In planning meetings, in brainstorms, in the messy moments when decisions need to be made before all the information is in, AI is my copilot. But not in the cute robot helper way. I treat it like my sharpest strategist, fastest researcher, and most unflinching truth-teller.
As the CEO of Quantious, a future-forward marketing agency that works with tech companies, my job is to stay fast, smart, and endlessly curious; not just for myself, but for my clients. Having executive-level AI by my side is how I operate at scale without sacrificing strategy or soul.
Forget about the hype of AI. Lets talk about what it really takes to work smarter, experiment faster, and free up time to be a creative leadersomething that you cannot automate.
1. AI is my executive sparring partner
When youre running a fast-growing company, youre constantly making judgement calls without all of the details. Most people want ChatGPT to flatter them. I want it to challenge me.
I run new product ideas, positioning statements, and brand hypotheses through AI to surface the cracks I didnt see. I use it to model outcomes, debate assumptions, and yes, poke holes in the perfect plan I thought I had.
Your team might be too polite to challenge you. AI wont be, if you train it well. Start every session with a persona, such as: You are my chief strategy officer. Your job is to challenge mediocrity and raise red flags. Train it over time by giving feedback: Thats too agreeable. Give me a sharper POV or This sounds like fluff. Get specific. And really push it to dig deeper instead of giving you a standard response: This idea solves the problem, but I dont think its the best solution. Push me toward something bolder or more efficient. How would someone with 10x my time/resources/experience approach it differently? You may be surprised where this back-and-forth can take you.
2. I use AI to protect my most valuable asset: Strategic attention
The less time I spend on routine admin tasks, the more time I have to steer the ship. AI is my secret weapon for clearing out the clutter. I use Bluedot to record and transcribe meetingssaving me and my team hours in cleaning up and consolidating notes, and turning around recaps and next steps in minutes. And if I need a detail from the discussion, I can even query the transcript to get the info I need, and all the context around it.
To start using AI for attention management, begin with one task you do often (summarizing docs, doing premeeting research, writing recap emails) and let AI take a pass. If you want to think strategically, you need space to think. AI gives it to you.
3. I never miss a market beat
I don’t have time to read every analyst report or listen to every podcast (who does?!) but I need those insights. AI curates the signal from the noise.
Perplexity Deep Research turns complex trend reports into briefs to share with my team, or even my clients. Waldo gives me market snapshots faster than a team of analysts. Ive also dabbled in AI-powered podcasts, which summarize the most important industry news so I can catch up while on the go. They supplement my other favorite podcasts, so Im always armed with the latest trends and biggest industry moves.
4. I baked AI into the org chart
At Quantious, AI isnt a department. Its a utility, like Wi-Fi or electricity.
Every team has access to tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Slack AI. Designers use it to explore creative variations. Ops uses it to document processes faster. Marketers draft content 10 times faster. The tech isnt the point. The enablement is. While not every team member taps into these tools on a daily basis, having them in the toolkit keeps the door wide open for experimentation.
Ive said it before: AI has made remote work more productive, seamless, and well-documented. We dont just integrate AI into workflows; we integrate it into our collective intelligence. Because the point isnt to do more faster, it is meant to elevate how we operate, across the board.
Remember, AI isnt the intern. Its your most strategic hire.
The truth is: Your team doesnt need you to be a prompt engineer. They need you to be an AI-literate leader. AI is no longer a tool in your workflow. Its a seat at your table. Treat it like a trusted advisor, and youll make sharper decisions, faster, without sacrificing strategy or soul.
Lisa Larson-Kelley is founder and CEO of Quantious.
Nvidia forecast fourth-quarter revenue above Wall Street estimates on Wednesday, betting on booming demand for its AI chips from cloud providers against the backdrop of widespread concerns of an artificial intelligence bubble.
The results from the AI chip leader mark a defining moment for Wall Street, as global markets looked to the chip designer to determine if investing billions of dollars in AI infrastructure expansion had resulted in towering valuations that potentially outpaced fundamentals.
The world’s most valuable company expects fiscal fourth-quarter sales of $65 billion, plus or minus 2%, compared with analysts’ average estimate of $61.66 billion, according to data compiled by the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG).
Shares of the AI market bellwether rose over 4% in extended trading. Ahead of the results, doubts had pushed Nvidia shares down nearly 8% in November, after a 1,200% surge in the past three years. The broader market has declined almost 3% this month.
Still, analysts and investors widely expected the underlying demand for AI chips, which has powered Nvidia’s results since ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022, to remain strong.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said last month that the company has $500 billion in bookings for its advanced chips through 2026.
Big Tech, among Nvidia’s largest customers, has doubled down on spending to expand AI data centers and snatch the most advanced, pricey chips as it commits to multibillion, multi-gigawatt build-outs.
Microsoft reported a record capital expenditure of nearly $35 billion for its fiscal first quarter last month, with roughly half of it spent primarily on chips.
Nvidia expects an adjusted gross margin of 75%, plus or minus 50 basis points, in the fourth quarter, compared with the market expectation of 74.5%.
By Arsheeya Bajwa and Stephen Nellis, Reuters
Since beginning his second term in office, President Trump has taken a sledgehammer to climate action.
His administration has made plans to expand offshore oil and gas drilling, canceled billions of dollars in clean energy projects, rolled back tax credits for electric vehicles, pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, released a report that downplays the risks of climate change, and on and on.
Climate experts have been vocal about the fact that Trump is setting back climate action, which puts the entire world at risk.
The U.S. is the second-most polluting country in the world, behind only China. China, however, has been investing heavily in renewable power, and its total greenhouse gas emissions have been dropping as a result.
Now, a new analysis by ProPublica and the Guardian attempts to quantify what that setback could actually look like.
What the analysis found
Trumps anti-climate policies could release so many extra greenhouse gases over the next decade that they could lead to as many as 1.3 million more temperature-related deaths globally, in the 80 years after 2035, the analysis found.
That estimate covers heat-related deaths, minus the fewer deaths that will occur from cold temperatures. Already, heat is the leading cause of all weather-related deaths, and climate change has led to a noticeable uptick in heat related deaths.
In the U.S. alone, heat-related deaths have increased by more than 50% since 2000, according to the Yale School of Public Health.
The 1.3 million excess deaths does not include, the outlets note, the massive number of deaths from climate changes broader impacts, like droughts, floods, diseases, hurricanes, wildfires, and even lower crop yields.
The number is, admittedly, a small figure when compared to the total number of deaths caused by temperatures changing because of climate change.
A 2021 study on the mortality costs of carbon projected that, between 2020 and 2100, the planet will see 83 million temperature-related excess deaths under a business as usual emissions scenario.
The ProPublica/Guardian analysis acknowledges this, but adds that the figure attributed to Trumps policies speaks to the human cost of prioritizing U.S. corporate interests over the lives of people around the globe.
How the research was conducted
To conduct the analysis, the outlets used scientific models to estimate how many additional emissions will be released into the atmosphere because of Trumps policies. They also took into account the mortality cost of carbon metric, which predicts temperature-related deaths from emissions.
In responses to questions from ProPublica and the Guardian, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) contested the science underpinning their analysis, dismissing it as moral posturing. It added that the core calculation method ignores the dramatic uncertainties that dominate long-term climate projections.
But climate scientists say the metric is valid, they report.
Prior to Trump, we had the most ambitious climate policy that the U.S. has ever come up withour best effort to date by far of addressing this growing problem, Marshall Burke, an economist at the Doerr School of Sustainability at Stanford University, told the Guardian.
When we roll these things back, he added, it is fundamentally affecting the damages were going to see around the world.”
The gap between the richest and poorest Americans is widening in what Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has called a “bifurcated economy,” as the cost of living skyrockets from housing to food prices, but wages for most workers remain stagnant. Basically, high-income individuals are doing well, while lower-income consumers are struggling more and more.
That situation has sparked discussions about whether we’re in a so-called “K-shaped economy.”
A K-shaped economycoined after the shape of the letter: a horizontal line marked by two lines, with one going down and the other uphappens when the economy is rolling along, and then it suddenly loses steam and begins to drop. And then, after a period, the Fed comes in and lowers interest rates to get things going again, professor Peter Ricchiuti of Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business tells Fast Company.
Simply put, in a K-shaped economy, the Federal Reserve sees the economy weakening, possibly leading to a recession, so it lowers interest rates to stimulate the economy in order to try and avoid that.
“This action really benefits the upper class, as it makes the value of their investmentsstocks, bonds, and real estaterise,” Ricchiuti explains. “More often than not, the wealthy are better off than when the downturn began.”
“Meanwhile, the middle class is hurt even more,” he continues. “If they have any savings at all, its invested in money market funds and bank CDs. These now offer lower returns because interest rates on those instruments have been lowered.”
But “it’s not the Feds fault,” Ricchiuti adds. “The most powerful tool in [the Federal Reserve’s] toolbox is lowering interest rates. Theyre trying to boost the economy but, in doing so, they are widening the economic gap.”
So, are we headed toward a recession?
“I do think the economy is slowing down and potentially moving into recessionary conditions that may show up next year,” Melina Murren Vosse, assistant professor of finance at the University of San Diego’s Knauss School of Business, tells Fast Company. “Talk of the AI bubble, general overvaluations, and global trade uncertainty seem to be making markets squeamish lately.”
Ricchiuti says it’s “tricky” to tell whether we’re heading to a recession “because unemployment numbers are the key indicator of a recession, and we haven’t gotten unemployment levels for quite some time.”
“There just isn’t enough information to feel really comfortable making a determination,” he adds.
That’s in part because the Trump administration fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which collects, crunches, and publishes those unemployment numbers. On August 1, President Donald Trump ordered the firing of Erika McEntarfer after the agency released a report that showed hiring had slowed down significantly over the past three months. Then, a government shutdown further delayed the collection and release of the numbers.
The BLS last released unemployment numbers for the month of August. We are still waiting on September and October numbers, and the BLS said it will not release a full U.S. jobs report for October until it has a full report for November, which it also pushed back to December 16.
Generally speaking, a recession is when there are two consecutive quarters of negative gross domestic product (GDP) growth. But it’s impossible to determine if that’s happened because the numbers haven’t come out.
However, Ricchiuti notes that even though people fear a recession, it generally lasts only a year, while an economic expansion lasts seven years, he says. So even if you’re fearing a recession, it may be more temporary than it might seem.
The Labor Department said Wednesday that it will not be releasing a full jobs report for October because the 43-day federal government shutdown meant it couldn’t calculate the unemployment rate and some other key numbers.
Instead, it will release some of the October jobs data most importantly the number of jobs that employers created last month along with the full November jobs report, now due a couple of weeks late on Dec. 16.
The department’s “employment situation” report usually comes out the first Friday of the month. But the government shutdown disrupted data collection and delayed the release of the reports. For example, the September jobs report, now coming out Thursday, was originally due Oct. 3.
The monthly jobs report consists of two parts: a survey of households that is used to determine the unemployment rate, among other things; and the “establishment” survey of companies, nonprofits and government agencies that is used to track job creation, wages and other measurements of labor market health.
The Labor Department said Wednesday that the household survey for October could not be conducted because of the shutdown and could not be done retroactively. But it was able to collect the hiring numbers from employers, and those will come out with the full November report.
Wednesday’s announcement means the September jobs numbers will likely get extra scrutiny Thursday. They are the last full measurement of hiring and unemployment that Federal Reserve policymakers will see before they meet Dec. 9-10 and decide whether to cut their benchmark interest rate for the third time this year.
The jobs numbers have lately been contentious. After the July jobs report proved disappointing, President Donald Trump abruptly fired the official responsible for collecting the data, Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner Erika McEntarfer.
McEntarfer herself was quick to say there was nothing suspicious about Wednesday’s announcement. No conspiracy here, folks, she posted on the social media site Bluesky. “BLS was entirely shutdown for six weeks. Payroll data from firms can be retroactively collected for October. The household survey cannot be conducted retrospectively. This is just a straightforward consequence of having all field staff furloughed for over a month.”
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This story has been corrected to show that the September jobs report is coming out Thursday, not Friday.
Paul Wiseman, AP economics writer
AP Economics Writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this report.
Agentic artificial intelligence is coming, whether youre ready for it or not. A PwC survey published earlier this year found that 88% of U.S. companies are beefing up their agentic AI budgets, and a broad majority have adopted AI agents in some capacity.
When it comes to using AI agents for shopping or in the commerce space, more than half of consumers say they already are, or will be doing so by the end of the year. But many people still arent quite sure how or when to use AI agents. They may not know where to find them, how to prompt them and, in some cases, if the agent they are interacting with is legit or potentially a disguised bad actor. Fetch, an AI firm founded in 2017 in the U.K., is trying to make the transition to using AI agents for everyday tasks a bit easier and smooth out some of those issues.
On Wednesday, the company launched three new products: ASI:One, a new large language model (LLM) interface for interacting with agents; Fetch Business, a portal allowing brands and companies to claim and verify brand agents (similar to a social media-inspired verification system); and Agentverse, a directory and depository of more than 2 million AI agents.
Perhaps the most interesting new product, from a laymans perspective, is ASI:One. It’s an interface in which users can interact with AI agents and prompt them to perform certain taskssuch as book a vacation with all flights and hotels, or buy me new shoes, which would prompt specific brand agents for airlines, hotels, and even shoe brands to assist the user.
Humayun Sheikh, Fetchs founder and CEO, thinks that the interface will help people learn to utilize AI agents and navigate the agentic AI space in a way similar to how Google helped people learn to navigate the broader internet decades ago. “Google created discoverability and trust for websites. We’re creating the same foundation for agents, Sheik said in a statement provided to Fast Company.
There are already more than 1,000 verified brand agents on the platform, including companies such as Costco, Alaska Airlines, Pepsi, and Adidas. That means that users can interact directly with those agentsin a way that they may interact with a human employeeto get information related to prices, product information, and more.
The hope, as Sheikh puts it, is that Fetchs platform will help connect consumers directly with brands through agents, and help create a new ecosystem in which AI agents have more utility to the general public in a more personal and pragmatic way. Further, Fetch hopes the personal element of its platform will help get consumers more specific informationdiffering from broader LLM models, such as ChatGPT.
Instead of just finding information, your personal AI coordinates with verified brand agents to get things done, Sheikh said. This isn’t searching for options separately and hoping they work together; its orchestration. Your personal AI understands how you make decisions, then works with brand agents that have real inventory, pricing, and booking capabilities.
AI agents are quickly moving from an abstract concept to an everyday utility. Fetch is betting that clarity, trust, and verification will be the missing ingredients that help some consumers who have been holding back on adopting the technology to embrace it. If the company succeeds, the way we shop, book, plan, and interact with brands could feel less like surfing the web and more like delegating to a capable assistantone that actually follows through.
President Trump nominated Stuart Levenbach as the next director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, choosing a person who has no banking or financial services experience to run a bureau that has been effectively inoperable since Trump was sworn into office.
Levenbach is currently an associate director inside the Office of Management and Budget, handling issues related to natural resources, energy, science and water issues. Levenbach’s resume shows significant experience dealing with science and natural resources issues, acting as chief of staff of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration during Trump’s first term.
The CFPB has been nonfunctional much of the year. Many of its employees have been ordered not to work, and the only major work the bureau is doing is unwinding the regulations and rules it put into place during President Trump’s first term and during the Biden administration.
The bureau’s current acting director is Russell Vought, President Trump’s budget director and Levenbach’s boss. Under the Vacancies Act, Vought can only act as acting director for 210 days, but now that President Trump has nominated someone to the position, that clock has now been suspended until the Senate approves or denies Levenbach’s confirmation as director.
The bureau was created after the 2008 financial crisis as part of the Dodd-Frank Act, a law passed to overhaul the financial system and require banks to hold more capital to avoid another financial crisis. The CFPB was created to be a independent advocate for consumers to help them avoid bad actors in the financial system.
Ken Sweet, AP business writer
Country music fans have something extra to be thankful for each November beyond turkey.
Traditionally, the Country Music Association Awardsaka the CMA Awardstake place during the second-to-last month of the year. Wednesday, November 19, is the big day in 2025 for the 59th annual event.
Lets get you up to speed on everything you need to know about country musics biggest night so you can confidently two-step your way through the evening.
Whats the venue for the 2025 CMA Awards?
The 59th CMA Awards will be held at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.
Whos hosting the 2025 CMA Awards?
Lainey Wilson is back to emcee the awards.
Last year, she shared the duties with Luke Bryan and Peyton Manning, but this year she is flying solo. Beyond presiding over the event, she is also nominated for multiple awards, including Entertainer of the Year.
Whos nominated for a 2025 CMA Award?
Joining Wilson in the Entertainer of the Year category are fellow nominees Luke Combs, Cody Johnson, Chris Stapleton, and Morgan Wallen.
Although Wilson is the only female in the top category, three women tied for the most nominations in 2025 with six each. Wilson, Megan Moroney, and Ella Langley all share that honor.
Langley, Shaboozey, Zach Top, Tucker Wetmore, and Stephen Wilson Jr. are all nominated for New Artist of the Year. You can find a complete list of nominees on the association’s website.
Whos performing at the 2025 CMA Awards?
Since Lainey Wilson is already in the neighborhood and hosting, shes also going to grace the audience with her vocal talents.
Shes not the only one. Kelsea Ballerini will perform her new song I Sit in Parks live for the first time.
Meanwhile, Stapleton is scheduled to perform twice. He will sing his cinematic song Bad As I Used to Be from the soundtrack of F1: The Movie and A Song to Sing, a duet with Miranda Lambert.
Newly inducted Country Music Hall of Fame member Kenny Chesney will hoot and holler to celebrate the momentous occasion.
Old Dominion is performing a medley of their greatest hits.
Riley Green, the Red Clay Strays, Brandi Carlile, Patty Loveless, BigXthaPlug, Combs, Langley, Moroney, Shaboozey, Top, Wetmore, and Wilson Jr. are also scheduled to sing their hearts out.
Whos being honored at the 2025 CMA Awards?
The 2025 Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to the “I Still Believe in You” singer and songwriter Vince Gill.
Gill first broke out as the lead singer of the Pure Prairie League. He cemented his legacy in the 1990s as a solo act, and later joined the Eagles in 2017 after the death of Glenn Frey.
How can I watch or stream the CMA Awards live?
To see Gill and host Wilsons big night on a linear television, tune into ABC at 8 p.m. ET.
Traditional cable subscribers can watch it that way, and those with good reception and an over-the-air antenna can see it for free.
The telecast will also be concurrently streamed for those with a subscription to Hulu+ Live TV.
If that service is not in your streaming arsenal, consider FuboTV or Sling TVjust double-check that the streamer carries ABC in your region before committing to another monthly fee.
Also, now that the ABC parent company has settled its carriage dispute with Google, you can watch the CMAs on YouTube TV.
Additionally, if you find yourself busy on Wednesday night, never fear. The show will be available to watch the following day on Hulu.
Millions of Americans who buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as “Obamacare,” stand to lose their premium subsidies, with less than three weeks to go until they expire at the end of 2025. And the result of that would be skyrocketing health care costs for 22 million marketplace users.
If Congress does not extend the enhanced premium tax credits, it will also trigger a so-called “subsidy cliff,” or strict income maximum that abruptly cuts off subsidies to households with incomes that are over 400% of the federal poverty level. That would raise the costs of those healthcare plans by an estimated 75%, according to KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research group.
Currently, 92% of Americans enrolled the ACA marketplace plan receive some type of enhanced subsidies. That’s 22 out of 24 million people. However, not all would be affected by the subsidy cliff.
Letting the credits expire could send insurance skyrocketing to such high levels that many Americans wouldn’t be able to afford their current plans, or worse, keep their healthcare at all. One estimate found average family premiums could triple from $1,200 to $3,553 a month if the credits expire.
Congress is set to vote on extending the subsidies in mid-December, but it’s unclear if the House will pass it as is, or tack on conditions.
The run-up to that deadline has created a crisis as Republicans, backed by President Donald Trump, have seemed to play Russian roulette with 22 million American taxpayers’ healthcare. (The credits were not extended in Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill.) The dispute over the credits was at the heart of the recent federal government shutdown, with the upcoming vote being a condition for Senate Democrats to end the standoff.
The president has said he doesn’t want to extend the credits, and would instead give that money directly to the people so they can purchase their own, much better, health care.” However, according to independent fact-checking publication PolitiFact, without a formal proposal, there’s no way to determine if “Trump’s social media musings” would actually work.
Some Republicans are pushing for Americans to rely more on health savings accounts, or HSAs, but these can’t typically be used to pay for the actual health insurance plans themselves. Other Republicans are floating the idea of temporarily extending the credits through the 2026 midterm elections, when many are up for reelection.
If Republicans and Democrats in Congress don’t strike a deal, many Americans can expect to pay a lot more for their current plans on the exchange, or end up paying the same for less coverage.
Ford Motor Co. is recalling more than 200,000 Bronco and Bronco Sport vehicles because an instrument panel can fail, increasing the risk of a crash.
Federal auto safety regulators said that the instrument panel may not display at startup, leaving the driver without critical safety information.
The recall includes 128,607 Ford Bronco Sports, model years 2025-2026 and 101,002 Ford Broncos, also model years 2025-2026, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said.
Ford is not aware of any injuries caused by the instrument panel failure.
Owners will be notified by mail beginning Dec. 8 and instructed to take their vehicles to a Ford or Lincoln dealership to have the software updated.
The NHTSA recall number is 25V540.
