Caribbean-inspired restaurant chain Bahama Breeze has an uncertain future. Its parent company, Darden Restaurants, closed 15 of its locations in May. Now, the organization has announced it wont be putting a lot of investment into the remaining 28 Bahama Breeze locations and aims to sell the brand. Here’s what to know:
What has Darden said about Bahama Breeze?
The news came during Dardens fiscal fourth-quarter earnings call on Friday, June 20.
We have made the difficult decision that these remaining locations and the Bahama Breeze brand are not a strategic priority for us, Ricardo Cadenas, CEO and president of Darden Restaurants, said on the call. We also believe that this brand and these restaurants have the potential to benefit from a new owner. Consequently, we will be considering strategic alternatives for Bahama Breeze, including a potential sale of the brand or converting restaurants to other Darden brands.
How is Darden doing as a company?
Darden Restaurants also owns Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse, both of which enjoyed growth in the most recent quarter. The Orlando-based company said same-store sales for Olive Garden and LongHorn rose 6.9% and 6.7% respectively.
The company reported total sales growth of 10.6% to $3.3 billion for the quarter, driven in part by its acquisition of Chuy’s Tex Mex and the opening of new restaurants.
Shares of Darden Restaurants Inc (NYSE:DRI) are up more than 18% year to date. The stock price was essentially flat in premarket trading on Wednesday.
According to Darden, Bahama Breezes current lead will move to another of one the organizations entities, while the president of its specialty restaurant group will lead Bahama Breeze during the current changes.
Which Bahama Breeze locations have already closed?
A Bahama Breeze spokesperson confirmed to USA Today a list of all the Bahama Breeze locations that recently closed:
3989 Plaza Blvd, Gainesville, Florida 32608
2088 9th St N, Naples, Florida 34102
1786 W International Speedway Blvd, Daytona Beach, Florida 32114
2750 Sawgrass Mills Cir, Sunrise, Florida 33323
3339 N Federal Hwy, Oakland Park, Florida 33306
406 E Golf Rd, Schaumburg, Illinois 60173
413 Middlesex Rd, Tyngsborough, Massachusetts 01879
539 E Big Beaver Rd, Troy, Michigan 48083
375 Hughes Center Dr, Las Vegas, Nevada 89169
520 Woodbridge Center Dr, Woodbridge, New Jersey 07095
1201 Hooper Ave, Toms River, New Jersey 08753
101 NJ-23, Wayne, New Jersey 07470
1600 Bergen Town Center, Paramus, New Jersey 07652
612 Smith Haven Mall, Lake Grove, New York 11755
2830 N Germantown Pkwy, Memphis, Tennessee 38133
Fast Company reached out to Darden to confirm the above closings, many of which are already reflected on local Yelp pages.
Shake Shack just unveiled a new design concept in Atlanta that includes the companys first-ever restaurant with a full bar, encouraging diners to linger longer over boozy chocolate shakes.
The new restaurant will be the second-largest Shake Shack ever by square footage and is located in the Battery, a mixed-use development space thats adjacent to Truist Park, where the Atlanta Braves baseball team plays.
The fast-casual burger chain says it will open more restaurants with a full bar if the concept is well received, adding a new element to the chains accelerated store opening strategy. Shake Shack has been embracing a wider array of distinct restaurant formats, including drive-throughs in the suburbs, smaller formats that prioritize to-go orders, and locations in stadiums, train stations, and airports. In 2025, Shake Shack is projected to open 45 to 50 new company-owned locations, the most ever in a single year.
The North Star goal is to operate at least 1,500 Shake Shack company-owned locations over time, well above the prior aspiration of 450 that was shared with investors when Shake Shack filed to go public in 2015.
We know that one of the biggest barriers to entry for Shake Shack is that there’s just not a Shake Shack close enough to you, says Andrew McCaughan, Shake Shacks chief development officer, during an interview with Fast Company. So were certainly trying to solve that problem.
[Photo: Shake Shack]
The new Atlanta location features 115 total seats, including 23 at the bar, and the interior decor includes a mural, a wall of free arcade games, and 14 televisions to show sporting events. Theres also a walk-up pickup window for to-go purchases and a hot dog cart in front of the restaurant on game days.
But the most unique element is the bar with a wide range of speciality cocktails priced between $12 and $14. Theres a lemon fizz mixed with Titos vodka and St-Germain Elderflower liqueur; a Patrón margarita; and a boozy espresso shake that blends chocolate frozen custard with Jameson Irish whiskey, Mr Black Coffee liqueur, and La Colombe cold brew, topped with whipped cream.
Alcohol has been foundational and we offer it in many Shacks across the board, says McCaughan of the chains long history of selling wine and beer, including at the first-ever restaurant in Manhattans Madison Square Park in the earliest days of operation.
Shake Shack says the inspiration behind the full bar came from the Shake Shacks licensing partners, who have already experimented with the format at the Denver airport and the Atlantis luxury resort in the Bahamas.
The chains expansion plans come as sales continue to swing upward, with total revenue increasing 15% to $1.25 billion in fiscal 2024 from the prior year, bolstered by both new restaurant openings and a 3.6% increase in same-Shack spots open for 24 fiscal months or longer. Total revenue also leapt by nearly 11% in the most-recent fiscal first quarter results posted in May.
With only 380 U.S. locations and another 210 internationally, Shake Shacks ambitious growth plans still have a long road ahead. The new growth target was set by a newer management team led by CEO Rob Lynch, who joined in 2024 after previously serving as president and CEO of pizza restaurant Papa Johns International. He succeeded Randy Garutti, who retired after working for Shake Shack for more than two decades.
Shake Shack also lured COO Stephanie Sentell from Arbys owner Inspire Brands and has added more outside restaurant expertise to the companys board in an agreement that helped avoid a proxy battle with activist investor Engaged Capital.
Some experts say that bringing in fresh perspectives have helped Shake Shack run more efficient and consistent operations. This approach similarly helped Chipotle Mexican Grill after founder Steve Ells stepped down and Brian Niccol became CEO in 2018. Niccol got mostly good marks for his work at Chipotle and has since been tapped by Starbucks to help the coffee giant enact a turnaround. Chipotle operates over 3,700 restaurants and is aiming to reach 7,000 locations in North America over the long term.
Brian M. Vaccaro, managing director of restaurants at investment bank Raymond James, says hes long been impressed with the brands average unit volume, which Shake Shack is targeting in the range of $2.8 million to $4 million per location. That demonstrates to us that Shake Shack is a differentiated brand that can have success in a wider range across the country, says Vaccaro. With the optimized operations and improved margins, we think it can drive some pretty positive shareholder returns.
[Photo: Shake Shack]
On top of recent menu innovations including the return of a summer BBQ menu and fried pickles, the latter the first-ever side item added to the menu, Shake Shacks embrace of technology has also evolved. The company unveiled its first self-serve kiosk in New York City in 2017 and after some early bumps in getting these devices to work for guests, has since rolled them out to nearly all locations.
McCaughan says the kiosks have allowed Shake Shack to shift employee resources away from the cashier station to food preparation. That was a shift we made, allowing technology to play a better role interacting with the guests, he adds.
In the Atlanta restaurant and a nearby kitchen innovation lab that recently opened, Shake Shack is testing new kitchen equipment that can help make sandwiches and shakes more efficiently, but also retain the chains food preparation standards. Were taking a fresh look, says McCaugan, of the companys more engineer-focused approach to rethink time-saving machinery for fryers and griddles.
But, he says the chain wont be embracing more autonomous-focused efforts like the Infinite Kitchen thats being explored by rival Sweetgreen and utilizes robotics to mix up salads.
We dont necessarily see the value-add today, says McCaughan. Weve looked at all that equipment in the past.
As summer begins and the last month of spring draws to a close, many employees in the technology industry have had their lives disrupted due to layoffs. Several tech companies have cut workers this month, including some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley. Here are some of the highest-profile firms that have reduced their workforce in June 2025.
Microsoft
The Redmond, Washington, company has the distinction of being the only one on this list with two rounds of layoffs in Juneone at the beginning of the month and one at the end. Worse, these June layoffs follow the Windows-makers massive layoffs in May, which saw the company cut around 6,000 jobsnearly 3% of its global workforce.
On June 2, GeekWire reported that Microsoft was making additional cuts305 to be exact. This time, the job cuts were all located in the companys home state of Washington. We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace, a Microsoft spokesperson told GeekWire of the losses.
Xbox (Microsoft)
But Microsoft wasnt done with cutting jobs.
Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that Microsoft would cut jobs at its Xbox gaming division. However, these job cuts may not come until next week. Its unknown just how many jobs will be lost, but Bloomberg says Xbox division managers are expecting substantial cuts across the entire group.
The Xbox job cuts are also expected to be part of a larger workforce reduction. Bloomberg says Microsoft will cut thousands of jobs next week. If the job cuts do happen, they are likely to occur on or around Monday, June 30, the last day of Microsofts 2025 fiscal year.
Fast Company reached out to Microsoft for comment.
ZoomInfo Technologies
The Vancouver, Washington, online marketing company that provides B2B software for sales, recruiting, and marketing professionals announced on June 9 that it plans to lay off 150 workers in June. That represents about 4% of the companys 3,500-strong workforce.
According to The Oregonian, ZoomInfo CEO Henry Schuck called the job cuts a very difficult, but necessary, decision in an email to employees. Schuck went on to say that the workforce reductions will enable the company to focus on its core business parts and simplify decision-making.
Google
The search giant is laying off 25% of its Google TV team, according to a report from The Information (via 9to5Google).
The cuts reportedly came after Google reduced Google TVs budget by 10%. Its unknown exactly how many jobs were lost, but the Google TV team reportedly consisted of around 300 people before the cuts, so 25% of that number suggests about 75 jobs were lost.
We’ve reached out to Google for comment.
Interestingly, the cuts at Google TV may have less to do with the Google TV smart television software and more to do with another Google home entertainment product: YouTube.
Google is reportedly redesigning YouTube to make it appear more like a premium video streaming service, similar to Netflix or Disney Plus. The reduction in Google TVs budget may be so that the funds can be reallocated to YouTube.
The Walt Disney Company
Disney would not typically be considered a tech company, but when it comes to the House of Mouses latest round of layoffs, the categorization fits. Thats because the company has laid off workers in its product and technology divisions.
Specifically, Business Insider reports that Disney product and technology chief Adam Smith, who oversees technologies designed to enhance the companys various streaming servicesincluding Disney Plus, Hulu, and the upcoming ESPN streaming servicehas cut under 2% of the product and tech divisions.
The exact number of tech jobs lost is unknown, but the job cuts were reportedly made with the aim of rebalancing resources in the affected divisions.
We’ve reached out to Disney for comment.
Over 60,000 tech employees laid off in 2025 so far
Unfortunately, Junes latest tech layoffs are just a fraction of the job losses that the sector has seen this year.
According to data compiled by Layoffs.fyi, 147 tech companies have laid off 63,443 workers in 2025 so far.
The end of June represents the midway point of the year, and if the second half of 2025 matches the first, it would mean that around 127,000 tech jobs will be lost in 2025. Yet the final number may be more or less, as past layoffs arent a predictor of future ones.
In all of 2024, 551 tech companies laid off 152,922 workers, according to Layoffs.fyi. That was down significantly from 2023, which saw 1,193 tech companies lay off 264,220 workers. In 2022, 1,064 tech companies laid off 165,269 employees.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax-cut legislation would effectively transfer wealth from younger Americans to older generations, nonpartisan analysts say.
Though the bill contains tax breaks for parents, newborns, private-school students and other younger Americans, those benefits would be outweighed by the trillions of dollars it would add to the $36.2 trillion national debt, they say.
That could push down economic growth over the long term and leave younger people saddled with higher taxes and mortgage payments.
“Future generations are kind of left holding the bag,” said Kent Smetters, director of the Penn Wharton Budget Model.
The nonpartisan research organization found that a 40-year-old earning close to the median income would effectively lose $7,500 over the course of a lifetime if the bill became law. A 70-year-old with the same income, by contrast, would end up $17,500 richer.
Several factors contribute to this disparity.
Younger workers, who typically earn less, would not benefit as much from the bill’s income tax cuts compared to those at the peak of their earning years. They would also be more exposed to cutbacks in student aid and the Medicaid health program, which covers 4 out of 10 hospital births in the United States.
“In the short term the benefits are certainly tilted towards higher earners, which is often a good proxy for age,” said Jessica Riedl of the conservative Manhattan Institute.
But the biggest factor, analysts say, is the $3 trillion the bill would add to the national debt. That is likely to push up interest rates in the years to come and require the government to devote a growing portion of its budget to debt service rather than other purposes.
“There is an obvious intergenerational transfer here,” said John Ricco of the Yale Budget Lab, which found that the bill would add $4,000 to the annual cost of a home mortgage in the year 2055, when today’s newborns will be 30 years old.
Republican lawmakers say the bill, which passed the House of Representatives and is now pending in the Senate, would help younger Americans by putting Medicaid on a more sustainable footing and boosting economic growth and entrepreneurship, which would help younger people entering the workforce.
The bill also follows through on Trump’s campaign promises by carving out new tax breaks for tipped income and overtime pay, which Republicans say could help younger workers in service and hourly wage jobs.
Savings accounts
The bill also would set up $1,000 savings accounts for newborns and expand a child tax break, though the details differ between the House and Senate versions of the bill.
Number two House Republican Representative Steve Scalise said after the bill’s passage in May that the legislation would increase take-home pay for a median income household with two children by $4,000 to $5,000.
That calculation, however, does not factor in the increased costs many lower- and middle-income families would have to pay for health care, student loans, and groceries due to the bill’s cutbacks in those areas.
The Congressional Budget Office and other outside analysts have found that those costs would outweigh any savings those households might gain from tax cuts, while the child tax credit and other targeted tax breaks also would not be fully available to low-income families.
That pattern holds true for poor Americans of all ages.
The bill includes a targeted tax break for people over 65 promised by Trump during last year’s election, but many do not pay enough income tax to qualify for it, said Brendan Duke of the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
“The tax cuts basically do nothing for the lower-income half of seniors,” he said.
Still, those seniors benefit from another Trump campaign promise, as the bill spares Medicare, the health plan for seniors, and Social Security, the U.S. pension program, from the sort of cost-cutting it applies to Medicaid.
Medicare and Social Security are growing rapidly as the population ages, crowding out other government spending, and are projected to run short of funds in 2033.
But Trump and his Democratic rivals have both vowed to shield the two politically popular programs from restructuring, which will leave future generations to confront the problem.
“I think ultimately Republican and Democratic lawmakers have been engaged in intergenerational theft for a long time,” Riedl said.
Andy Sullivan, Reuters
Let’s face it. Shopping for clothes online is a drag. The online shopping experience hasn’t changed much since Amazon started selling books online three decades ago.
If you’re searching for a new blazer or dress, you’ll type keywords into Google or a retailer’s search bar, then scan through rows of inventory. Often, the first results you’ll see will be posts sponsored by brands, rather than results tailored to your needs. But even though shopping for fashion on the internet is laborious and clunky, it is now the status quo: Some 48% of all fashion retail sales worldwide happen on e-commerce, equivalent to $883.1 billion in revenue.
Retail veteran Julie Bornstein, who helped build e-commerce platforms for Sephora and Stitch Fix, wants to transform the way you shop online. Today, she launches a new platform called Daydream, an AI-powered chat-based shopping agent devoted specifically to fashion. Daydream’s founding team brings together executives who previously worked at Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Farfetch, and other tech firms. It raised $50 million in seed funding from Forerunner Ventures, Index Ventures, Tre Ventures, and Google Ventures.
Julie Bornstein [Photo: Cristopher Wu/Daydream]
To use Daydream, you take a short quiz to ensure that the agent tailors results to your taste and sizing. Then, you can engage with the AI agent like you might with a human stylist, asking questions and providing specifics about what youre looking for: “I need a new dress for a holiday in Barcelona,” or “Can you find me heels for a board meeting that are comfortable enough so I can walk to work? The platform will deliver results from an inventory of 2 million immediately available products from 8,000 brands, including Balenciaga, Nike, Khaite, Mytheresa, Uniqlo, and Dôen. These brands pay Daydream a commission when a customer buys a product, which allows the platform to remain free to users.
Like all AI models, Daydream is designed to keep learning as more users engage with it, both by understanding broad trends across the population as well as how to tailor products to an individual’s shopping habits. In some ways, the most exciting possibilities are just around the corner. “We’re already thinking about what we can do with this technology,” says Bornstein. “Imagine an agent that already knows every single item in your closet and can suggest items that can pair with what you already own.
[Image: Daydream]
Taking the Pain Out of Online Shopping
Bornstein has spent her career trying to perfect the art of e-commerce. In the early 2000s, she helped retailers like Nordstrom and Urban Outfitters build their nascent online websites. She led Sephora’s digital efforts before serving as COO of Stitch Fix, an online styling service that famously used a Netflix-like algorithm to identify the outfits its consumers might want.
In 2018, she decided to strike out on her own. She launched an app called The Yes that was designed to foster inspiration and discoverysomething she felt was missing on most e-commerce sites that rely on consumers to search for and articulate what they want. The Yes created a social-media-like feed, where you could connect with friends and be served interesting products you might not have found on your own. Four years later, Pinterest acquired it for an undisclosed sum.
Over the past few years, however, generative AI has loomed over the tech world. In 2023, Bornstein began working on Daydream, considering how AI could transform the shopping experience. “It was clear to me that when ChatGPT launched, it would open up a whole new set of possibilities,” she says.
Current AI agents like ChatGPT aren’t tailored to shopping for clothing, though. If you ask the platform to help you look for a dress for a romantic dinner in Montreal in mid-July, it will scour the internet for options, but it has no way of identifying quality. Within a given price point, it will pull from no-name labels on Amazon and random brands known for making knockoffs. When it comes to taste and styling, ChatGPT has no sense of curation. It pulls from every blog, retail website, and influencer.
[Image: Daydream]
“ChatGPT is like a jack-of-all-trades, and it can respond to questions about clothing,” says Kirsten Green, founder of Forerunner Ventures, one of Daydreams investors. “But at some point, you need some expertise to ensure that an AI is giving you really helpful results, whether it relates to fashion or biotech.”
Bornstein wanted to create an AI that had a more sophisticated sense of what consumers are looking for in terms of fashion and styling. For one thing, Daydream partners with 8,000 brands and has analyzedupwards of 2 million products. Further, Daydream’s developers have brought nuance to the search process, helping the AI distinguish between high-end brands like Balenciaga and Chloé, versus mass-market brands like Uniqlo.
Also, with the help of developers, Daydream analyzes details like silhouette, fabric, and drape in a way that is more specific than general AI platforms. It incorporates information about sizing and fit based on reviews and data about the brand, so recommendations can be fully customized to the user. “We have been looking at images of clothing to identify both its objective and subjective attributes,” Bornstein says. “You need to be able to synthesize all of this information and make sure it is standardized.”
[Image: Daydream]
Green notes that none of this is easy. “This is the power of leveraging training models, understanding the details of product categories that have a lot of minute descriptors, understanding how to read images,” she says.
The result is an AI agent that approximates a human stylist. Bornstein promises that Daydream will better understand the nuances of customers questions, offering more expertise around trends and personal taste. This means that two people might ask the same question and receive different results. It will pull from well-known brands, tailoring results to your budget. As you click on items you like, the AI will refine options. You can also pick one item, such as a blue dress, and say that you like the silhouette but would prefer it in red. Its also possible to upload an image of a dress you like and find similar options.
Bornstein points out that some consumers like being able to have lots of choices, whereas others find that prospect overwhelming. Daydream’s AI can adapt to either approach. “Some people will just want the five best options for a particular dress or blazer,” she says. “Daydream can do this too.”
[Image: Daydream]
The Future of Fashion
For Bornstein, launching Daydream is just the first step in her vision of transforming online clothes shopping. For one thing, AI will allow an unprecedented level of customization, tailoring results to each user’s individual tastes, budget, and body shape.
In the near future, Bornstein imagines a technology that already knows everything thats in your closet. Imagine Cher’s closet from Clueless, which came with a computer that identified each piece of clothing and could coordinate looks. This isn’t so far away, Bornstein says. “We’re already thinking about how we could identify what is already in your closet, by looking at your credit card statements or your shopping history with a retailer,” she says. “Or you could imagine an AI tool that would quickly scan your closet with a camera and identify every item.”
A technology like this could serve as a useful tool for helping people get dressed in the morning by suggesting what to wear given their plans for the day and the weather. It could also integrate into a broader shopping platform, like Daydream, allowing the AI to get a sense of a user’s aesthetic and size before recommending items that fit into their existing wardrobe. “Sometimes there’s a pair of shorts you might have that you would get so much more use out of if you just had the right top,” Bornstein notes as an example. “This would allow us to suggest items that someone really needs and doesn’t just double up on something else they already have.”
It’s clear that a transformation is around the corner, as people increasingly incorporate AI into their lives. Green says she’s heard from many retailers whose search box is becoming useless because customers are treating it like an AI agent and asking it natural language questions, rather than typing in keywords. “Really great startups sometimes struggle because customers aren’t ready for the technology,” she says. “This isn’t the case here. I think we’re all ready for something better than a search bar.”
When Tony Bates became chairman and CEO of Genesys in 2019, the company was already a global leader in contact center software. But Bates was determined to evolve its role in a rapidly changing tech landscape.
Throughout his careerfrom transforming Skype into a communications powerhouse to leading Ciscos $20 billion enterprise businessBates has built a reputation for guiding companies through pivotal industry shifts.
Now, he is steering Genesys to the forefront of what may be the next defining wave of enterprise technology: agentic AI.
Today, Genesys launched Cloud AI Studio, a new platform designed to help businesses create, manage, and scale AI-powered customer experiences. Its first release, AI Guides, allows teams to build autonomous AI agents without writing a single line of code. These agents can operate across departments, execute tasks, and trigger workflows, all governed by clear business rules.
Bates sees Cloud AI Studio as more than just a product launch. It is part of a larger effort to create a responsible, no-code environment for building semi-autonomous AI agents that can drive meaningful interactions at scale.
Unlike past technology waves that improved speed or scale, agentic AI can orchestrate meaningful experiences that feel personal and emotionally intelligent at scale, Bates tells Fast Company. Cloud AI Studio enables someone with deep knowledge of the customer journey but no coding skills to build an intelligent agent by describing its purpose using natural language, by uploading existing documentation, or by having the system learn from successful human agents.
A Tech CEO Who Understands Customer Needs
As SVP and general manager at Cisco, Bates oversaw $20 billion in annual revenue and more than 12,000 employees. At Skype, he grew the user base to over 170 million, which led to an $8.5 billion acquisition by Microsoft. There, he integrated Skype across flagship products from Windows to Outlook. That same approach of integration, scale, and strategic vision is now driving Genesyss cloud-first reinvention.
Under Batess leadership, the company has evolved into a modern AI orchestration platform, supporting nearly 6,000 organizations in more than 100 countries. Since he became CEO, Genesys has also raised more than $580 million in funding.
At Skype, I saw how peoples expectations of communication could shift quickly, but only if the experience was intuitive, secure, and reliable. The same is true with AI, says Bates. Our AI strategy (at Genesys) is rooted in explainability, transparency and control. Whether its how an AI decision is made or how outputs are governed, people need to trust that AI is working with them. Without trust, scale isnt possible.
An IBM study found that 80% of business leaders view ethics, bias, or explainability as major obstacles to AI adoption. A new McKinsey report shows that more than 80% of companies using generative AI have yet to achieve meaningful productivity or ROI gains, largely because they are limited to copilots, not true AI agents.
With public trust and enterprise adoption still fragile, robust governance is becoming essential for any serious AI deployment. Genesys is positioning its new AI Guides as a direct response to these concerns. The solution offers configurable guardrails and model-agnostic architecture that allow teams to test, refine, and safely deploy agentic AI in high-stakes workflows.
I see companies struggle with realizing ROI when their AI lacks this built-in governance, doesnt gracefully move to a human-supported experience when needed, or cant be easily set up or managed over time, Bates says. To unlock the full potential of AI, companies need the foundation and flexibility to apply it thoughtfully and at scale. AI Guides are designed to overcome the barriers by enabling orchestrated, semi-autonomous action with built-in governance.
What sets Batess vision apart is his belief that AI experiences must be not only fast and agile but also personalized and emotionally intelligent.
Our goal is to ensure empathy doesnt get sidelined with agentic AI, but amplified. I call it empathy in action, he says. We can now use agentic AI to react to emotional cues like tone, context, and sentiment and guide how decisions are made in real time. Through AI Guides, organizations will be able to simulate an AIs behavior before launch, maintain oversight throughout the lifecycle, and have firm paths for human escalation.
Cloud-first, Future-ready Agentic AI
The companys five-year roadmap includes migrating customers from on-premises systems, expanding the Genesys Cloud CX platform, and achieving Level 4 AI-powered orchestration, where intelligent agents operate with semi-autonomy under business-defined controls.
Generative AI can deliver significant ROI if done right. Companies are now identifying use cases that rely heavily on things like troubleshooting, summarizations, and recommendations to automate conversations with virtual agents or make their employees more efficient via copilots, says ates. With agentic AI, we can finally address a long-standing tradeoff between business-first models that prioritize operational efficiency but erode consumer loyalty, and people-first approaches that delight customers but are too costly to sustain.
Imagine a virtual agent that doesnt just answer a billing question, but also updates backend systems, checks inventory, and reschedules a delivery, all without human intervention. That is the future Genesys is betting on. Bates believes this potential will be especially transformative for industries with complex customer interactions such as healthcare, finance, and public services.
These sectors struggle with agility because of compliance and operational complexity, he says. Genesys Cloud also integrates with proprietary and open-source models like Amazon Bedrock so customers have extensibility to innovate with AI for their specific needs without compromising safety, oversight, or performance.
While the efficiency gains from agentic AI will be significant, Bates stresses that enterprise leaders must view this transformation as a long-term journey that drives experience-led growth.
Ultimately, its about how we use AI within the rules we define while driving significant new business value, says Bates. Would you rather lead your industry taking advantage of transformational technologies early and create new differentiation, or choose to wait longer, risking being pushed aside by new and old competitors? Those who embrace agentic AI early will be the winners of the future, delivering empathetic experiences at the lowest cost possible.
Sam Altman is extremely kid-pilled.
The OpenAI CEO announced the birth of his son in February. Since then, Altman has employed his own product, ChatGPT, to answer parenting questions. Those first few weeks were every question, constantly. Now I ask it about developmental stages more, he said on OpenAI’s in-house podcast.
Altman isnt alone on this front. In fact, his experience reflects a growing trend: New parents are increasingly turning to AI to help navigate childcare questions. According to a 2024 study, 52.7% of parents explicitly used ChatGPT for parenting strategies. Altman is among these parentsand he acknowledges a personal dependence. Clearly people have been able to take care of babies without ChatGPT for a long time, he said on the podcast. I dont know how I wouldve done that.
But could there be such a thing as too much advice?
AI for every stage of parenting
For more targeted advice, some turn to specialized chatbots. Becky Kennedy, an influential clinical psychologist and parenting guru known as Dr. Becky, created the popular Good Inside app. There, parents can ask questions to a chatbot trained on Kennedys own writing and videos. Oath Care rode the initial AI boom by launching its specialized ParentGPT product, but the company shut down last year.
AI-powered pregnancy apps are also popular. Soula is a 24/7 AI doula, which feeds on data to help advise users on pregnancy and postpartum concerns. The app has raised $750,000 and is backed by the former vice president of fertility and period tracker Flo Health. Glow, which runs a family of apps that includes a popular ovulation tracker, has introduced AI data processing to its prenatal and postpartum apps.
There’s also a world of extensive and expensive childcare gadgets. Tech-forward parents can get their hands on a $400 Nanit baby monitor, which tracks, logs, and flags a babys movements using AI. For $1,500, new parents can purchase an AI-powered crib. There’s even a $2,500 self-driving and self-rocking stroller.
How much parenting advice is too much?
AI offers broad swaths of easily accessible information. But sending parents into information overload can be dangerous. While few studies exist on the new era of AI-powered parenting, researchers have consistently studied the effects of easy internet access on childcare.
According to a 2023 study, parents who feel less confident and more overloaded tend to increase their online searching for parenting advice, which can further erode their sense of efficacy over time. The study also found that information overload is linked with greater queries, meaning that parents who surf the web will keep surfing.
Robyn Koslowitz, a child psychologist and author of Post-Traumatic Parenting: Break the Cycle and Become the Parent You Always Wanted to Be, has noticed a technological shift. Patients used to visit her with self-diagnosed advice from “Dr. Google.” Now, she says, they reference “Dr. ChatGPT.” The data aligns with Koslowitz’s experience: A 2024 study from the Kansas Life Span Institute found that many parents trust ChatGPT more than their healthcare providers.
“Parents have a tremendous amount of self-doubt nowadays,” Koslowitz tells Fast Company. “Sometimes ChatGPT, or any other chatbot, steps in to take away decision-making. But the only way we learn discernment, and we learn to figure it out, is if we rely on our own judgment.”
New York Times journalist Amanda Hess has seen up close the dangers of over-technologizing childcare. Her new book, Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age, tracks her uses of pregnancy tech like fertility apps and online support groups. She worries about AI’s impact, too.
“Theres something lost when we turn too quickly to technologies like chatbots to troubleshoot our kids,” Hess writes in an email to Fast Company. “There are bonds that can be built by asking friends and neighbors and relatives for help, human connections that will continue to support our kids as they make their way through life.”
In other words, it takes a villagenot just a chatbot.
Most politicians do their best not to let their faces betray what they’re thinking. Bernie Sanders isn’t most politiciansand the most recent evidence of that was his reaction when hearing that the U.S. had bombed Irans nuclear facilities over the weekend.
The famously straight-shooting senator from Vermont learned the U.S. had entered Israels war with Iran while onstage at a rally on June 21. Though the crowds lively reaction is what ended up going viral, its Sanderss wildly expressive visage that captures the complex emotions of the moment.
Ever since Israel launched a preemptive missile strike against Irans nuclear facilities on June 12, pundits and politicians have breathlessly speculated about whether the U.S. would step in to provide diplomacy or military might. As tensions escalated, President Trump teased his next move with typical reality-show flair. (I may do it, I may not do it, he said on June 18 of the potential for a U.S. strike on Iran. I mean, nobody knows what Im going to do.)
Three days later, much of the world found out in unison what Trump decided to do: launch a series of coordinated bombing attacks against Iran. Video clips from Sanderss Tulsa Fighting Oligarchy rally that night reflect the gravity of the Iran news as it reached the public, and underscores how members of Congresstechnically the body that should green-light a military action like the one launched Saturday, code-named Operation Midnight Hammerwere blindsided by the news. A TikTok showing the senator and his crowd absorbing the information together has already been viewed nearly 20 million timeswith further millions of views in a tweet shared on X.
@victoriaaayy This feels so unreal. Immediate chills. #berniesanders #berniesanderstulsa original sound – Victoria
The video, taken at a distance from Sanderss right-side profile, starts with an audience member shouting, We just bombed Iran! The senator then stops speaking briefly, until an aide brings him a printout of Trumps statement from Truth Social, which Sanders reads aloudWe have completed our very successful attack on the three nuclear sites in Iran, ending with etcetera. From here, the crowd breaks out into a series of boos that give way to a spontaneous, deafening chant of No more war!
Other videos taken at the event have emerged, including some from Sanderss own social team, showing what happened next. The Senator agrees with the thrust of the chant, and describes the bombing as so grossly unconstitutional. He neednt have said anything at all to get the same message across, though, since the footage of Sanderss face during the moment between hearing the shout from the crowd and reading the Truth Social post says it all.
Sen. Bernie Sanders held a "Fighting Oligarchy" rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when he received news of President Donald Trump's strikes on Iran.— CNN (@cnn.com) 2025-06-22T21:08:17.318Z
First, there is half a snort as it seems to dawn on Sanders that the crowd may have more information than he does. When the news appears to sink in, his mouth hangs open in slack-jawed surprise, and he turns to get confirmation from his aides. After one of them presumably confirms the news off-screen with a nod, the corners of Sanderss mouth tighten into a sort of discombobulated grimace. Fury flashes across his whole face, leading to some wily eyebrow gymnastics.
As he pauses, signaling the need for more info, an aide rushes over with a printout of Trumps Truth Social post. Upon laying eyes on it, Sanders shakes his head in the disgusted manner of someone disappointed despite already dismal expectations. He seems to simultaneously not believe what hes reading and understand that it makes perfect, horrible sense. (The look on Bernies face is all of us, reads a typical reaction to the video on Bluesky.)
Part of the reason Sanders had the highest approval rating in the Senate as of January 16, according to Morning Consult, is because he is widely perceived as authentic. One of the many memes hes inspired, after all, was based on his refusal to pretend the weather at Joe Bidens inauguration in 2021 was anything less than soul-piercingly cold. This authenticity oozes out of the longtime anti-war politician in the rally clip, suggesting much of Congress was not informed in advance, let alone consulted, before the U.S. struck Iran.
While the folks who might be inclined to attend a Saturday night Bernie Sanders rally are not exactly a representative sample of all Americans political leanings, early evidence suggests the broader public mirrors their instant reaction to he bombing news. A YouGov survey of 2,824 U.S. adults on June 22 found 85% of respondents answering no to the question, Do you want the U.S. to be at war with Iran? Only 5% answered affirmatively.
Meanwhile, The New York Times checked back in with an ongoing panel of six 2024 Trump voters and found that two fully supported the Iran strike, two conditionally supported it, and two were against it. (One of the big reasons I voted for him was him keeping us out of stuff in the Middle East, said one in the latter category.)
Many other politicians on both sides of the aisle also came out against the strike. While no record exists of what their faces looked like when they heard the news, thanks to Sanders, its easier to imagine.
Innovation doesnt happen in silos: it happens in systems. And yet many companies still rely on lone heroes to ignite transformation.
They recruit visionary thinkers, celebrate bold ideas, and preach agility, but beneath the surface, their structures reward predictability and punish deviation. As a result, the very people most capable of driving innovationfast-moving, future-oriented changemakers known as catalystsare often left isolated, misunderstood, and burned out.
Catalysts ignite possibilities. They challenge the status quo, connect seemingly unrelated dots, and accelerate momentum. But they dont thrive in traditional organizational ecosystems because they threaten bureaucracy, resist incrementalism, and without support, they either burn out or leave.
According to Gallup, just 21% of employees strongly agree that they can take risks at work without fear of negative consequences. As Shannon Lucas and Tracey Lovejoy explain in their book Move Fast. Break Shit. Burn Out., these workers often struggle with intense isolation and exhaustion not because they arent capable, but because the system isnt designed for them to succeed.
To unlock sustainable innovation, organizations must evolve from celebrating individual disruptors to cultivating ecosystems where diverse changemakerscatalysts, stabilizers, implementerscan thrive together. This isnt a culture tweak. Its a systems redesign.
The 4 Layers of a Catalyst Ecosystem
Shannon and I have seen how catalytic energy can drive exponential growth if the right conditions exist. This framework outlines the four interdependent layers that support thriving catalyst ecosystems.
1. Identification: Spot the Sparks
Catalysts dont always stand out on paper. Theyre often the ones asking provocative questions in meetings, proposing ideas that seem off-script, or moving faster than the rest of the system. But without intentional practices, these traits can be seen as disruptive rather than visionary.
To find them, leaders must look beyond the org chart. Psychometric assessments, cross-functional feedback, and structured self-discovery tools can help you to illuminate hidden change agents at every level in your organization. You can also train managers to spot curiosity, systems thinking, and pattern recognition.
In her work with large organizations, Shannon uses her companys Catalyst Assessment Tool to uncover innate changemakers hidden throughout the business. This often-overlooked talent is frequently underutilized. At one company, 60% of the employees identified as catalysts were previously considered hidden talent by the C-suiteand they went on to solve some of the organizations most pressing challenges.
2. Integration: Design for Complementarity
Once identified, catalysts need more than autonomy. They need meaningful integration with the broader system. Pairing them with stabilizers (who bring operational excellence) and implementers (who drive execution) creates cross-functional change pods that balance energy, tempo, and sustainability.
In my work facilitating story-based leadership circles, catalysts often emerge through narratives of disruption, such as career pivots, reinventions, and vision quests. However, their breakthroughs become organizational breakthroughs only when they are translated into a shared purpose.
This requires redesigned team norms: tempo-matching, structured conflict mediation, and deep respect for different working styles. Catalysts are the spark, but the team is the engineand the organization is the road they need to travel together.
3. Protection: Shield the Flame
A large amount of pressure to innovate without adequate support is a recipe for burnout. According to Deloitte, innovation-driven employees are 2.5x more likely to leave if they lack proper support systems. Catalysts in particular are prone to emotional exhaustion, especially when their efforts are blocked by bureaucracy or misunderstood by leadership.
Organizations must build containers that buffer catalytic energy. This means establishing sponsorship structures, recovery protocols (such as off-cycle sabbaticals or reflective retreats), and psychological safety as a norm. This could include internal coaching circles, energy mapping, or check-in rituals that normalize emotional processing. Investing in resilience practices isnt a perk; its a prerequisite for sustainable change.
4. Amplification: Scale the Spark
Catalysts cant just be unleashed; they must be amplified.
Invite them to inform strategic offsites, facilitate internal labs, or lead cross-functional storytelling initiatives. Establish formal channels, like Catalyst Councils, to elevate their insights into enterprise-level planning. Codify what they learn. Translate their experiments into onboarding content and playbooks. Make space for them to coach emerging catalysts in the system. When you treat catalysts not as rogue actors but as cultural accelerants, their energy becomes contagious.
In a Catalyst program with a large healthcare organization, Shannon worked with the team to identify, train, and activate catalysts from across the business. The program participants were given the most pressing strategic initiatives to tackle. In just 16 weeks, the Catalyst participants helped the company reduce reimbursement times from eight weeks to just two days, a 96% improvement, driving significant gains in both customer and employee satisfaction. Additionally, the organization reported a 24% improvement in change leadership capabilities across the enterprise. This is the power you can unleash and amplify by engaging your catalysts.
Innovation isnt a solo act; its an emergent phenomenon. It happens when diverse roles, energies, and mindsets interact in the right environment. That means building systems that reward exploration, reframe conflict, and move ideas from the margins to the center.
The future wont be led by lone geniuses. It will be shaped by ecosystems that can accommodate differences, adapt rapidly, and nurture catalytic energy over the long arc of change. Dont wait for a crisis to value your changemakers: Design for them now, and your organization wont just survive changeit will shape it. The next time someone in your organization brings an idea that feels risky or too soon, pause before you dismiss it. Ask: What if this is the spark weve been waiting for, and how might we build the right conditions to let it burn bright?
For years, Heinz has consistently innovated in the ketchup space. Theres been jalapeo ketchup, chipotle ketchup, mayochup, and even pickle ketchup. Other sauces have gotten similarly modernized, with stunt products like a Taylor Swift-inspired ranch dressing and a hot-pink Barbie barbecue sauce. Notably forgotten amid this flurry of condiment exploration? Mustard.
Now Heinz is rectifying that error, officially announcing the release of the condiment Heinz Mustaaaaaard, the brands first new mustard product in 10 years. The smoky-sweet chipotle honey mustard will debut for a two-week period at Buffalo Wild Wings, followed by a limited-time nationwide release at Target, 7-Eleven, Walmart.com, and Amazon.com.
[Photo: Kraft Heinz]
Heinz Mustaaaaaard was initially teased back in February, when Heinz revealed it would be collaborating on the sauce with record producer DJ Mustard (so named because of his given first name, Dijon). The timing was spot-onMustard had just exploded in the cultural zeitgeist after a callout of his name in Kendrick Lamars song tv off inspired memes and resulted in Mustard joining the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show. At the time, Heinz named Mustard as its official chief mustard officer.
But, according to the team at Heinz, this wasnt just a collaboration with Mustards name attached to it: The producer met with Heinzs R&D team in person to select the final flavor, down to the specific proportions of each ingredient chosen.
[Photo: Kraft Heinz]
DJ Mustard mixes a mustard
Most people are probably familiar with Mustard through his music and his recently viral collaboration with Lamar. Fewer are aware of his side hustle as a grill master.
Heinz pitched a potential collaboration with Mustard more than a year before the official partnership announcement in February. During that time the team learned that Mustard already had a love for Heinz, says Peter Hall, president of elevation for Heinz North America. Mustard shared that he had long used Heinz mustard as his go-to staple when grilling, and that he had a particular penchant for sweeter mustards.
In a press release, the artist said Heinz mustard has always been the most important ingredient among his grilling secret weapons, noting, I knew I wanted to make my own sauce one day, something that wouldnt be like anything else out there. Adding mustard gives you that nice browning, bark formation, and grilling, but thats just step one.
[Photo: Kraft Heinz]
The actual creation of Mustards mustard was a four-month-long process, starting with the music producer personally visiting Heinz headquarters in Pittsburgh to help mix up the recipea kind of access that Heinz has never granted to a celebrity collaborator in the past.
Richard Misutka, director of R&D for Kraft Heinz Elevation Brands, worked directly with Mustard during his visit. He says the team prepped around 10 different add-on flavors that might pair well with mustard, including honey, chipotle, jalapeo, bacon, caramelized onion, and even mango. Then, to ensure that they could replicate each potential recipe, all of the various combination components were weighed before they were mixed and tasted by Mustard.
[Photo: Kraft Heinz]
We started with our Heinz yellow mustard, and then we started playing around with some of the flavors, Misutka says. True to Mustards reputation, he liked the honey, so instead of playing around with the yellow mustard, we pivoted to the Heinz honey mustard. At that point, Misutka recalls, Mustard chose to add an extra shot of honey to the standard recipe. Then we looked at some of the other flavors to help accentuate the experience. We pushed him out of his comfort zone a little bit, because we knew he did not like spicy foods. So we’re like, Let’s just try the chipotle here and see what you think. He absolutely loved it.
While bacon and mango were both possible contenders for Mustards top pick, the chipotle combination ultimately won out. I think it has tremendous balance. I mean, you have th sweetness, you have the vinegar tartness, you have the smokiness from the chipotle, as well as the heat, Misutka says. It’s really a great product, and it was a tremendous experience.
Mustard summed up his estimation of the product in his own words: This is the one, the Mustard of all mustards.
