For years, branding for high-end bottled water tried to sell consumers on the ineffable characteristics gained by dint of its origins: the purity of an Icelandic glacier, or the exoticness and vibrancy of an aquifer from a remote Pacific island. Now, a new generation of water brands are looking to rebrand wellness, health, and luxury as drinking a product that lacks a certain invisible mystery—namely microplastics and PFAS, the “forever chemicals.” With increasing evidence showing that bottled water has significantly more microplastics than the tap, including an Ohio State University study released earlier this year, these brands are tapping into…
Author: Staff Writer
There is undeniable tension between employees who fear AI will take their jobs and CEOs who are wildly optimistic that AI will change their businesses for good. As executives name AI as one of many reasons for mass layoffs, Costco’s CEO Ron Vachris views AI as a supplement to human value. Two weeks ago, Vachris spoke at the Economic Club of Chicago about how AI is—and isn’t—changing Costco’s workforce of 341,000. Costco has used AI in many parts of the business, and has seen an increase in sales in some of its departments, like in the pharmacy sector. “AI has…
U.S. and Iranian negotiators reached a tentative agreement Thursday to extend the ceasefire in the 3-month-old war by 60 days and launch talks on Iran’s nuclear program, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter. Iran did not immediately confirm any deal, and the official noted that President Donald Trump has yet to sign off on it. The emerging memorandum of understanding came as the fragile ceasefire in the war between the U.S. and Iran appeared to be wavering. The latest flare-up in fighting happened less than a day earlier, when Kuwait intercepted missiles fired from Iran, according to U.S. Central Command. The…
CNN has sued Perplexity, accusing the AI company of unlawfully using the news network’s copyrighted content without permission. The lawsuit, filed on Thursday, claims that Perplexity copied over 17,000 of CNN’s stories, videos, images, and other published works to support its products and tools. “[Perplexity], a company valued at tens of billions of dollars, should not be able to steal from entities that create the original content Perplexity exploits,” said a CNN spokesperson in a statement. “The public relies on high-quality news journalism reported by human beings to understand their world, which is frequently dangerous and expensive to produce. Commercial…
ASIA: The major Asian stock markets had a mixed day today: • NIKKEI 225 decreased 306.29 points or -0.47% to 64,693.12 • Shanghai increased 4.909 points or 0.12% to 4,098.636 • Hang Seng decreased 322.07 points or -1.27% to 25,006.16 • ASX 200 decreased 124.80 points or -1.43% to 8,592.90 • SENSEX closed • Nifty50 closed The major Asian currency markets had a mixed day today: • AUDUSD increased 0.00276 or 0.39% to 0.71680 • NZDUSD increased 0.00305 or 0.52% to 0.59335 • USDJPY decreased 0.37 or -0.23% to 159.149 • USDCNY decreased 0.00721 or -0.11% to 6.77185 The above…
If there’s anything Trump loves, it’s slapping his face and name on things: vodka, steaks, passports, and even monuments to other people. Now he wants to emblazon his likeness on paper currency. According to The Washington Post, Trump appointees are pushing the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the agency tasked with printing the nation’s money, to prepare a banknote with the president’s face on it. They want the value to be $250—a nod to the country’s 250th anniversary this year. If this initiative proceeds, it would also require changing policy. Federal law only allows deceased people to be printed on the…
Automation and AI aren’t synonymous, but there is a relationship. As AI capabilities have improved, more companies are using it to automate parts of the business that previously were human-touch only. Deciding what to automate and how to use technology for the greatest impact, is something our Fast Company Impact Council members think about daily. Here’s what 24 members said about how they incorporate automation, and how that has changed over time. 1. SCALE CONSISTENCY AND FAIRNESS Automation and AI are most valuable when they reclaim time for high-impact, human-centered work. In mission-driven organizations like ours, core functions—relationship-building, equity-centered design,…
Israel-based Wix joins a growing list of companies announcing layoffs citing “the fast evolution” of AI. (That list includes Meta, Cisco, Groupon, and Intuit, in just the last few weeks.) It also said a weak dollar, creating a poor exchange rate with the Israeli shekel, was to blame. Wix, a website builder, said Thursday that it’s laying off roughly 20% of its workforce, in a post from CEO Avishai Abrahami on X and LinkedIn. (That’s about 1,000 people, according to CNBC, which reported that Wix had 5,277 employees as of May.) “We have witnessed the most significant shift in how…
When Rory McIlroy won the Masters for the second year in a row, Kalshi shared a photo of him on Instagram with the words, “Wait he’s goated.” When a video of NBA player Damian Lillard recovering from an injury circulated online, Kalshi’s main competitor Polymarket posted, “The league is cooked.”If you don’t know what either of those phrases mean, it’s because you may not be the target audience.The posts and hundreds of others like it are exposing younger people to prediction market platforms, where users can put money on the line for the outcomes of real-world events — or absurd…
On Feb. 10, 2026, an 18-year-old woman, Jesse Van Rootselaar, killed eight people and herself in a mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia. OpenAI had previously flagged her ChatGPT conversations as having a disturbing fascination with extreme violence, and suspended her account, but reportedly the company did not notify law enforcement. On Oct. 2, 2025, a young man named Jonathan Gavalas in Jupiter, Florida, took his own life after developing what his father’s lawsuit described as a romantic attachment to Google’s Gemini chatbot. The suit claimed that Gemini coached Gavalas to shed his own body. The suit said Google…