A few months ago, I sat across from a CEO who was genuinely proud. He had just implemented an AI-powered people analytics platform: real-time sentiment data, predictive turnover scores, and engagement dashboards. Beautiful system. His HR team had been cut by a third. “It does what they used to do,” he told me. Six months later, two of his highest-performing senior managers quit in the same quarter. No flags. No warning scores. Nothing on the dashboard. Just two people who had felt, for a long time, that no one knew them, who had finally stopped waiting for that to change.…
Author: Staff Writer
Everyone expected Kevin Warsh to come into his first Federal Reserve meeting and immediately begin cutting rates because Trump put him in the chair. That was never going to happen. Markets have once again demonstrated they do not understand how interest rates actually function. The Federal Reserve left rates unchanged at 3.50% to 3.75%, but what mattered was not the decision itself. What mattered was the complete shift in tone. The Fed removed language suggesting future easing and, for the first time this year, officials openly moved toward discussing potential rate hikes rather than cuts. Inflation is moving higher…
Lately, I’ve seen a specific pattern emerge as organizations make AI claims. “We’re AI-first.” “We’re AI-native.” “We’re agentic.” The language is confident, forward-looking, and nearly universal. The results are generally not. Last year, MIT found that billions of dollars in enterprise GenAI pilots yielded nothing measurable. Gartner predicts more than 40% of agentic AI projects will be canceled by the end of 2027, and a recent Gallup survey showed that just 13% of U.S. employees use AI daily. Even “frequent use,” defined as a few times a week or more, sits at only 28%. So there’s a gap. Leaders describe…
After spending years defending him, campaigning for him, endorsing him, and standing beside him while anyone who questioned his fitness was attacked as a conspiracy theorist, Hillary Clinton now says Biden made a “terrible mistake” by running again. That is convenient, but the problem is that Biden did not act alone. The entire Democratic establishment knew exactly what was happening and saw his cognitive decline. They heard the incoherent speeches, watched the debates. Yet they all marched in lockstep behind a man they insisted was perfectly capable of serving another four years. Clinton is really attempting to do is rewrite…
Claude Design, Anthropic Lab’s AI design tool, launched in April to a crowded market of vibe coding design programs. Now, after a few months in the hands of designers, Anthropic is launching a big update to Claude Design that addresses their biggest pain points. The company says Claude Design is now better at adhering to design systems and has more finely-tuned editing controls, and users can also do more with fewer tokens. Anthropic designer Nate Parrott tells Fast Company that the previous version of Claude Design lacked some consistency when it came to applying design systems across generated prototypes. The…
Earlier this year, I was in a room with a group of CEOs in Istanbul. A few weeks later, on a call with board members from a European grocery chain. A month later with investors in Australia, then another call with investors from North America. And most recently, an operating team in the U.S. Different markets, different competitive pressures, different stages of AI maturity. Same conversation every time. They all wanted to talk about AI-powered shopping agents, and competing on the agentic commerce front end. That focus is understandable. The signals are real. But the executives who are better positioning…
When it comes to fast food, Chick-fil-A has a reputation for outstanding customer service. The chicken franchise is known for letting patrons know it’s a “pleasure” to serve them, and it’s paid off in terms of customer satisfaction: Chick-fil-A has topped the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) in the quick-service restaurant category for 11 years straight—until this year, when a new contender knocked the chain off its throne. In its debut on the ACSI, sandwich chain Jersey Mike’s Subs ranked number one among quick-service restaurants. It earned a score of 84 out of 100, beating out Chick-fil-A’s score of 83.…
From shoes to AI to . . . Smartbird? It’s been a strange, winding path to an entirely new strategy for the company formerly known as Allbirds. On Wednesday, the company made two big announcements: It has named a new CEO, Nadia Carlsten, and it changed its name from Allbirds to Smartbird. It’s also identifying itself as “an AI infrastructure provider,” which, again, is a huge change from its previous iteration as a footwear maker. Carlsten will also join the company’s board and replace current CEO Joe Vernachio, who had taken the helm of the company in March 2024. She…
When done right, brand activations can bring real-life awareness and connect a brand with its customers. When done poorly, they can turn sour quickly, bringing the opposite effect to a brand—as recently happened with activewear company Lululemon. On Tuesday, the Canadian athletic clothing retailer organized a massive yoga festival on China’s Great Wall as part of its move toward gaining share in the Chinese market. However, the promotional event, which was meant to be a celebration of Chinese culture and wellness with 2,000 guests—quickly backfired.According to Chinese state-owned publication Global Times, Chinese actor Zhu Yilong was among the guests present…
ASIA: The major Asian stock markets had a mixed day today: • NIKKEI 225 increased 497.75 points or 0.72% to 69,902.25 • Shanghai increased 16.184 points or 0.40% to 4,108.076 • Hang Seng decreased 181.79 points or -0.74% to 24,312.16 • ASX 200 increased 48.60 points or 0.54% to 8,966.30 • SENSEX increased 347.14 points or 0.45% to 77,155.62 • Nifty50 increased 96.55 points or 0.40% to 24,085.70 The major Asian currency markets had a mixed day today: • AUDUSD increased 0.00043 or 0.06% to 0.70715 • NZDUSD decreased 0.00165 or -0.28% to 0.58155 • USDJPY decreased 0.215 or -0.13%…