The economics of frontier AI are starting to crack, and nowhere is that more clear than at Anthropic. As the company heads towards what could become the biggest IPO ever, it faces an ominous signal: Many of its U.S. customers are choosing cheaper artificial intelligence models over its most advanced option.
That matters because it is testing a core commercial assumption underpinning frontier AI: that the most advanced models will continue to command a price premium. Its an assumption that investors have already backed with hundreds of billions of dollars.
Those sums are being deployed into an extraordinarily capital-intensive race to develop top models. But that makes economic sense only if those models can continue to earn superior margins over good enough alternatives.
For now, the numbers still look solid. Both Anthropic and OpenAI have reported sharply accelerating revenues in recent months, and the former has even recorded its first adjusted operating profit. Yet Anthropic faces growing difficulty in persuading customers to pay for its leading model, Fable 5.
Companies have rushed to deploy AI. But as the bills mount, they are becoming more cost conscious. OpenAI and Anthropic have responded by introducing cheaper models below the frontier, while continuing to defend premium pricing for their flagship systems.
But if good enough beats best in delivering business value, the economics of that strategy no longer add up. To be clear, this is not simply a pricing problem, but the first sign that the business model underpinning frontier AI is starting to wobble.
The AI business model is breaking
The technology is advancing faster than the business case for it.
The latest models may be more capable, but for many companies they are not delivering proportionately better outcomes or productivity. Thats why many customers are deciding they simply arent worth the premium.
Thats where the strategic mistake begins. Anthropic and OpenAI are betting on the wrong source of competitive advantage. They believe spending ever more money pushing the frontier will be enough to dominate the enterprise market.
It probably wont.
They are confusing technological leadership with commercial leadership. Those two things are no longer the same.
Uber shows us where the enterprise market is heading. Earlier this year, the ride-hailing company gobbled up a years worth of AI tokensthe units of usage used to bill customersin just four months.
Uber then stopped treating every task the same; simple jobs went to cheaper models, while the most expensive systems were reserved for the hardest work. The payoff was huge. AI usage across the business increased more than ninefold without a corresponding rise in spending.
The lesson is quite obvious: Companies wont standardize on one frontier model any longer. Increasingly they’ll buy outcomes instead, and when that happens, the frontier model stops being the product and becomes just another input. The business model therefore has to change.
Stop selling models. Start selling outcomes
The first step is changing what they sell. Too many companies still think they need just one AI model. They dont. Like Uber, theyll increasingly assemble portfolios instead, selecting whichever delivers the best result for the task at hand.
Frontier labs need to adapt to that reality by offering portfolios of models at different price points and competing on the business outcomes they deliver instead of the performance of any single system. In that world, todays frontier AI becomes tomorrows freemium offering: free or cheap enough to get customers in the door.
The next step is to turn those models into a platform that automatically chooses the optimal AI for every task. At that point, the competitive battle shifts from models to the products and services wrapped around them.
When you step into the newly renovated L.L. Bean flagship, the first thing you see isn’t the brand’s latest collection of field coats or duck boots. It’s fish.
As you cross the threshold of the 160,000-square-foot store in Freeport, Maine, you’re greeted by massive, multilevel aquariums stocked with native Maine trout; instructors from the company’s nearby outdoor education center conduct fly-fishing demonstrations. As you climb the entryway’s grand staircase, there’s a pond exhibit featuring acrylic view ports where childrenand curious adultscan pop their heads inside a glass bubble to come nose-to-nose with a trout.
[Photo: courtesy L.L. Bean]
“We’ve concentrated all of our efforts on creating just a one-of-a-kind, must-visit retail destination,” says Greg Elder, L.L. Bean’s CEO, who takes me on a tour of the new location. “We want customers to go home with the satisfaction of thinking: I didn’t just buy something that solves a problem in my life. I learned something, I experienced something, I got to do something.”
This flagship is more than a store; it’s an amusement park, nearly as big as three football fields. With this $50 million investment, L.L. Bean is signaling that the next generation of retail isn’t just experiential. It’s an exciting IRL destination that makes ordering something on your phone with ApplePay downright boringeven for practical L.L. Bean shoppers. At a time when artificial intelligence is taking over so many aspects of our lives, the company is making a contrarian bet that customers will gravitate toward a low-tech destination.
[Photo: courtesy L.L. Bean]
The Reluctant Retailer
Even before this multiyear overhaul, the Freeport store attracted upwards of 4 million visitors annually, turning a sleepy coastal town into Maine’s second most-visited tourist attraction, after Acadia National Park. With its new interactive features, L.L. Bean is hoping millions more will make the pilgrimage.
The reimagined flagship represents the most ambitious investment in L.L. Beans 114-year history. Founded in 1912, the company remains private and family owned. Its executive board chairman, Shawn Gorman, is part of the fourth generation of descendants of the founder, Leon Leonwood Bean. Industry estimates place the companys annual revenue around $1.7 billion and the workforce at 5,700 year-round employees.
[Photo: courtesy L.L. Bean]
The renovation of the flagship took five years of planning and two years of active construction. It was led by Elder, who spent nearly two decades directing the company’s brick-and-mortar operations, climbing from VP of stores to chief retail officer before stepping into the top job. Elevating the top retail strategist to the head of the company signals L.L. Bean’s conviction that physical store experiences are central to its growth. This year, the company will open eight new stores, with 10 more scheduled for next year.
Despite its status as an American retail icon, L.L. Bean was surprisingly late to brick-and-mortar retail. For nearly a century, the company operated as a mail-order catalog with just a single store location in Freeport. “For 80 years, this was the only store,” Elder explains.
The company was early to e-commerce, launching a website in 1998, which makes sense since the warehouse and shipping infrastructure of a catalog and online business are similar. But it was only in the year 2000 that L.L. Bean built its second store.
Elder, who had spent 15 years as a retail specialist at Target and Eddie Bauer, was brought on to help develop the company’s brick-and-mortar strategy. Over the past two decades, L.L. Bean has been deliberate with its expansion. Today it operates roughly 60 stores across 22 states, which is a small retail footprint for its size. “We live kind of by the credo: Bigger is not always better. Better is better,” Elder says. “We’re very prudent and pragmatic, as is the Maine way.”
Even before it became an industry buzz phrase, Elder was always an advocate of experiential retail. Near each retail hub, the company opened an Outdoor Discovery Program location that offered free or low-cost entry-level classes in archery, fly casting, kayaking, clay target shooting, and more. “The hope was to do more than just sell things,” Elder says. “It was to give the customer a good experience and build their confidence by showing them they could shoot an arrow and come close to a target.”
[Photo: courtesy L.L. Bean]
A Mail-Order Business
L.L. Bean’s late entry into retail was rooted in its origin store. Orphaned at 12, Leon Leonwood Bean spent his youth working in his brothers shoe store while spending every spare moment hunting and fishing in the Maine woods. In 1911, frustrated by cold, soggy feet during outdoor trips, 40-year-old L.L. stitched leather uppers onto rubber boot bottoms. He gathered a mailing list of Maine hunting license holders and mailed out a promotional flyer for his new Maine Hunting Shoe. After several years of perfecting the design, L.L.’s business took off as a mail-order business.
By 1917, L.L. moved his shop directly above the Freeport post office, where another brother served as postmaster. As orders arrived, L.L. made the boots upstairs, packed them, and slid them down a wooden chute straight into the post office. He went on to invent other problem-solving products for outdoorsmen. In 1924, he introduced the Duck Hunting Coatknown today as the Field Jacket.
From the start, there were always die-hard fans of the company who came to Maine to see what L.L. was up to. Out-of-state hunters began stopping at the post office building to pick up a pair of boots in person. If the shop was closed, they would walk down the street to L.L.s house and ring the doorbell. L.L. would wake up, walk the customers back to the shop, and service them in the middle of the night. By the 1950s, he was tired of getting woken up, so he decided to keep his little shop open around the clock. “L.L. famously proclaimed they should take the locks off the doors and throw away the keys,” Elder says. “And to this day, this flagship operates 24/7, 365. We do not lock the doors.”
[Photo: courtesy L.L. Bean]
Over decades, the Freeport store grew organically, evolving into a sprawling flagship with different buildings focused on hunting and fishing, home goods, clothing, and more. But over time and through remodels, the store became increasingly unwieldy. For instance, there were 27 stock rooms across seven levels. When the flagship celebrated its 100-year anniversary in 2017, Elder and his retail team realized that it might be time for this massive locationwhich had become a major tourist attractionto be reimagined as a single, coherent, state-of-the-art space.
Shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic, L.L. Bean renovated its Freeport corporate officehome to hundreds of employeesinto an eco-friendly, energy-efficient facility built with reclaimed materials. The success of this renovation gave the retail team the confidence to pitch the L.L. Bean family on an even more ambitious building project. L.L.’s descendants approved the multimillion-dollar capital investment, and the company began searching for architects and designers. They picked Maine-based WBRC as the architect of record, along with Boston-based Arrowstreet Inc. to oversee the experiential retail design.
[Photo: courtesy L.L. Bean]
A Low-Tech Store
The flagship redesign lands at a moment when many retailers are filling stores with digital touchscreens, self-checkout kiosks, and smart mirrors. L.L. Bean has deliberately taken the opposite approach: almost zero screens.
“Our brand purpose is to inspire and enable people to experience the restorative power of being outside,” says Elder. “When AI is going to be everywhere, people don’t want to be surrounded by technology all the time.”
As you walk into the store, the space unfolds like a museum, with glass cases presenting rare pieces from the archives. There’s a pair of original Maine Hunting Shoes made around 1912, which would evolve into the iconic Bean Boots. There’s an original canvas ice carrier from 1944, which would become the Boat and Tote. Apart from two display panels showing archival video of Maine craftspeople stitching Bean Boots and Boat and Totes in factories 10 miles away, the store experience is analog.
[Photo: courtesy L.L. Bean]
On the lower level, an interactive personalization center lets shoppers customize bags, field jackets, and jeansnot just with monograms, but with custom patches, pins, bandanas, and charms. Outside, a lush 20,000-square-foot park features an open-air beer garden and concert stage that hosts free musical performances, with the country star Kip Moore and the ’90s band The Wallflowers doing shows this fall.
As an industry veteran, Elder is at the forefront of the latest retail technologies. He’s seen many tech fads pop up over the years and then disappear when customers didn’t actually like them. (Take smart screens in changing rooms, for instance.) There are some tools that are intriguing to him, like RFID systems that ake inventory management and checkouts easier. But he’s inclined to be skeptical of technology until it proves that it will improve the customer experience.
[Photo: courtesy L.L. Bean]
On the other hand, the store features many moments for interactive, tactile discovery. In the Bean Boot section, there’s a bar that allows you to customize your footwear with colorful laces. As we look at the boots, Elder points out the acrylic flip panels that allow you to explore the product’s history. “We could have used a screen here,” says Elder. “But the question is: Why?”
The top floor, which features the kid’s department, is designed like a modern play space. It was imagined with the help of a kid’s focus group, around a camp theme. There’s an open space featuring a pretend camp fire, plush s’mores, and a magnetic fly-fishing game that Elder demonstrates to me himself. (He proudly wields the pretend fishing rod to pick up a piece of bait, which he then uses to pick up the plastic fish.) “I can’t wait for the first rainy Saturday, and this place is just going berserk,” says Elder.
[Photo: courtesy L.L. Bean]
The Future of A Heritage Brand
As CEO, Elder is tasked with driving long-term corporate growth, while also protecting L.L. Bean’s brand identity. Over the last couple of years, heritage clothing items like field jackets have had a resurgence in popular culture, with many brands developing their own designs. This has contributed to a spike in L.L. Bean’s sales, since the company arguably invented the design. Boat and Tote bags, sometimes monogrammed with ironic or funny phrases, became a cultural phenomenon.
Elder sees its physical stores as an opportunity to show customers the company’s long history of making these products, and introducing them to a new generation. But the brand is also modernizing many of these designs, and leaning into customization to appeal to younger, urban consumers. “Style is still important to us, but we are not a company that chases trends,” Elder says. “We’re fortunate that many trends come back to the products we’ve always made.”
Elder points out that while L.L. Bean is an iconic American company, it still has room for growing brand awareness. While it is very well known on the East Coast, where it began its expansion, it is less so in other regions of the country. Building stores on the West Coast and in the Midwest will be crucial to customer acquisition. “When we open stores in places like Nashville, there’s a lot of demand from customers who want to experience the product in person,” Elder says
Whether this multimillion-dollar physical investment yields long-term returns remains to be seen in an evolving retail landscape. But inside L.L. Bean’s new Freeport campus, the strategy is clear: Shopping should be an immersive experience worth making a journey for.
“Good retail is really having a renaissance,” Elder reflects. “But it can’t just be about transactional shopping. It’s a social event, a family event, an outing.”
I just returned from a family vacation through France, Spain, and Portugal, and we had an amazing time. However, I couldnt help but notice a new tourist trap that could have potentially cost me hundreds of dollars.
The trap has to do with a practice known as Dynamic Currency Conversion, or DCC. Because of it, youre at risk of losing money every single time you pay with a credit cardwhich, for most people nowadays, is almost always. And recently, it seems DCC has evolved to make it even easier to fall victim to the trap.
First, heres how DCC works in case youre unaware: Lets say youre visiting Italy, Spain, or Portugal and you decide to make a purchase with your credit card. The terminal offers you an option: You can pay in U.S. dollars (USD), or you can pay in the local currency (in this case, euros).
For the uninformed, it may seem like a good idea to pay in USD. But its absolutely not, because the exchange rate offered by the terminal is usually bad. Very bad. According to Visa, this could add an additional 3% to 5% markup through inflated exchange rates.
In contrast, choosing to pay in local currency (like euros if youre traveling in Europe) allows your card network and issuing bank to handle the conversion, usually at a more favorable rate to you (although credit card companies and their rates vary, so you should always double-check). This is why, under normal circumstances and all things considered equal, you should always choose to pay in the local currency.
To illustrate, imagine you go out for a nice dinner and you get the bill, which is 100 euros. Depending on the exchange rate, selecting to pay in USD could turn a roughly $110 charge into more than $115, not counting any foreign transaction fees your own card may be charging you.
But as mentioned, theres now more to the story. The DCC trap seems to have recently evolved, increasing the chances you fall victim to it.
Now, in many shops and restaurants, after youve chosen to pay in a local currency like euros, the terminal then sends you to a second screen asking you to confirm if you accept or reject the conversion. As CNN business correspondent Richard Quest recently pointed out in a thread on X, if you push accept, youve fallen into the trap.
You have accepted the thing you wanted to reject, Quest explains. [The] cashier has told me most shoppers (myself included) are falling for this. Its wrong, wrong, wrong.
To be clear, most of the service personnel I dealt with on our trip encouraged me to reject the conversion on that second screen. In fact, Id often choose to pay in euros, forget about the second screen, and hand the terminal back to the cashier. At that point, theyd press reject conversion for me, at the same time showing me what they were doing to make sure I was okay with it.
The problem of DCC isnt limited to Europe. Its present and growing in other tourist cities around Asia, Latin America, and other parts of the world. I havent heard of this new second screen trap in any of those countries, but I wouldnt be surprised if its already global. Having lived and traveled extensively around Europe for years, though, Ive noticed DCC seems to be especially aggressive there.
How to avoid the trap
Remember, to avoid falling victim to the DCC trap, make sure to always:
Choose to pay in local currency.
Choose to reject conversion.
In doing so, youll generally be choosing the most favorable currency conversion rate and potentially saving yourself a lot of money in the process.
By Justin Bariso
This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister website, Inc.com.
Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
Every time you make a phone call, stream a video, or connect to Wi-Fi, your device is sending and receiving invisible signals through the air. So are your baby monitor, garage door opener, your GPS, the weather-monitoring satellites, and the radars keeping planes safely apart. All of these rely on the same invisible resource: the radio spectrum.
The demand for wireless datadriven by smartphones, video streaming, and billions of connected deviceskeeps growing, making available spectrum scarce. But it doesnt have to remain that way. As an electrical engineer who studies wireless communications, Im part of a field of research working to address the radio spectrum supply crunch.
The solution engineers and regulators have been developing is dynamic spectrum sharing. The core idea is straightforward: Instead of reserving a portion of spectrum exclusively for one user forever, allow multiple users to share the same frequenciesintelligently, and with clear rules to keep them from stepping on each others signals.
Radio spectrum is at the low end of the electromagnetic spectrum, with frequencies below microwaves, light, and X-rays. You can think of it as a vast collection of invisible highways, running at different frequencies, carrying signals through the air. Television, air traffic control, cellphones, remote sensing of distant starsthey all travel on different parts of this same invisible road network.
These communication highways span an enormous range, from very low frequencies used for submarine communication all the way up beyond radio waves to the frequencies of visible light. Higher frequencies carry signals over shorter distances but can move more data with wider highways. Because there is only so much spectrum to go around as a matter of fundamental physics, governments have historically managed it by issuing exclusive licensesdedicating certain highways to specific users and telling everyone else to stay off.
This system worked well enough for decades, especially because the highway network was sufficient for the demand. Studies measuring actual spectrum use over many years have found something surprising: Large stretches of licensed spectrum sit idle much of the time. For example, a military radar system may operate only in certain locations on certain days.
Burgeoning demand for radio spectrum has left some of these roads clogged with traffic jams, while others nearby sit almost completely empty.
Radio communications occupy a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. NASA
Traffic control for radio
Making dynamic spectrum sharing work requires radios that are more flexible than the fixed-frequency devices of the past.
Todays smartphones and wireless devices are increasingly built on software-defined radio technology, meaning the frequencies they operate on can be adjusted by software rather than being locked into hardware. Think of it like a car that can switch lanes automatically rather than being stuck in one lane forever. Early researchers called the vision behind this cognitive radiothe idea of a radio that could sense its environment and adapt accordingly.
This flexibility opens the door to a layered approach to spectrum sharing. At the top of the hierarchy sit incumbent primary usersthose who hold existing rights to a frequency, such as the military or licensed broadcasters. Below them, other secondary users can access the same spectrum when and where the incumbents arent using it, stepping aside automatically the moment an incumbent returns.
A more everyday version of this kind of sharing already exists in the Wi-Fi frequencies you use at home. Multiple devicesyour laptop, your phone, your smart TVshare the same spectrum without a central authority assigning each one a dedicated slot. They do this by briefly sensing whether the channel is busy before transmitting, and by automatically adjusting their speed based on how crowded things get. The protocol resembles drivers at a four-way stopinformal rules that mostly work without anyone directing traffic.
A significant recent example of dynamic spectrum sharing in the United States is the Citizens Band Radio Service, or CBRS, operating in the 3.5 GHz frequency band. The Federal Communications Commission created a three-tier system. Incumbent usersprimarily U.S. Navy radar systemssit at the top. Businesses and organizations that pay for priority access sit in the middle. And the general public can use whatever is left over.
A central computer systemthe Spectrum Access Systemacts as a real-time traffic controller, constantly tracking where Navy radar is active and automatically coordinating access for everyone else. When a Navy ship is not using the spectrum in your area, hospitals, factories, warehouses, and campuses can use it for their own private wireless networks. When the Navy needs it back, everyone else steps aside within seconds.
Getting around interference
The biggest technical hurdle in spectrum sharing is interferencewhat happens when two signals overlap and scramble each other, like two people shouting different things in your ear at the same time. As more devices crowd the airwaves, each with different power levels and different bandwidth needs, keeping signals from colliding becomes increasingly complex.
My laband other researchers are now turning to artificial intelligence for help. AI can learn from experience and adapt in real time to changing conditionsdeciding who transmits when, and at what power level, in ways that older rule-based systems could not. At the same time, new challenges are emerging, such as satellites and ground-based networks increasingly needing to share the same frequencies.
The way radio spectrum is managed may not seem like a kitchen table issue, but it shapes everything from how fast your phone loads a video to whether a factory can automate its floor, to the reliability of a rural schools internet access. Future wireless technologies, including those that connect self-driving cars and enable remote surgery, will depend on having access to enough spectrum. Dynamic spectrum sharing is how to make room for all of it without dismantling the systems already in place.
The airwaves are finite. But with smarter management, they can do far more than once thought possible.
Aylin Yener is a professor of electrical and computer engineering, computer science and engineering, integrated systems engineering at The Ohio State University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
A finance director stands in front of hundreds of employees to reveal the annual figures. No, its not the start of the most corporate joke ever, but something I saw a few weeks ago.
Right away, he reveals hes nervous. This isnt his natural habitat. In fact, the last time he was on stage was back in high school, playing Kenickie in a production of Grease. He promises that if anyone falls asleep while he talks through the figures, as punishment for being boring, hell sing “Greased Lightnin” to wake them up. Cue appreciative chuckles as the audience warms to him.
His openness (and conjuring the memorable image of him with coiffured hair and a cigarette behind his ear) isnt something we expect in a business setting, let alone from the numbers guy.
Humor connects. It creates a window into the real person on stage. The finance director suddenly became someone the whole audience has an interest in actually listening to.
We dont often see humor in senior leaders or managers in the workplace. Because of that, its a surefire way to be heard. But it comes with a risk: What if it doesnt land right?
Here are six ways to use humor effectively at work.
1. Help the room, rather than perform for it
The best humor makes it easier for people to listen, learn, and work together. The worst kind asks everyone to stop and admire the person being funny.
I once worked with someone who made quips all the time. He would interject withbunny ears quotation fingers at the readya hilarious aside.
He was quick minded, but he slowed down meetings. So, before you open your mouth, ask yourself: Will this help the room move forward, or am I simply trying to get a laugh for the sake of it?
2. Dont punch down
During a meeting recently, all of us got distracted by a driver outside the window making heavy weather of getting into a parking spot. To get us back on track, I broke the silence with: Im very good at parallel parking. There was a bit of a laugh, and we were ready to continue. But a member of the team chipped in, Ha! What do you drive, Penny? A Mini? I managed not to snap back that I drive a large, menacing car, thank you very much, and instead joined his colleagues in silently looking down at our notepads. His denigrating “joke” fell flat.
Comedy-wise, its called “punching down” when we deploy humor at anothers expense. Like a fart in an elevator, its not nice. Ditto banter at work: Lets just not.
3. Make it shared and situational
The safest and often funniest humor comes from something everyone can see: technology thats stopped working, the oddly gloomy room youre in because the light switch is unfathomable, or the mild absurdity of a situation unfolding before you. Its joyful because everybody is in on it.
Humor tends to travel badly. A reference, phrase, or badinage that feels obvious to you may mean nothing to an international colleague. Similarly, private jokes and niche references are a waste of breath. If three colleagues are swapping jokes about a ball game while everybody else waits, theyre being cliquey and exclusionist.
4. Use self-deprecation carefully
The financial directors Grease story worked because he gave us a bit of vulnerability without casting doubt on his ability to do the job. He admitted he was nervous; he didnt say he was hopeless with numbers.
Laughing at yourself shows that you feel secure in who you are. Repeatedly telling people that you are disorganized, terrible at spreadsheets, or no good under pressure may eventually persuade them that you are just that. Be warmly self-aware but dont regularly undermine yourself.
5. Notice what people already find funny about you
Most people have their own version of wit, even if they would never describe themselves as outright funny.
When I was starting out as a professional speaker, I watched recordings of my keynote talks to learn where I could improve. I noticed audiences laughing at times I didnt expect. I asked people what they found funny and sometimes the answer was: Its the way your eyebrows work, Penny.
For you it may be a dry observation, an unexpected phrase, or the expression on your face that people find amusing. And then, if youre inclined, do more of it.
6. Never use humor in an email
A firm rule of mine. When youre in person, a smile or the warmth in your voice can indicate your meaning. On email, your beautifully judged ironic observation can arrive sounding sharp or baffling. Save your repartee for situations where people can read your intention. In a room, on a call, or on stage, where you can see how it lands and adjust accordingly.
Humor is just another form of communication
Humor at work doesnt feel risky when we view it as another form of communication that simply shows an understanding of yourself and your audience, making it more likely youll be listened to and noticed. And thats no joke.
With AI we are entering a new era in which technology can tabulate information, recognize patterns, answer questions, and write reports at a phenomenal speed, and do tasks that would require a massive amount of human time and effort. This has huge implications for our future and what kind of skills are still important for humans to acquire. Being the smartest person in the room has little value if artificial intelligence can pull up more accurate information than the entire room has, and assess that information in moments.
There is, however, an aspect that we humans possess that AI does not: It cannot authentically care about others and make them feel heard. Doug Noll, author of Empathy Leadership, puts it this way: Empathy is the learned ability to observe and name the emotional experience of another person from that persons frame of reference.
Noll has a unique background as a lawyer turned peacemaker. From 2010 to 2020 he and his colleague Laurel Kaufer trained thousands of incarcerated people in California on how to stop prison violence, using empathy as the foundational skill for de-escalation and nervous system regulation. Empathy suffers from a vague idea about another persons feelings,” Noll says. “It is not vague. It is a precise neurophysiological skill that anyone can quickly learn and apply.
Noll and Kaufers work remind us of how powerful empathy can be. Here are four crucial ways empathy matters in the workplace that cannot be outsourced to AI.
1. Appreciation
We know that people don’t necessarily leave organizations because of factors such as salary, workload, or lack of advancement. Often, they leave because they don’t feel recognized and appreciated. I recently read of a 20-year employee receiving an email recognizing her time with the organization. When she read the email, she discovered that it had been generated by AI.
Imagine her disappointment when she realized that her manager could not be bothered to use his own words to write a personal note. While technically she was recognized, it fell very short of feeling appreciated.
2. Relationships
Workplaces are more than places where we go to complete tasks that we are paid to do. Social attachments are formed and relationships built that often reach outside the workspace and carry on after. Sure, AI can provide massive amounts of information, but human experience and understanding of nuances and historical background is required to use that information beneficially and ethically to build relationships with other people. These relationships can help us find purpose and meaning in our work.
3. Trust
Trust is one of the essential ingredients of a workplace in which we feel safe, included, respected, and appreciated. It is trust that allows people to feel safe to voice their opinions and take risks, knowing that their leaders will have their backs if things dont work out as planned. In my book Emotional Intelligence Game Changers, one of the sections speaks to how leaders can develop trust.
Trust takes time to build and can be easily destroyed. As humans we are hardwired for connection and want to be able to trust. Trust forms slowly through sharing with others, and coming to know and believe that the sharing will be safe with them.
Building trust is an emotional process that rests upon our feelings about someone and our ability to empathize with them. While AI can mimic emotions, it is unable to feel.
4. Understanding
Empathy helps us understand ourselves and others. It provides us with tools to understand others, respond with care, and make them feel safe around us. Through understanding our emotions we come to recognize how we come across to others and develop a better understanding of how others may think or feel differently.
More than having access to the best technology, leaders will need to develop their people through understanding how to connect with them, earn their trust, and bring out the best of their abilities. Without building these crucial foundations in their people, the best technology cannot be used to its full potential.
AI will not help us build the workplace memories that matter
When we look back to our work, our memories will not be of the technology that we worked with. They will be of leaders who saw potential in us that we didnt see in ourselves. These memories will be of connections and friendships that we formed with coworkers and people we came into contact with. While technology will change, come, and go, the relationships we build will form lasting impressions and memories that will stay forever.
For the next ten days, while everyone else is settling back into school and ushering in autumn with pumpkin spice lattes, Jewish Americans will be celebrating the “Days of Awe,” starting with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and ending with Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
The Days of Awe start at sundown on Friday, September 11, followed by 10 days of somber reflection on the past year. Yom Kippur is a day of atonement and deep reflection for which Jews traditionally fastit begins at sundown on Sunday, September 20 and finishes at the end of the next day on Monday, September 21.
And, for generations, Manischewitz has been a staple on many tables over the Jewish holidayswhether that’s their wine, crackers, or another product like macaroons. But looking ahead, the question is whether younger Jewish consumers, like Gen Zerswhose brand of Judaism is a far cry from that of their parents or grandparentswill continue that tradition.
“We’re not trying to convince Gen Z and other younger generations to experience Manischewitz the way previous generations did,” Manischewitz senior vice president Mirit Shalvi tells Fast Company. We’re giving them opportunities to make Manischewitz their own, and develop a connection to a brand their grandparents also knew. Very few brands have the ability to bridge generations that way.”
Introducing Manischewitz to a broader generation of culturally curious consumers has been a very intentional strategy for the company, particularly since its recent brand refresh in 2024.
“What is important is that we haven’t approached this as simply changing the packaging or running a campaign aimed at Gen Z,” a Manischewitz spokesperson tells Fast Company. “We’ve been looking at how a 100+-year-old heritage brand can participate in contemporary culture while still being unmistakably Manischewitz.”
Manischewitz was born in 1888, some 138 years ago, from Jewish immigrants’ need, and desire, for special kosher wine and food products, to ensure they met the necessary dietary guidelines under Jewish law once they came to America.
Years later, following a 2024 refresh, Manischewitz has moved well beyond being perceived solely as a brand consumers encounter during major Jewish holidays. And it has created more opportunities for younger consumers to engage with the brand through an array of food products beyond staples like wine, matzoh, crackers and gefilte fish, to gluten-free, low-sodium, and sugar-free options.
Its appeal to the next generation of American Jews and those interested in kosher products is, perhaps, most evident in the design of its website and products. The brighter orange color, updated font, contemporary food photography, and funny Yiddish expressions retain the visual and cultural cues associated with Manischewitz, while also showing how the tradition of having Manischewitz on the table can “be fun, contemporary and culturally relevant.”
That’s also true for its new merch (check out this culinary chutzpah apron), and updated social media and entertainment content. Its dating show, Manischewitz Matchmakers, appeals to one thing all younger Jewish adults care about: dating. It also has a traveling food truck serving hot dogs, knishes, and matzo ball soup.
“Younger consumers don’t necessarily separate food, identity, entertainment, social media and culturethey experience all of those things together,” Talia Sabag, marketing manager for Manischewitz, tells Fast Company. “That’s why our evolution has gone far beyond packaging. From a dating show and a traveling deli to an art exhibition, college programs, athlete partnerships, merchandise and new products, we’re finding new ways for people to participate in the Manischewitz brand.”
And the strategy is working: Since 2024, the brand has grown more than 12%, with Manischewitz’s core products up over 40%driven mainly by matzo product purchases by younger consumers.
And that’s not all: Manischewitz says it also saw double-digit growth in key markets such as Florida and California, along with continued expansion online, with sales tripling since 2024 in the “Fresh & Frozen” categoryreflecting strong demand from younger consumers for convenience. Those items include frozen Challah, frozen matzoh balls, and frozen rugelachall of which are ready to go after heating.
For more than 25 years, I’ve been the “Computer Guy” for friends, family, and colleagues who call when something digital goes sideways. Lately, those calls have changed. The questions used to be about slow computers and forgotten passwords. Now, almost every conversation circles back to the same two words: artificial intelligence.
The concern is understandableand underscored by recent warnings from high-profile AI researchers about the threat of superintelligence. AI is in our home appliances, work products and even attends our meetings. It shapes the apps we use, the content we see, and the messages we receive. Voice assistants listen to our commands, shopping sites predict what we’ll buy next, and AI tools quietly learn from the data we create. Meanwhile, the traditional cybersecurity risks of stolen passwords, compromised accounts, and phishing emails haven’t gone anywhere. They’ve only gotten more sophisticated and harder to spot.
What frustrates me is that most of the “protection advice” floating around reminds me of Cold Warera guidance telling schoolchildren to hide under their desks during a nuclear attack: well-intentioned, but not exactly practical.
The good news is you don’t need a computer science degree to meaningfully reduce your risk. Four simple habits can help you protect your privacy, spot digital deception, and keep your accounts safer in an AI-driven world.
Two ways to limit AI’s reach into your world
Start by limiting your digital footprint. Every app permission you grant, online quiz you complete, voice command you speak, and prompt you enter can add to the data profile companies build about you.
Remove the apps you never use from your phone, then review app permissions on the ones you do use, opting out of unnecessary data collection where possible.
Always avoid sharing personal details with AI chatbots. Be especially cautious with free AI sites that use your prompts, conversations, or uploaded files to train their systems. Anything you share could be stored, analyzed, or reused in ways you did not intend. Privacy-focused options such as proton.com and duck.ai may be better choices because they are designed to reduce data collection.
You should also learn to recognize AI-generated content. AI can now create realistic fake images, videos, audio, and phishing messages that appear to come from people or organizations you trust. Verify unexpected messages, reverse-image search photos that seem unusually polished, and pause before reacting to content designed to make you angry, afraid, or excited.
Two basic cybersecurity protections to start
Even in the AI age, these are two things everyone should do to protect themselves online. It not only helps fight against human hackers but also, with AI-generated attacks.
First, use strong, unique passwords and store them in a dedicated password manager. Reusing the same password across multiple sites means one breach can expose your email, banking, shopping, and social media accounts at the same time. A password manager creates long, random passwords for each account and remembers them for you, so you only need to memorize one strong master password.
Second, enable multi-factor authentication, or MFA, on every account that offers it. MFA adds a second proof of identity, such as code from an authenticator app or a tap on a hardware security key. Even if someone steals your password, MFA makes it much harder for them to get into your account.
Some examples of how strong passwords and MFA can help include:
Deepfake Social Engineering AI-generated voice clones or video deepfakes can impersonate trusted individuals, such as a CEO calling IT, your daughter, or your grandmother, making social engineering far more convincing. Even if an attacker successfully tricks someone into handing over their credentials, MFA ensures that stolen or socially engineered passwords alone aren’t sufficient to gain access.
AI-Optimized Password Spraying AI can analyze publicly available data from social media and past breaches to build targeted password lists for a group of people. It then sprays the most likely passwords across many accounts while staying just below lockout thresholds to avoid detection. Strong, complex passwords are unlikely to appear on any spray list, and MFA blocks access even if a common password happens to be matched.
Four simple steps
These four habits shrinking your data footprint, spotting AI-generated deception, using a password manager, and enabling MFA give home users a practical first line of defense.
Cybersecurity is not something you finish once and forget. Threats evolve, and your habits should evolve with them. Start with one step today: review your app permissions, set up a password manager, or turn on MFA for your most important account. A few minutes now can prevent far bigger problems later.
Limit your digital footprint review app permissions and opt out of data collection
Be careful with free AI tools avoid entering sensitive personal, financial, medical, or work information unless you understand how the service uses your data
Use a password manager generate strong, unique passwords for every account
Enable multi-factor authentication use an authenticator app or hardware security key for your most important accounts
This week Apple introduced its new iPhone lineup, including the iPhone 18 Pro series and the iPhone Duo. The devices feature the most advanced tech that Apple has ever stuffed into a smartphone. But if youre not in the market for a new iPhone, theres some good news: The company also announced a release date for the new iOS 27 operating system, which will run on any iPhone that can run iOS 26.
Apple says that iOS 27 will be released to the general public this Monday, September 14. Until then, there are some things you can do to help ease the upgrade and ensure that the latest software runs as smoothly as possible on your existing iPhone.
Update to iOS 26.6 or later
Apple included a new indexing optimization with the release of iOS 26.6, in preparation for iOS 27, that should save you lots of post-installation headaches. Indexing is the term for the process in which iOS goes through all the files on your iPhone and categorizes and tags them, so it can find the file you need quickly when you search for it later on.
Whenever a new major version of iOS comes out, it generally reindexes your entire phonebut this process can take days and is compute-intensive. So while the indexing is going on, it can sap your iPhone’s processing power and battery lifewhich is why you see so many claims on social media that the new operating system slows down your older iPhone.
Because iOS 27 has a completely new Spotlight search architecture that helps power the new Siri AI, indexing may take even longer than usual. Thats why, as noted by 9to5Mac, Apple added a background feature in iOS 26.6 that lets your iPhone start reindexing before you even install iOS 27. This means that, provided you have been running iOS 26.6 or later for a few days, your upgrade to iOS 27 should go much more smoothly.
To make sure youre running iOS 26.6 or later, go to Settings > General > Software Update.
Back up your data to iCloud
Right before installing iOS 27, you should make sure that your iPhone is backed up to iCloud. While its unlikely an iOS 27 install will brick your phone or erase critical data, accidents can happen. If your iPhone is backed up to iCloud, at least you always have a copy of your data to restore if the worst occurs.
Your iPhone should back up automatically to iCloud each night when you plug it in before bed. But you can also force an iCloud backup right before downloading iOS 27, too.
To manually back up your iPhone to iCloud, go to Settings > Apple Account > iCloud> iCloud Backup and tap Back Up Now. Just make sure youre on a fast Wi-Fi connection so that the backup doesnt take forever.
Free up storage space
Depending on your iPhone model, iOS 27 may require 25GB of free space or more to install. If you dont have that free space, you cant download iOS 27. Thats why you should take the time now to check whether you have enough storage space and, if not, free up some space so your iPhone has room to download iOS 27.
Generally, the largest individual files on your iPhone are video games, which can be gigabytes in size, and 4K video, such as the kind you may have if youve downloaded any movies or series for offline viewing in streaming apps like Netflix and Disney+.
To see what data is taking up the most space on your iPhone, go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage. You can then determine which large files or apps you no longer need and delete them.
Update your apps
In preparation for any major new iOS release, most developers work diligently to update their apps so that they run as smoothly as possible on the new operating system. In many cases, developers ship these optimizations in their apps before the major iOS release, so users can have the best possible experience as soon as the new iOS update is installed.
In order to make sure your apps run without problemsand also take advantage of any newly supported iOS 27 featuresits good practice to update your iPhone apps ahead of downloading iOS 27 (or at the very least, right after installing the new OS).
To make sure youre using the latest version of all your apps before installing iOS 27, open the App Store app, then tap your Apple Account profile picture in the upper-right corner. Next, tap App Updates, and then update all available apps.
After prepping your iPhone for iOS 27, you should be all ready to install the new operating system as soon as Apple releases it.
Below, Dr. Itamar Shatz shares five key insights from his new book, Solving Procrastination: The Science of Why We Put Things Off and How to (Finally!) Stop.
Itamar is an Affiliated Lecturer at Cambridge University. He helps people understand why they procrastinate and how to stop, using a practical system that he developed from more than 500 scientific studies.
Whats the Big Idea?
Procrastination isnt a failure of time management or a sign that we dont care. Its a psychological tug-of-war between what we intend to do and what feels easier or better right now. To stop procrastinating, we need to understand whats driving our particular pattern of delay and use strategies that address the real cause, rather than relying on willpower.
Listen to the audio version of this Book Biteread by Shatz himselfin the Next Big Idea app, or buy the book.
1. Procrastinators care more, not less.
Procrastination involves an intention-action gap between the beneficial things we mean to do and the problematic things we actually do.
Youve probably experienced this yourself if there was ever something you truly wanted and intended to do, but found yourself putting off, again and again, each time telling yourself that youll do it in tomorrow, or soon, or in just five minutes, even if deep down you want to shake yourself and yell JUST DO IT ALREADY.
The usual problem in cases like these isnt that you dont care about the things you should be doing, but that you have paralyzing perfectionism from caring too much.
Thats why procrastination is an issue not only when it comes to unpleasant tasks, like many people think, but also on activities were genuinely excited about. And its why we procrastinate not only on stuff that doesnt matter, but also on activities that can have serious consequences.
To avoid this pitfall, its important to replace perfectionism with good enough, which can actually be quite good. Then, remind yourself that the right number of mistakes in your work isnt zero, and focus on your own standards (rather than those set by others).
2. We procrastinate to pursue immediate pleasure and avoid immediate pain.
The misconception that procrastination is just about time management or motivation leads us to try solving it with the wrong tools, which guarantees well fail.
Time-management is usually a symptom of procrastination, rather than its cause. We can have excellent time-management skills and still end up procrastinating because were not addressing the real cause. No matter how much planning we do or how many time-management apps we use, even the most meticulous schedule wont work if we cant actually bring ourselves to follow it when the chips are down.
If we want to stop procrastinating, we need to take back control of our mind and find ways to strengthen our drive to act, or weaken our drive to delay. Fortunately, several techniques can help, like ditching big goals in favor of attainable ones, taking extra breaks when we need to rest, and riding the waves of our productivity rhythms.
3. Our brain is great at tricking us into thinking that next time will be different.
The biggest issue is the self-control fallacy: our mistaken belief that if we just try harder, well manage to do what we need to through sheer willpower, even though this exact approach has failed us many times before. Its a tempting notion, because it offers a clear and straightforward solution that seems believableuntil its time to act. This approach rarely helps us win our internal tug-of-war.
To see through this trick, use the reality rule, by asking yourself what youre actually likely to do, based on what you did in similar situations before, rather than on how you wish youll act. That way, you can adjust accordingly and find new solutions that could actually help, instead of trying the same things and getting the same results.
4. Procrastination is more varied than people think.
Theres no single strategy that everyone should always use to overcome their procrastination. A college student whos procrastinating because of distractions should use different strategies than an artist whos procrastinating because of perfectionism, as should an executive whos procrastinating because of burnout, and so on.
To overcome your procrastination, its important to figure out why you procrastinate. Youll often need to dig through several layers before you get to the reasons you should focus on addressing; an example is when it seems youre getting distracted by social media, but really youre stuck because your self-confidence is low.
To help make sense of your procrastination, you can consider when, where, and how you do it, and what the difference is between cases where you procrastinate versus ones when you take action. You can also consider the different procrastinator archetypeslike the Worrier, Zigzagger, and Rebeland see which ones resonate with you the most. This is great both for figuring out why you procrastinate, and for finding the best ways to stop.
5. Procrastination might be growing more common, but it has ancient roots.
To overcome procrastination, we need to address modern risks, like the increasing bombardment of digital distractions, steep rise in unstructured work, and climbing rates of anxiety.
But, although its tempting to think of procrastination as a purely modern problem, people have been battling it throughout history. Thats why we have warnings from almost three thousand years ago, saying that a man who puts off work is always at hand-grips with ruin.
The issue is that procrastination is rooted deep in our psychology, and specifically in an impulsive fight-or-flight response that were wired to engage in. Fortunately, we can seize control of this response by empathizing with our future self to make us care more about what will happen to us. And we can also shine a bright light on our fears (the real ones driving our behavior, rather than just those that lie on the surface) by asking what they are, how likely they are to happen, and how we can successfully move on if they do.
This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
< class="wp-block-paragraph">Enjoy our full library of Book Bitesread by the authors!in the Next Big Idea app.
