This morning, OpenAI released the companys new GPT-5.2 model.
If youre a coder or someone who follows AI benchmarks for fun (hey, I wont judge), this model will excite you tremendously.
For everyone else, prepare to be underwhelmedor rather, prepare to wait another month or so for the real OpenAI new release to come out.
Keeping up with the Joneses
GPT-5.2 is fundamentally about making small tweaks and improvements to the already fairly new GPT-5.1 model.
Todays release improves OpenAIs performance on a variety of industry benchmarks. GPT-5.2 is faster and more efficient than its predecessor, and it does a better job solving scientific and technical problems.
In particular, its better at writing code and doing math, and performs better on so-called agentic tasks, where the model operates for a long time without human input.
OpenAI also says its better at solving real-world financial challenges. If it had existed when I did my ChatGPT investing experiment, maybe I really would have Lambo money by now!
Beyond that, theres nothing especially revolutionary in GPT-5.2.
So, why make a big fuss about releasing a whole new model before the holidays if it does fairly little thats truly new?
Because in the ongoing saga of the AI wars, OpenAI feels it needs to keep up with the Jonesesor in this case, specifically, to keep up with Google.
Industry watchers have noted that Googles Gemini 3 model began to threaten GPT-5.1s spot on the kind of performance leaderboards that AI companies pay close attention to.
This reportedly caused a code red alert from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Altman reportedly ordered his teams to stop working on Sora and other projects to focus all their efforts on improving ChatGPT and its underlying models as quickly as possible.
When you order a bunch of incredibly intelligent peoplesome of them being paid upwards of $1 million a yearto do something quickly, theyre likely to oblige. Within a few weeks of the reported code red, the OpenAI team had todays incremental release ready to go.
GPT-5.2 will probably allow OpenAI to briefly leapfrog its archnemesis Googleand smaller competitor Anthropicin industry benchmarks, once again claiming its place as the undisputed leader in the AI wars.
The real main event
The code red reportedly isnt over yet, though. Earlier this month, analysts noted that OpenAI was testing a new reasoning model, codenamed “Garlic.”
GPT-5.2 might have been part of Garlic. But many in the industry expect an expanded Garlic model (probably under the GPT-5.5 moniker) to come out in Q1 of 2026, potentially as early as January.
Its likely to be a fully retrained reasoning model that brings efficiency improvements, but also genuinely impactful ones like a larger context window, new knowledge cutoff (OpenAIs most recent models have been stuck in 2024), better personality, and improved performance on image generation to rival Googles Nano Banana.
Its also broadly rumored to include a new Adult Mode that allows ChatGPT to engage in, ahem, risque conversations with users who are older than 18.
In the broader context of a potentially entirely revamped model with a January release date, todays GPT-5.2 model feels premature.
Releasing it makes OpenAI seem a bit jumpylike its nervous that someone will come along and unseat it, and is willing to go to great lengths to stop that from happening, even if everyday users barely care about coding and science benchmarks.
GPT-5.2 says less about OpenAIs technical prowess, then, and more about how Altman and his team are feeling. Google once seemed like it was floundering and slowly losing the AI racegoing the way of Polaroid or Xerox. Now, its back in the game, and seems poised and confident.
OpenAI isnt used to playing second fiddle. Faced with the prospect of real competition, the company is clearly getting nervous. Last year, OpenAI celebrated the holidays with a jolly and carefree Shipmas celebration. For Altman and his team, this holiday season is likely to be a lot less fun and carefree.
Lululemon might just be entering a newand improvedera.
On Thursday, December 11, the athleisure apparel company shared a mostly positive third-quarter earnings report and announced the departure of its CEO, Calvin McDonald.
McDonald will leave Lululemon Athletica on January 31, after seven years in the post. He previously served as CEO of Sephora Americas.
The last year has been one of underperformance for Lululemon. In October, the companys controversial founder and largest independent shareholder, Chip Wilson, took out an ad in the Wall Street Journal criticizing Lululemons direction.
While he didnt go as far as to name McDonald, Wilson wrote, The board insists on operator/finance CEOs who can speak Wall Street, rejecting the idea of a product-driven CEO. These types of finance focused CEOs dont know how to attract or motivate creative talent, and even worse, they think they understand great product when they dont.
Why is McDonald leaving?
In a post-earnings call, McDonald called his time as CEO a dream job but that the timing is right for a change. He will stay on as a senior adviser through the end of March.
Lululemon has named its CFO, Meghan Frank, and CCO, André Maestrini, as interim co-CEOs while the company searches for a permanent replacement.
In the announcement, McDonald claimed to have built a foundation for the future: I believe the outstanding product pipeline weve built, and action plan weve put into place, will yield positive results, and deliver value to shareholders in the months and years ahead.
How did Lululemon perform in Q3?
Quarter three was an improvement for Lululemon, with $2.57 billion in revenue, a 7% increase year-over-year (YOY) from compared to $2.4 billion.
It also beat Wall Streets predicted $2.48 billion, according to consensus estimates cited by CNBC. Lululemon further reported $2.59 earnings per share, above Wall Streets expected $2.25.
However, this was still lower YOY, compared to $2.87. Lululemon also projected sales below expectations for its current quarter.
During quarter three, Lululemon bought back one million common stock shares for a total of $189 million.
And the company announced that its board of directors has approved a $1 billion increase to its share repurchase program. As of Thursday, Lululemon had about $1.6 billion still available for its repurchase program.
Overall, the good outweighed the bad for investors. Lululemons shares (Nasdaq: LULU) rose over 9% on Friday in premarket trading. As of Thursdays close, the stock is down almost 50% year to date.
Measles infections in America have hit their highest numbers in 33 years. In 2025, cases have topped 1,900, and that number is expected to rise due to an ongoing outbreak in South Carolina.
Heres what you need to know about Americas latest measles outbreak and why the upcoming period could spell troubling times with the disease.
Whats happened?
Earlier this week, the South Carolina Department of Public Health (DPH) announced 27 new cases of measles in the state since the previous Friday, raising the total number of active measles cases in the southeastern state to 111.
Due to the outbreak, there are currently 254 people in quarantine, with another 16 individuals in isolation in an effort to prevent the spread of the potentially deadly disease through the community.
Of the new cases, 16 people were exposed at the Way of Truth Church in Inman, a city in the northwestern part of the state. The DPH has also identified new exposures at Inman Intermediate School.
But South Carolina isnt the only state dealing with measles outbreaks. National figures show that 2025 has seen a resurgence of the disease.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data, South Carolina had a total of 123 measles cases for the year as of December 10.
But that only put the state in third place. The leader is Texas, with 803 cases this year, followed by Arizona with 169 cases. Utah, at 115 cases, and New Mexico, at 100 cases, round out the top five.
Worst year for measles in three decades
In 2025, the number of measles cases in the United States skyrocketed when compared to recent years.
According to the CDC, as of December 10, there have been a total of 1,912 cases of measles in the U.S. this year.
To put that number in perspective, throughout all of 2024, there were only 285 reported cases, and only 59 in 2023.
At 1,912 known cases so far this year, 2025 is also the year with the highest number of measles cases in the U.S. in the 21st century. The figures are well above the previous high of 1,274, set in 2019.
In fact, there have not been this many measles cases in the United States since 199233 years ago. That year, measles cases topped out at 2,126.
The CDC does state that case counts from 2023 through this year are preliminary and subject to change.
In 2000, measles was declared eliminated from the United States, but that status is now at risk.
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Who is contracting measles?
Measles can infect anyone, but it is most likely to infect those who are not vaccinated against it. Vaccination is given in two doses. The CDC says the measles vaccine is 93% effective at one dose and 97% effective at two doses.
Out of the known 1,912 cases in the U.S. so far this year, the vaccination status of 92% of those infected was either unvaccinated or unknown, according to the CDC. Only 3% of those infected had had just one dose of the measles vaccine, and only 4% of those infected had had both doses.
As for the ages of those infected, the majority are children and teenagers. According to the CDC, out of the 1,912 infections, individuals were aged:
Under 5 years: 500 (26%)
5-19 years: 786 (41%)
20+ years: 613 (32%)
Age unknown: 13 (1%)
Has anyone in the United States died from the measles in 2025?
Unfortunately, yes. According to the CDC, there have been three deaths attributed to the measles this year. However, hundreds of others have required hospitalization.
Of the 1,912 cases this year, 218 of them, or 11%, required hospital stays. The CDC breaks down the hospitalization numbers by age as follows:
Under 5 years: 21% (103 of 500)
5-19 years: 6% (47 of 786)
20+ years: 11% (68 of 613)
Age unknown: 0% (0 of 13)
There have been 43 outbreaks of measles across the U.S. this year. The CDC defines an outbreak as a collection of three or more related cases.
Why are so many outbreaks happening now?
The CDC says several factors are contributing to the resurgence of measles in America. As global travel activity increases, it is more likely that people returning to America from overseas could bring the virus back with them.
But one of the main challenges America faces, which has contributed to the 2025 outbreak, is the declining rate of vaccination among Americans.
When more than 95% of people in a community are vaccinated (coverage >95%), most people are protected through community immunity (herd immunity), the CDC explains.
Below that threshold, herd immunity breaks down, and the disease spreads.
There are currently only 11 states at or above the 95% threshold, meaning most states in the country can no longer count on herd immunity for protection.
How will the holidays affect measles outbreaks?
As we enter the holiday season, it is likely that more cases of measles will appear. The reason is because measles spreads through the air when people cough or sneeze. The virus can also linger in the air for up to two hours.
Given that measles is contracted through airborne transmission in spaces where people gather, it’s likely that cases will increase as individuals tend to congregate more over the holidays and at work, family, and other social events.
How can I protect myself?
The best way to protect yourself and your loved ones is to get vaccinated against measles, says the CDC. You can find out more about measles vaccinations on the agency’s website.
Every few weeks, Americans get another letter in the mail that starts the same way: Were writing to inform you that your personal data has been exposed. A retailer gets hacked. A hospital. A supermarket. A travel site. It never ends. Most of us feel like weve lost control over who has our information and how its being used. But a new kind of privacy technology, one that lets companies confirm what they need to know without ever seeing your personal details, may finally offer a way out of this mess.
Weve slipped into a world where giving away our personal information is the cost of participating in modern life and where were frustrated, but not surprised, when it gets stolen. In an age defined by apps, AI, and digital payments, our data has become both currency and collateral damage.
But we may finally be reaching a turning point. And the solution thats emerging didnt come from Silicon Valley or Washington; it came from an unexpected place: cryptography, the science of using math to secure information, and the foundation of blockchain technology.
Its called zero-knowledge proof technology, and despite the intimidating name, it theoretically offers something every American wants: privacy without the headaches, and security without the surveillance.
Wall Street quietly moved first
While consumers are dealing with endless breach notifications, something very different is happening on Wall Street.
Many of the worlds financial titans, including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and BNY Mellon are testing blockchain-based trading, settlement, and other systems that let assets move 24/7. Tokenized treasuries, money-market funds, and even tokenized stocksa mechanism where something is turned into a digital “token” that lives on a blockchainare no longer experiments; Robinhood introduced tokenized versions of stocks and ETFs for European Union investors this summer.
But theres one major barrier: on a public blockchain, everyone can see everything.Investors dont want that. Banks, pension funds, hedge funds dont want thatfor competitive reasons, among other things.
If financial markets are going to ultimately run on modern cryptographic infrastructure, they will need privacy that doesnt compromise trust or oversight.
Consumers feel the same way
Americans are tired of being told that if they want convenience, they must give up control of their personal information. The AI economy depends on massive streams of data and whether it survives may come down to one thing: trust.
Right now, trust is running out.
People dont want more logins, more verification codes, or more data sitting in more databases that will inevitably get hacked. They want a world where businesses can verify what they need to verify, without collecting everything about us.
Thats exactly where zero-knowledge proof technology comes in.
Zero-knowledge proofs: verify without exposing
A zero-knowledge proof lets someone prove something is true without revealing the underlying data.
You can prove youre old enough to buy a product, without giving away your birthdate.
A bank can prove it has enough reserves, without exposing its entire balance sheet.
A company can verify a user is real, without storing personal details that can get hacked later.
This isnt science fiction, and it isnt just crypto. Its already in the apps Americans use today:
Google Wallet has quietly integrated zero-knowledge technology.
Bumble uses it to verify user attributes without storing sensitive data.
Financial institutions are incorporating it to protect user data.
StarkWares founders codeveloped zk-STARKs and zk-SNARKs, advanced cryptographic methods for zero-knowledge proofs, and this technology now underpins some of the most promising privacy tools in AI, fintech, and digital identity.
Regulators are finally ready to talk about privacy and the crypto angle
For years, the word privacy in Washington was viewed with suspicion, confused with anonymity, or treated as a threat to oversight.
Hopefully, thats now changing.
Back in August, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce wrote compellingly that the “sledgehammer has become the tool of choice for monitoring financial crimes,” and “[t]he American people and their government should guard zealously peoples right to live private lives and to use technologies that enable them to do so.” The SEC is now preparing to convene a first-of-its-kind roundtable on Financial Surveillance and Privacy, where builders at the forefront of privacy technology will show how these tools allow for risk management without exposing every transaction.
At the same time, the Executive Branch has embraced emerging technologies, signalling a top-down encouragement for regulators to approach innovation as a path towards improvement, and to encourage its growth.
Why this moment matters
The privacy wave is not just a consumer protest. It is institutional. It is technological. It is regulatory. It is an inflection.
Institutions need privacy to operate competitively.
Consumers need protection from constant breaches.
Regulators need tools that preserve oversight without creating systemic vulnerabilities.
Zero-knowledge proofs sit at the center of all three needs.
The digital economy, from AI systems to payments to financial markets, is gaining speed.
But without privacy infrastructure, we are setting ourselves up for a future where every trade, every transaction, and every personal detail is visible to everyone.
We dont need to accept that world.
Zero-knowledge proof technology offers a better one:a world where verification is possible without exposure, where markets are efficient without being surveilled, and where people can participate in the digital economy without surrendering their most intimate data.
Privacy is not anti-technology.It is the foundation of trust and trust is the one thing the AI economy and the financial system cannot survive without.
There’s a generational shift happening in workplaces that goes far deeper than debates about RTO or perks and snacks. Gen Zthe cohort that learned to communicate through stories, stickers, and swipe cultureis fundamentally reimagining how work gets done. After analyzing data from 2,475 professionals across our latest research, I’m convinced they’re crafting the future of work.
Gen Z intuitively understands something many organizations are still learning. As we live in a world drowning in information, clarity is a competitive advantage. And increasingly, that clarity is offered visually.
The Visual-First Expectation
Sound familiar? Workplace tools mirror social behaviors, just with a lag. Just like how early 2000s texting culture paved the way for Slack, were now seeing Gen Z’s visual-first communication style make its mark on how we collaborate at work. Technology isn’t driving generational change, it’s catching up to how people already interact. Now, all work is expected to be visual, collaborative, and intuitive by default.
For senior leaders managing distributed, multigenerational teams across time zones, the challenge is dual: translating complex ideas into clear visual communications while cutting through visual clutter to reach precise audiences. The goal remains constantmake every design count through compelling, memorable visuals that drive engagement.
Among Gen Z professionals we surveyed, the majority say they do their best work visually and believe visual fluency makes them more valuable employees in addition to a critical skill to future-proof their careers. Other generations approach AI with varying degrees of skepticism or caution, but Gen Z sees it as a natural extension of their creative capabilities.
Yet despite this confidence and capability, Gen Z workers are being systematically slowed down by outdated systems and fragmented tools that hinder their natural workflows. More than half want their companies to shift to a visual-first approach entirely.
The Business Case for Visual-First
Our neuroscience research, conducted in partnership with Neuro-Insight, provides objective evidence that Gen Z’s instincts for visual communication are spot on, aligning with how human brains actually process information.
Visual content triggers memory encoding 74% faster than dull alternatives. In controlled laboratory settings, participants exposed to high-quality visual presentations showed 21% more emotional intensity and 16% greater likeability compared to boring or poorly designed versions of identical content. Documents with superior visual design generated 26% higher emotional intensity and 9% improved likeability. The report bears out that emotion fuels attention. And attention fuels retention.
These represent fundamental differences in how information resonates and persists. Companies that embrace visual-first communication report 66% clearer and more efficient communication, while 61% achieve stronger brand cohesion and sharper differentiation. With 89% of business leaders now considering visual fluency a must-have skill for leadership positions, the question for ambitious professionals isnt whether or not to adapt at allits how quickly can they upskill across their teams.
Organizations that resist this shift face measurable consequences. In the U.S., companies invest $65,000 annually per creative team member on visual content creation. Despite this substantial investment, more than 90% of leaders and their Gen Z colleagues continue to face obstacles that prevent them from producing their highest quality creative work.
The creativity gap compounds these costs. Despite the fact that the U.S. is expected to pour over $143 billion annually into the visual content economy, teams remain locked into fragmented tools and text-first workflows. This creates a productivity bottleneck that stifles returns on massive organizational investments.
Perhaps most concerning, 85% of creative leaders and 83% of Gen Z have resorted to using unapproved tools, while 82% of leaders bypass IT entirely to accomplish visual work. When talented employees consistently work around your systems, the systems need examining.
An Action Plan for Future Forward Leadership
For forward-thinking leaders, Gen Z’s visual fluency represents more than operational efficiencyit unlocks motivation, autonomy, and high-impact creative thinking. When we asked Gen Z what broader visual fluency across their companies would enable, their responses revealed aspirations that extend far beyond job satisfaction to be more motivated to contribute, more creatively empowered, and more confident in sharing ideas.
Gen Z workers want to lead with AI, experiment with new approaches, and create visual experiences that drive results. The organizations that provide the right systems, support, and trust will unlock better work entirely.
Audit your tool chaos: Task your department leads with taking inventory of their current visual tools. If it’s more than four, you have a cost center that might need consolidation.
Document the inefficiency: Map all current visual tools your teams use, taking stock of overlaps and redundancies. Present the data to justify consolidation and to align Marketing, IT, and Finance on the operational cost of inefficiency.
Run a 30-day pilot: Test AI-powered visual tools in real workflows with baseline KPIs: time saved, output volume, and brand consistency. Use the results to build a data-backed case for investment, focusing on performance over potential.
Lead a “Visual Sprint”: Pick one legacy processonboarding, product briefs, or internal communicationsand task your teams with redesigning it using visual-first approaches. Give your team permission to break the mold and set big goals.
Bridge the generation gap: Host recurring, informal office hours or workshops where everyone from interns to execs can bring new AI projects theyve been working on, showcase new visual workflows, and ask for help. This is about visual and AI literacy, and about building a new type of creative muscle memory.
Four generations now share the workplace, with a fifthGen Alphaapproaching quickly. Organizations that harness the visual fluency, AI confidence, and creative instincts that Gen Z brings naturally will discover a competitive advantage.
The visual communication revolution is here. Gen Z is ready to lead the visual era with intuitive platforms, visual-first communication, and freedom to experiment with AI. The companies that meet them with the right systems, support, and trust will invest in more than employee satisfactionthey̵ll invest in the future of how work gets done.
When Raising Canes recently opened its first-ever location in Meridian, Idaho, it wasnt a particularly remarkable event for the restaurant chain. The fast-growing chicken purveyor also opened six other restaurants in five other states on the exact same day in November. It aims to open close to 100 new stores this year.
But some Idahoans were willing to stand outside in chilly fall weather for more than 48 hours to be the first in the state to get a taste of Raising Canes, whose exceptionally narrow menu features chicken fingers, french fries, a secret proprietary dipping sauce, and simple sides like garlic toast and coleslaw.
We had customers camping out since Sunday morning, AJ Kumaran, co-chief executive officer and chief operating officer of Raising Canes, tells Fast Company of the new Idaho restaurant that opened on a Tuesday. People are excited about our entry into that market.
A boom in a cooling restaurant economy
At a time when restaurant chains including Chipotle, Cava, and Sweetgreen are confronting a sales cooldown as Gen Z and millennial diners are pressured by inflation, high housing costs, flat income growth, and other broader macroeconomic challenges, chicken-focused restaurant chains like Raising Canes and Daves Hot Chicken have been consistently expanding across the U.S. and are posting sturdier sales and traffic growth.
The fastest-growing chain in America last year by unit count was Hangry Joes Hot Chicken & Wings, according to data provider Datassential, which also reported the domestic unit total for all chicken restaurant concepts increased by 4.7% in 2024 from the prior year, far exceeding the industrys increase of 1.5%. Systemwide sales for chicken restaurants now exceed $52 billion annually.
[Photo: Refrina/Adobe Stock]
Total restaurant traffic for all quick-service restaurant concepts dropped 1% for the year-ending September 2025 from the comparable prior-year period, while that same metric increased 3% for the chicken concepts, David Portalatin, senior vice president and a food and foodservice industry advisor for Circana, told Fast Company. The market researcher says that traffic for the QSR restaurant industry, which was battered by shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, is still down 8% from 2019, but has increased 15% for QSR chicken.
The chains defying fast-food slowdown trends
Were obsessed with fried chicken, says Portalatin. He believes that more innovative twists on chicken prep and unique sauces have put a more modern twist on classic, Americana staples. Chicken, Portalatin adds, is among the very few bright spots in growth areas within the restaurant landscape.
Since Raising Canes opened its first location in Louisiana in 1996, the chain has only sold chicken fingers and cooks every dish fresh to order, which Kumaran says results in efficient restaurants that are focused on making just a few menu items. There are no heat lamps or microwave ovens in the chains kitchensand no limited-time menu offers or discounts.
[Photos: Raising Cane’s]
We dont take shortcuts and we dont play any gimmicks, says Kumaran. You will not see us in discount mode or saying, Heres the flavor of the month.
Over the past decade, Raising Canes has grown from a $350 million business to $5.1 billion in system sales in 2024. The company says it is marching toward $10 billion in annual sales from more than 1,600 locations, which would be an increase of around 600 restaurants from whats in operation today. Earlier this year, Raising Canes leapfrogged KFC to become the third most-popular chicken chain in the U.S. after Chick-fil-A and Popeyes. The chain even has a nickname for its most devoted fans, the Caniacs.
That popularity has led to some increased competition from other chains outside of the chicken specialists that have added the protein to their menus. There are a lot of people jumping in, says Kumaran. Whether it’s taco players or fajita players or burger players, everybody’s got a chicken dinner option right now.
The new competition crowding the chicken category
Chickens soaring growth has been attributed to some yearslong trends like Chick-fil-As aggressive expansion beyond that chains initial regional focus in the south, the sandwich chicken wars that kicked off in 2019 when Popeyes debuted a new menu item that led to a social media and in-store frenzy, and the more recent perception that all proteineven fried chickenis better than other quick-service food options.
Whether that’s true or not, I’m not, I’m not being the judge of that, says Portalatin. I’m not a dietitian or nutritionist, but the consumer will often perceive the chicken option as the better-for-you option.
How the protein halo reshaped fast-food preferences
Chickens protein halo is particularly relevant to consumers who are taking GLP-1 weight-loss drugs like Ozempic, and that connection led Daves Hot Chicken earlier this year to debut a promotional meal called the Davezempic, featuring mini sliders. It gives influencers and customers a way to engage with the brand in a funny and quirky way, says Srishti Handa, vice president of marketing at Daves.
[Photo: Daves Hot Chicken]
Founded in 2017, Daves Hot Chicken recently sold a majority stake for a reported $1 billion to private equity firm Roark Capital and ended 2024 with 260 locations. The chain expects to have 400 locations in operation by the end of this year and has signaled it expects to open more than 125 restaurants every year for the foreseeable future.
When asked about a north star target, Daves President and COO Jim Bitticks told Fast Company the chain could easily support 1,000 domestic locations. Talk to me in 15 years and that number could be 2,000 or 3,000 restaurants, adds Bitticks.
The chain serves its Nashville-style chicken tenders and sliders at seven different spice levels ranging from no spice to the reaper, the latter requiring a signed waiver promising that yes, its that hot. I dont recommend it, but you know, youve got to try everything once, says Bitticks. It definitely blows your head off.
Bitticks says that Instagram and other social channels have been a big driver of traffic when Daves establishes restaurants in new markets, especially attracting Gen Z to the concept. Im not from that generation, I dont get the idea of following a brand that Ive never tried before, he added. I dont understand it, but it is a huge piece of Daves story.
Slim Chickens bets on variety, content, and sauce innovation
Slim Chickens, an Arkansas-based chain with 300 locations across 34 states, has a more expansive menu than its peer upstarts with tenders, wings, salads, wraps, and even chicken and waffles. The chain says that it is alluring Gen Z consumers and even Generation Alpha, children born after 2010 who are asking their parents to take them to a Slim.
[Photo: Slim Chickens]
Variety is a competitive advantage for us, Patrick Noone, chief marketing officer of Slim Chickens, said in an interview.
To stand out in a crowded category, Slim has created an in-house recording studio so that the chain can pump out a steady drumbeat of content across social channels. Noone says that these creative assets have a short shelf life online, losing their relevance after just 10 days. Slim is also in the process of developing and debuting a new mobile app in the first quarter of 2026. The chain is also continuing to think through the physical restaurant space to make it easier for customers who place a mobile order and want to pick up their food in the store.
But Noone says one top priority will always be innovation for Slims range of sauces, which today includes 14 different flavors like Korean BBQ, sweet red chili, and cayenne ranch.
We spend as much time innovating around sauces as we do on tenders and the center of the plate, says Noone. Chicken is just the perfect canvas.
Hello again, and thank you for spending time with Fast Companys Plugged In.
Last October, I visited the Silicon Valley headquarters of 1X Technologiesthe startup behind a humanoid home robot called Neoand spoke with its VP of product and design, Dar Sleeper. Among the points he made was that long-standing public expectations have set a high bar for household robots. Naturally, he name-checked the worlds most iconic one.
The ultimate, North Star, in a lot of people’s minds, is Rosie the Robot, he told me. A Jetsons world where you ask and receive, and it makes your life better, you spend more time with your family, you’re more present.
Sleepers reference returned to the front of my brain last week, when I attended a Wired event in San Francisco featuring an interview with Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince. Explaining AIs transformative impact, he turned to an obvious precedent: George Jetsons reliance on Rosie.
I keep watching reruns of the old cartoon show The Jetsons, Prince said. There are a lot of things that are anachronistic about it. But I think asking the question, Where does George get his information from? is a really interesting one. And the answer is Rosie the Robot. When he says, Hey, Rosie, I want a recipe for chocolate chip cookies. Rosie doesnt say, Here are 10 blue links, go find one yourself. Rosie says, Heres a recipe for chocolate chip cookies.
Rosie comes up so often in discussions of the future of technology that its easy to tune out rather than nod in appreciation. But hearing two executives mention her by name got me wondering why this secondary character from a 1962 Hanna-Barbera prime-time cartoon, canceled after only one season (albeit rerun endlessly), has been such an extraordinarily durable touchstone. Its not an easy question to answer. Even if, like me, youve already spent more time contemplating the Jetsons cultural impact than most people.
Before we go any further, a few Rosie factoids for you:
Her name was originally spelled Rosey, but the more common Rosie won out over time.
The very first Jetsons episode, Rosey the Robot, told the story of how she entered the Jetsons’ home, initially as a short-term rent-a-robot.
She appeared in only one other episode among the 24 in the first seasonthat shocked mebut was much more prominent in the additional Jetsons shows Hanna-Barbera produced in the mid-1980s, including starring roles in the episodes Rosie Come Home, Mothers Day for Rosie, and Rip-Off Rosie.
As a sassy-yet-kindhearted maid, she drew undeniable inspiration from the title character in the newspaper comic Hazel, which had been turned into a popular TV sitcom the previous season. (The rest of The Jetsons knocked off another comics mainstay, Blondie.)
Her Brooklyn-tinged voice was provided by actress Jean Vander Pyl, much better known as Wilma Flintstone.
If you need to catch up on Rosies adventures, as I did for this newsletter, youll find The Jetsons widely available on streaming servicesI watched the show on Huluand airing every day on MeTV Toons.
None of this explains why technologists are still talking about Rosie. The most superficial reason is that it would be pretty cool to off-load tedious household chores to someone else. Most of us cant afford human help, making a robot maid an alluring proposition. (As shown in the first episode, even paying for Rosie was a challenge for Jane and George: She was a discounted previous-year demonstrator model, and they were able to keep her only because Mr. Spacely gave George a raise.)
But if all Rosie did was the dishes, I dont think shed be so well remembered. She is a piece of sophisticated technology with an uncommonly humane user interface. Thats why the Jetson family loved her so much, and why she sticks in our minds. And given that her features are presently morphing from fantasy into stuff that might actually be possible to build, shes only growing more relevant.
As with many things about The Jetsons, Rosie is both old-timey and prescient. At one point in the first episode, she opens her front and dumps in Judy Jetsons homework tapes to incorporate them into her knowledge base. Thankfully, magnetic tape petered out as a primary form of data storage well over 40 years ago. But Rosies ability to crunch Judys classworkand presumably help her with itsure looks similar to an LLM ingesting data.
Rosie was an uplifting presence in the Jetsons’ household. [Screenshot: Hanna-Barbera]
In todays buzzwordy AI parlance, Rosie is also agentic. She handles tasks with a sizable degree of autonomy, is fine-tuned to behave responsibly and, though engaging and supportive, never slips into sycophancy. If Elroy confided that he was planning to become a juvenile delinquent, we can be certain she wouldnt aid him. Instead, shed push back on the idea andif necessaryalert his parents. Our 2025 chatbots are crude by comparison, if not downright dangerous.
Still another reason why Rosie remains resonant is the timeless appeal of The Jetsons optimistic air. As depicted in the show, the future is a pretty wonderful place, and Rosie is part of that. Even by the end of the 1960s, our culture had grown darker. 2001: A Space Odysseys HAL 9000 may be as famous as Rosie, but hes also a grim object lesson in the dangers of trusting technology to work in our best interest. You wont catch tech execs speaking approvingly of HAL as a font of inspiration.
The Jetsons was never dystopian, but neither was it naive. A sizable percetage of its humor stemmed from the downsides of theoretically useful technology, often in ways that are, in retrospect, as forward-looking as any other aspect of the show. As youll recall, the end credits of every episode concluded with George becoming overwhelmed by a runaway automated treadmill and calling for Jane to stop this crazy thing. (In real life, Pelotons safety issues with its Tread treadmill werent so funny.)
Rosie does not appear in another 1962 Jetsons episode called Uniblab. But its moralthat artificial intelligence in the office might be a pointless waste of moneyis the furthest thing from entertainingly quaint.
Mr. Spacely introduces George to his new boss, Uniblab. It doesnt go well. [Screenshot: Hanna-Barbera]
Uniblab is a workplace robot that Mr. Spacely acquires for $5 billion (!). Apparently an AGI true believerhe gloats that Uniblab has a higher IQ than GeorgeSpacely demotes George to serve as the robots assistant. It turns out that Uniblab uses his always-on microphone to spy on Spacelys employees. He also induces them to play rigged gambling games. And thats about all hes good for.
After being sabotaged by the shows resident hacker, the Jetsons handyman, Henry, Uniblab suffers a hallucinatory meltdown in front of Spacely Space Sprockets board of directors. Hes unceremoniously decommissioned. Humanity triumphs, at least for the moment.
When The Jetsons premiered in 1962, publicity materials explained that it was set exactly 100 years in the future, in 2062. That indicates that even 37 years from now, AI may struggle to definitively prove its worth. For now, countless present-day Mr. Spacelys are currently overspending on the technology based on unrealistic expectations.
Rosie, meanwhile, is clearly based on more mature AI than Uniblab. But in the first Jetsons episode, Jane and other characters are astonished at her capabilities, a sign that domestic robotics will still be in the process of going mainstream in 2062. Which means that it may be several more decades until Rosie is truly, unquestionably real. May she continue to serve as an aspirational stretch goal for the entire tech industry.
Youve been reading Plugged In, Fast Companys weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to youor if you’re reading it on fastcompany.comyou can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Friday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. I’m also on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, and you can follow Plugged In on Flipboard.
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When life gives people lemons, most try to make the best out of a bad situation. Instead, Beau du Bois, vice president of bar and spirits at Marisi Italian restaurant in La Jolla, California, found himself with an incredible opportunity.
In 2021, the Adler and Lombrozo families, owners of the Puesto Mexican restaurant chain, tapped du Bois to build Marisi’s bar program from the ground up. One of the first actions du Bois took when learning about this new venture was starting a batch of limoncello, using a lesser-known Amalfi Coast technique.
They told me about Marisi almost exactly a year before we opened,” du Bois tells Fast Company. “And the very next day, even though I’ve got 364 days to get the restaurant open, I started making the limoncello right away.”
Du Bois had excellent timing, as the appetite for limoncello in the United States has been on the rise. According to IWSR Drinks Market Analysis, global limoncello volumes grew at a compound annual rate of 8% between 2019 and 2024.
In 2024, the top three markets for limoncello were Italy, Germany, and the United States, in that order. The U.S. has seen steady average annual growth of 5%. The IWSR predicts the figure will continue its upward trend, with a projected compound annual growth rate of 2% from 2024 to 2029.
Even though Du Boiss preferred preindustrial limoncello process has been a part of the restaurant since its 2022 opening, its recently made a big splash on social media.
An Instagram reel documenting the procedure has garnered over four million views and reveals larger trends in the hospitality industry.
View this post on Instagram
Nothing says Merry Christmas quite like a 7.5-foot-tall Chewbacca holding a candy cane. At least, according to the team at Home Depot.
Home Depot has long been known as a purveyor of holiday decor, from pumpkins at Halloween to a wide selection of real and artificial trees at Christmas. In recent years, though, its been upping the creative ante on its decor game to capture new audiencesand, in some cases, to score a viral hit on TikTok.
This year, its doing just that with two new additions to its holiday lineup: life-size, animated versions of Star Wars Chewbacca and R2-D2 ($349 and $299, respectively), complete with movie-accurate, motion-activated sound effects.
While Home Depot declined to share specific sales data about the characters, R2-D2 appears to have sold out within weeks of debuting, inspiring several TikTok videos with hundreds of thousands of views and resulting in multiple Reddit forums where users are discussing strategies for getting their hands on one of the units. Resellers are already pedaling the product on eBay for nearly double its original price.
With its increasingly extravagant Halloween animatronics and now its suite of nerdy, high-tech Christmas decor, Home Depot is making the spectacle of extreme holiday decorating accessible to the average customer.
[Image: Home Depot]
Home Depot is turning extreme holiday decorating into an accessible sport
Home Depot is no stranger to building head-turning (and TikTok view-farming) holiday decor. In fact, its towering 12-foot-tall skeleton, Skelly (who debuted in 2020), is what initially propelled the big box store to its current status as customers go-to shop for viral decor. Since then, Home Depot has leaned into both the scale and detail of its holiday decor, including with Halloween releases this year like a seven-foot-tall Frankenstein and 9.5-foot-long haunted pirate ship. Now bringing that same amped-up energy into Christmas.
Chewie and R2-D2 are part of Home Depots range of IP-adapted characters, which include other popular characters like Chucky, a 13-foot-tall Jack Skellington from Disneys The Nightmare Before Christmas, and, also new this year, Olaf from Disneys Frozen. The company already sells a seven-foot-tall Darth Vader and six-foot-tall Stormtrooper.
[Photo: Home Depot]
Aubrey Horowitz, Home Depots senior merchant of decorative holiday, says Home Depots Star Wars line plays to a couple of different emerging genres of holiday shoppers. One is the seasonal decor enthusiast, who tends to like to refresh their decor from one holiday to the nextwhich is why characters like the Stormtrooper, Darth Vader, and R2-D2 all come with modifications to transition from Halloween to Christmas.
Another is the holiday shopper thats interested in nostalgic aesthetics, from vintage-looking artificial trees to retro characters. That tracks with data Pinterest shared with Fast Company, which found that searches for nostalgic Christmas aesthetic were up 1,130% this November compared with last November.
[Photo: Home Depot]
With the majority of its IP collections, Home Depot is able to capture fans by keeping prices relatively low: For comparison, other life-size replicas of R2-D2 can run between $1,500 and $8,000. Clearly, the choice is resonating with fans online. A commenter under one video of R2-D2 with more than 130,000 views wrote, Take my money. Now I can put this alongside my R2D2 Pepsi cooler. And under a separate clip of Chewbacca, commenters are responding with photos of their own Home Depot Chewie surrounded by other Star Wars characters (and one dressed in a sports jersey).
This holiday season, Home Depot is making sure that the most eccentric dad on your block can tap into his childlike wonder without breaking the bankand were not mad about it.
Its hard to believe that just a few short years ago a video of Will Smith eating spaghetti generated by ModelScope, a text-to-video AI model, was the peak of AI slop.
Fast-forward to today and our trust for CCTV footage of cute animals has been eroded, slop is showing up across marketing and music playlists, and Sora 2 deepfakes are fooling both grandparents and politicians nationwide.
A number of artist projects are fighting back against the deluge of slop polluting the shared waters of the internet (or at least poking fun at those who willingly consume it).
Steve Nasopoulos and Peter Henningsen, both freelance copywriters, recently created the Slop Trough in their spare time. Its a digital feeding trough that serves up endless slop, so long as you turn on your webcam and get down on all fours like a good little piggy.
Are you a little piggy who needs your slop? the homepage asks. Click yes and it tells you to get on the ground on all fours oink oink.
We just wanted to capture the degrading feeling of having someone put this horrible content in front of us and actually expect us to consume it. It feels, how shall we say, a little dehumanizing? the creators told Fast Company. The internet was once a magical place, because it was full of weirdos making bizarre websites and stupid art projects. Slop and AI content are diametrically opposed to that because its mass-produced garbage made by robots.
Other online art projects imagine an internet untouched by generative AI. 404 media recently reported on Slop Evader, a browser tool created by artist and researcher Tega Brain that filters web searches to include only results from before November 30, 2022the day ChatGPT was released to (or, rather, unleashed on) the public.
The term AI slop itself emerged around 2023, when platforms like ChatGPT and DALL-E became publicly available and more widely adopted, according to Google Trends. Yet concerns about AI among U.S. adults have grown exponentially since 2021, according to the Pew Research Center, so much so that slurs for robots now exist.
But for every new AI slop video created, there will always be those resisting it with human-made projects. As Nasopoulos and Henningsen put it: We think humans making stuff and putting it on the internet is what the internet was designed for, so the more of that the better.
