high-speed rail. “For years, I’ve led the fight to expose the truth about Texas Central and protect our landowners from an overreaching, taxpayer-funded boondoggle,” Harris said in a statement. At the time of publication, neither Harrison’s nor Harris’s bills have been voted on by the Texas House of Representatives. ReRoute the Route is one of the groups opposed to the project. While they aren’t opposed to high speed rail in theory, the group says it wants the rail’s alignment moved from its currently proposed route to run alongside I-45—the highway that connects Houston and Dallas—instead. ReRoute the Route spokesperson Jennifer Stevens said the organization wants the project to proceed without “taxpayer dollars,” but said she isn’t confident Kleinheinz is the right person to lead the project. “We’ve had a lot of discussion about his overall lack of knowledge or experience in the rail industry,” she said. Stevens added that her group has not met with Kleinheinz, who has been an investor in the project for 10 years. Jim Mathews, president and CEO of the Rail Passengers Association, said high-speed rail projects should be seen as an enticing investment for private entities. “All these rail investments, they’re very capital-intensive, but they return enormous, enormous multiples on what you put into them,” he said. “When you put the money in, you get alongside it mixed-use, retail, condo buildings, high-rises. . . . That, in turn, generates additional economic activities.” He added that the DOT’s decision to rescind the grant isn’t necessarily a death blow to the project, but he said government money is typically needed for well-run high-speed rail systems. High-speed rail doesn’t exist yet in the U.S., Mathews said. In fact, it’s so unique that the FRA needed to create a special set of rules for the Texas Central project. But he and other advocates say high-speed rail is attractive to Americans. A 2015 APTA survey found that 63% of Americans said they were likely to use high-speed rail if it were available to them. “From a policy and a psychology standpoint, we tie bricks around our ankles and then we wonder why we can’t run,” Mathews said. “It gets done everywhere else. We’re just uniquely bad at it. There’s no reason we have to be.” View the full article

Twenty-four-hour customer support with zero hold time, infinite personalization, customized care, and behavior-based response are all aspects of the customer experience that will be expected sooner rather than later from every one of your customers. All of this is becoming reality, thanks to agentic artificial intelligence. Agentic AI is the most advanced form of artificial intelligence to date. It works autonomously, can understand natural language, sets goals and plans workflows, and makes decisions in real time based on the data it collects and examines. It learns from results and then teaches itself a new way to satisfy the needs of those that interact with it, immediately. An Expert Answers Every Question Agentic AI agents never need a break, never need vacation, and don’t need benefits or mental health days. They can work without respite for as long as your company exists. This is important because your customers hate waiting. Waiting for a mere two minutes will cause 60% of potential customers to hang up and call a competitor, and if your competitor deploys agentics before you, your customers will become their customers. You’ll either want to outsource to a top-end team or to use your more talented in-house programmers to finalize design and create your AI guardrails before deployment. This one implementation will free up revenue dedicated to customer service agents, alleviate time your current team has to spend solving mundane simple questions and issues, and leave your top talent free to solve customer challenges that actually require a creative solution. AI-Powered Personalization at Scale People will become increasingly accustomed to advertising and products tailored to feel exclusive to them. A staggering 91% of people will shop with a company that provides personalized, relevant offers and recommendations, and 68% of people have increased brand affinity due to personalization. On the flip side, 62% of customers will abandon a brand if they are not delivered a personalized experience. The days you could rely on simple generic offers in an ad or subject line are dead. Remember, you’re not sending an email to an inbox; you’re sending it to a person. Think of your inbox every morning, filled with dozens of emails you’ve been meaning to unsubscribe from that don’t speak to you. Every email you send is being seen exactly as the ones you receive. What Employees Will Fear The surface level fear around agentic AI centers around loss of jobs, but a deeper dive shows employee fears are far more complex. A recent survey revealed that 47% of employees feel AI lacks emotional intelligence, 40% are not comfortable submitting AI-generated work, and 34% don’t think AI-produced work will be as good as theirs. Involve your most trusted employees throughout the duration of your AI development. This will make them a part of the process, giving them a sense of ownership. Additionally, the better they understand the process from start to finish, the more likely they are to trust it—and trust that your use of the technology isn’t just to save costs or cut jobs, but for their benefit as well. They will become the ones that can sell the rest of your workforce on your new processes and technology. The message must be that this technology is being used to better serve customers, stay ahead of the competition, and grow the business. With that growth comes opportunity for current employees to grow and advance. Preparing Your Business for Ethical AI Integration Stricter audits and bias-free practices need to come first for any AI system implementation. All components that enter the system need careful planning, such that each instruction and training parameter reflects focused ethical direction. Assemble a cross-functional advisory group—comprised of trusted leaders and high-performing team members—to collaboratively design, test, and evaluate your AI tools. This internal coalition acts as a safeguard, ensuring that your deployment adheres to both ethical standards and your company’s values. A Human-Centric Approach to AI Deployment The adoption of AI should always be in service of your workforce, not in place of it. Before rolling out any system, ask: Does this enhance or hinder the employee experience? AI systems deliver their best results when organizations prioritize human needs at the start of their integration efforts. From the outset, align your AI strategies with your organizational culture and principles. Transparent Communication is Equally Crucial Engage your team in open conversations about the role of AI, and how it will enhance the customer experience and lighten the load on the workforce. Present clear background information while scheduling question-and-answer discussions, or an open office hour, accepting feedback from the team. Reinforce that AI is not a replacement but a reinforcement—designed to improve working conditions and to elevate team performance and customer satisfaction. The use of agentics will only increase across industries in the months and years to come. As its prevalence grows, any end user that interacts with it will become accustomed to the experience. They will start to expect quicker complaint resolution, zero wait times, personalized communication, and tailored product and service recommendations, and they will reject any generic approaches from companies. Ultimately, as business leaders, we bear a collective responsibility to uphold excellence—not only in our products and services but also in the systems we use to build and support our teams. Your willingness to embrace this technology for the benefit of your clients, your employees, and ultimately your business are what will keep you ahead of your competition and on a clear path to growth and increased relevancy. View the full article

It’s no secret that when it comes to simplicity and convenience, insurance has lagged behind modern businesses across most industries. While many legacy products have been overturned by newer, intuitive solutions or adapted to meet today’s consumers’ needs, insurance offerings have remained a complex anomaly—built more for business and regulatory needs rather than real people. We already know that healthcare in America is too expensive, and far too many people simply can’t afford to get sick. Health insurance deductibles are at an all-time high, while denied and delayed claims payments persist. Insurance companies have continued making money while a staggering number of people are putting off care because of the cost, or pulling money out of their 401(k) plans early to pay for medical expenses. We also know that there is no shortage of people who are fighting for healthcare policy changes, more accountability around business practices, and broader reform. But consumer patience is running out. And with 100 million American adults in medical debt, incremental regulatory changes won’t be quick enough to take on the challenges that so many people face today in affording basic, and sometimes unexpected, costs related to their healthcare. Consumer Sentiment It’s time we ask the question: Can we start making progress by rethinking how health insurance products are fundamentally designed? In order to do this, we have to accept some consumer truths about health insurance today. First, more than 50% of Americans don’t understand their health insurance. That’s because, unlike most other industries that have embraced simplicity and ease, insurance remains complex, filled with exclusions, jargon, and unnecessary paperwork. So even with the best of educational tools, we’re looking at a large literacy gap. Second, consumer animosity toward health insurance companies is almost as old as the business itself. Even traditional supplemental health insurance offerings like Accident Insurance and Critical Illness that are intended to provide extra support were not designed to cover very much. And the amount of money that goes back to the insured at the end of the day is low for every dollar of premium paid. So it’s not surprising that people are tired of frequent claim denials and delays, and don’t trust that their coverage will minimize their out-of-pocket exposure as much as they need it to. It’s obvious that we have to start with addressing what’s covered, and how we pay claims, which is core to any insurance product. We can’t just slap technology onto insufficient coverage and hope that it’ll improve consumer confidence and trust. But there are some things we can do today to help health insurance catch up with other consumer industries through human-centered design. Here are three: 1. We can set up insurance products like subscriptions Digital simplification across industries has been happening since the dawn of Amazon and Uber, and has taught consumers to have certain expectations around their apps and online experiences. Just for the purposes of this exercise, let’s think about insurance in terms of the direct-to-consumer fulfillment model—and treat insurance like a subscription where care is the purchase and benefits are refunds. Thinking of benefits as refunds enables us to align insurance innovation with the digital simplicity today’s consumers expect. By removing the complexity wrapped around benefits, we can make claims intuitive and the delivery of benefits seamless. We have to eliminate the common limitations and restrictions as well as the excessive paperwork and evidence required for claim approval to enable quicker benefit decisions. People should be able to track the status of their claim in real time, so they can stop chasing their insurance companies for answers. Payment should be electronic, and take days, not weeks. In doing this, we can start to replicate the standards of efficiency and transparency people today are accustomed to when they buy and return products, and build a modern insurance experience that meets digital consumers’ expectations and needs. Treating health coverage like a subscription also provides clear opportunities for engagement. And insurance companies across sectors are just starting to take note. Beam Technologies tracks teeth-brushing habits through a Wi-Fi-connected toothbrush to tailor dental insurance discounts, while Discovery offers its Vitality Program that rewards customers with points for preventative checkups. By encouraging consumers to engage with their coverage, motivating them to use it by offering rewards and discounts like other consumer businesses, these companies drive utilization and deliver value as a result. 2. We can take an (active) back seat Another school of thought tells us that the best insurance companies are the ones that people don’t think about at all. Unlike the previous approach, which assumes consumers will use their coverage like they do their subscriptions, this strategy doesn’t expect that the modern consumer wants to interact with their insurance company at all. Instead, it offers a simple promise of value without any participation required. This approach provides obvious opportunities for leveraging data and automation to set up a product experience where the claim end-to-end is managed by the health insurance company, with no necessary intervention from the insured at all. Innovators in the space are just getting started automating several, if not all, aspects of the claims process. Current players like ClaimsMinder, Human API, and Claritev are just beginning to unlock the power of data to streamline the notification, filing, processing, and payment of a claim so that employees can get more out of their benefits. Ansel Health offers “medical claims integration,” which enables them to determine when individuals have a covered condition and are eligible for a benefit, and pays them directly without requiring them to ever file a claim. In doing this, we eliminate coverage disputes, delayed claims payments, or even just make someone’s day a little bit easier—and maybe then begin to build some trust. 3. We can become a logical extension of the modern care-delivery revolution When people get sick, they don’t see their preventative care or treatment and their health insurance as two separate entities, but rather one experience. Unlike insurance, modern care delivery has evolved at a rapid pace over the past 25 years. Digital and in-person clinics like Wally, Maven, Tia, Omada, Parsley, and One Medical are setting new standards for the way people experience care, and even legacy care providers are mimicking their practices with apps and more. Notably, most of these providers have chosen to offer subscription-based or up-front payment models and to “cut out the insurance middleman.” Why? Because it just doesn’t align with their promise of simplicity and empathy through the provider experience. By applying human-centered design, we can bridge this gap—creating insurance brands that look and feel like a natural extension of the modern care delivery experience. Companies like Oscar, Rightway, and Sana are already proving this is possible, offering an integrated experience that resonates with today’s consumers. It’s a fair question to ask, but why will business stakeholders care? A part of it will be about finding a set of believers and innovators who are both mission-aligned and consumer-focused. But it’s also important to acknowledge that fixing the flaws in the health insurance experience doesn’t just address the financial crisis around healthcare, it aligns with business needs too. In fact, there’s a clear business case for creating simpler health insurance products. According to the Integrated Benefits Institute, serious illnesses, when not treated, result in an average of 1.5 billion lost work days per year, costing employers $575 billion annually. When employees don’t delay or skip care because they’re confident in their health coverage, they’re less likely to require sick time, workers’ compensation, disability, or family and medical leave. Employers see higher retention, insurance brokers and agencies build deeper trust with their clients, and insurance companies see a higher rate of renewals. Established companies can participate too through partnerships with modern solutions, allowing them to stay competitive in an evolving marketplace, benefiting new, innovative players seeking broader distribution. Our goal is simple: In 10 years’ time, we want people to be talking about how complex health insurance used to be, and finally build some real trust. View the full article

Country’s prime minister says the US has accepted many gifts from allies in the past, including the Statue of LibertyView the full article

Of all of its ingredients, it’s perhaps the signature pepperoncini at Papa Johns that most differentiates the pizza chain from its competitors. Papa Johns places one of its Mediterranean-grown pepperoncinis in every pizza box along with complimentary garlic dipping sauce. Like fortune cookies at a Chinese restaurant or Andes mints at Olive Garden, these freebies are a bit of hospitality meant to delight customers and build loyalty in a notably unfaithful fast-food category. Now Papa Johns is taking the pepperoncini a step further by placing it right into your drink: “Cini Dirty Soda” is citrus soda with a zesty, pepper kick. How Papa Johns went all in on a pepper brand The brand expansion is happening at a time when Papa Johns is investing $25 million more in marketing this year to improve on its 1% year-over-year revenue growth. While such shocking food collabs are nothing new, in this case the pizza chain has been working pepperoncini deeper into its brand for a while now. Papa Johns released a new brand identity last year that includes a pepperoncini yellow-green in its color palette alongside colors like reds that evoke sauces and pepperonis. Coupled with a doughy custom font called Pappy, it’s a brand that’s designed to remind you of pizza with a free side of pepper. Now the pepperoncini has become the inspiration behind a limited-edition drink with Mountain Dew. Rather than selling the drink in its stores, Papa Johns made it as a limited-edition, do-it-yourself kit available only online. The Papa Johns recipe calls for 8 ounces of Mountain Dew and a quarter ounce of pepperoncini brine with a pepperoncini-brine-and-Italian-seasoning rim and a pepperoncini for garnish. It already sold out, and Papa Johns says it was one of the most engaged sweepstakes the chain has ever done. “The dirty-soda trend is on the rise, and with our revamped approach we thought it was the perfect opportunity to infiltrate culture with our iconic fan-favorite garnish,” Papa Johns CMO Jenna Bromberg tells Fast Company. “Our quality ingredients are our point of differentiation, which is where we’re focusing as a brand.” The “Cini Dirty Soda” taps into the dirty-soda craze of shops like Swig and Sodalicious while embracing the trend toward adventurous flavor profiles for products like the pickle soda Popeyes released last month. It also links the pizza chain to Mountain Dew, a soda brand that recently overhauled its visual identity and is making investments in becoming more culturally relevant. For a category as competitive as pizza, such small gestures as a free pepper and sauce can go a long way toward growing and cementing loyalty. Papa Johns is finding new ways to lean into its signature freebie. View the full article