Rare cosmic events can feel like being smiled down upon from up above. However, on the morning of April 25, an actual smiley face will appear in the skykind of.
Venus, Saturn, and the moon will align in a pattern called a triple conjunction. Given the moon will be in its crescent form, the lineup will resemble a smiley face, but only for a short time on Friday morning.
“Venus is higher above the eastern horizon with Saturn lower, and a thin, crescent moon a bit lower and a little farther north,” Brenda Culbertson, NASA solar system ambassador, told Kansas TV station KSNT. “The thin, crescent moon looks like a smile. To some people, the triangle of bright objects may appear as a smiley face.“
But that’s not all: Near the smiley face, two more planets, Mercury and Neptune, could also become visible to sky-watchers, in a rare alignment that’s been dubbed a “planet parade.”
Here’s everything to know about the packed celestial event.
When can I see the triple conjunction smiley face?
Sky-watchers will need to wake extra early on Friday to catch the smirk in action. The event will take place at around 5:30 a.m. EDT, and smile down at the early morning risers for about an hour.
“If you look toward the eastern horizon about an hour before sunrise, youll see the old crescent moon rising,” according to EarthSky. “Its just two days from reaching new moon phase, so it will be about 8% lit. You might also see the dark part of the moon gently glowing with earthshine, which is light reflected from Earth.”
Are the smiley face and planet parade worth all the fuss?
The smiley face won’t be perfectly configured, therefore, you’ll have to use your imagination just a bit, EarthSky says. The smiley face will be tilted on its side, with one eye (Venus) brighter than the other.
But how often do the planets smile down at us? The alignment is extremely rareand given it will be viewable all over the world, the event may feel a bit like a celestial call for unity.
Mercury and Neptune will be nearby, but the brightness of the triple conjunction will mean they’ll be tough to spot.
What’s the next event for sky-watchers?
If you can’t make it out of bed earlyeven for a glimpse at a cosmic grinthis spring will bring lots of other special celestial happenings. In early May, the Eta Aquarids meteor shower will reach its peak.
NASA says that will be a smile-worthy sight, too. “Fast meteors can leave glowing ‘trains’ [incandescent bits of debris in the wake of the meteor] which last for several seconds to minutes,” the agency shared. “About 50 meteors can be seen per hour during the peak of the Eta Aquarids.”
It was only a matter of time: The official Trump store has just released a Trump 2028 hat, and it proves that the Presidents comments about running an unconstitutional third term were not an empty threat.
The new hat appeared online today on President Trumps merch store. It retails for $50 and comes in classic MAGA red and white, with some added stars in a large sans serif font that takes up nearly the entire front face of the hat. The hat is yet another example of how Trump uses merch to walk an ultra fine line between joke and reality, leveraging products to both provoke his political opponents and normalize his dodgy behavior.
By this point, Trump’s merch strategy has worked to desensitize many Americans to his more extreme commentsbut if Trumps past merch is anything to go by, its clear that while his messaging may seem lighthearted, it would be a mistake to take the Trump 2028 hat lightly.
[Screenshot: Trump Store]
Why Trump merch matters
Merch has always been a crucial mode of messaging for Trump. In 2016, the bright red Make America Great Again trucker hat was practically unavoidable. According to a report from Trumps son-in-law Jared Kushner, the hats were pulling in up to $80,000 a day during the campaign. But when the red MAGA hat first debuted in 2015, no one was taking it seriously.
As Fast Company has previously reported, the New York Times style section disregarded it as an ironic summer accessory in September 2015. When the Trump campaign revealed that it had spent $3.2 million on the hats, Esquire wrote that they may well go down as the Trump campaigns only lasting contribution to the political history of the Republic.
Today, though, it would be difficult to find anyone who would argue that the MAGA hat is merely ironic. Its become a universally recognized symbol of Trumps ideologya form of public resistance for some, and, for many others, a propaganda-laden shorthand for intolerance.
Since 2016, Trumps merch strategy has become a bit more layered, but no less on the nose. His store has expanded with dozens of hat options, including one recent iteration which read, Trump was right about everything. During the 2024 campaign, he turned a visit to a McDonalds into a T-shirt. The merch even when meta, when a surrealist hat design featured a tiny image of a MAGA hat printed onto another hat.
And, in December of this year, Trump also turned the suit that he wore during his mugshot (taken before he was found guilty on 34 felony counts) into purchasable NFTs, as well as a $25 mug and $36 shirt. He further glorified the mugshot on rally posters and even in his official presidential portrait, which now hangs in the White House.
Products like the surrealist hat-on-a-hat might seem like offhand jokes, but Trumps merch strategy is clearly also a powerful political tool. The endless stream of products keeps Trumps message front and center both IRL and online. And, by merch-ifying moments like Trumps mugshot, his campaign reframes, and even legitimizes potentially damaging moments to followers while desensitizing everyone else.
Trump’s plan to hard-launch a potential third term
Trump has been talking about running for a third term for months, initially by floating the idea as what seemed like a joke.
At a speech before the Congressional Institute in January, the President said, I think Im not allowed to run again. Im not sure. Am I allowed to run again, Mike [Johnson]? I better not get you involved in that argument.
Since then, hes repeatedly doubled down on the idea. In late March, Trump told Meet the Press host Kristen Welker that a lot of people wanted him to serve a third term, and that there were methods to skirt around the two-term limit established in the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution. He even added that he was not joking about the idea, for good measure.
Per the 22nd Amendment, no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twiceand its unclear to experts what methods Trump has in mind to get around the unambiguous limit.
But what is clear, based on the Presidents new merch launch, is that hes now outfitting his own followers in his campaign for an illegal third term. And if theres anything we shouldve learned from Trumps past merch strategy, its that we need to take him at his hat.
The past few days in the stock market have been so wilda plunge on Monday, a sharp pivot upward on Tuesday, a rise with lots of oscillations on Wednesdaythat a record set by the Dow Jones Industrial Average on last weeks final day of trading has been largely overlooked. Thats unfortunate, because theres a lot to be learned from that record about how financial markets work.
Im referring to the record loss inflicted on the Dow last Thursday by the three-digit share price drop of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), the large healthcare and insurance company. (Thursday was the last day of trading last week because the market was closed for Good Friday.)
That price declinea whopping $130.93 a share, about a 22% dropcost the DJIA 805 points.
Thats the biggest daily Dow decline ever caused by a single stock, according to Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices. The DJIA dropped 527 points that day, with UnitedHealth responsible for the entire loss. Had UnitedHealth just stayed even, the Dow would have been up close to 300 points.
How could a single stock inflict that much damage on the ever-popular Dow, the pioneering market metric that was created in 1896 by financial reporters Charles Dow and Edward Jones?
Its because the DJIA is an average based on the share prices of its 30 component stocks. Unlike most stock market indexes, this one is not based on its components market values. So a dollar change in the share price of any Dow componentbe it UnitedHealth or Apple, which has about 15 times as many shares outstanding as UnitedHealth doeshas the same impact on the Dow as a change in any other component.
The Dow Divisor, the market metric used to calculate the value of the DJIA, means that every dollar change in any one Dow component these days moves the DJIA about 6.15 points.
Even with its huge drop last week, UnitedHealth is still the second-highest-priced stock in the Dow, behind only Goldman Sachs. So the DJIA is still vulnerable to another sickening day for UnitedHealth shareholders. Or, for optimists, a sharp UnitedHealth rise could set off a sharp Dow rise.
The Dow is based on share prices because when Dow and Jones created it back in the day and it had only 12 stocks, the only metric available for them to use was share price. Companies market valueswhich are used to calculate modern metrics like the Standard & Poors 500 Index, the Nasdaq Composite, and the FT Wilshire 5000 Indexwerent available 129 years ago.
The day before UnitedHealths sickening plunge last week, the companys weight in the Dow was 9.1%, but its weight in the S&P was only 1.2%, according to Silverblatt. By the end of the day Thursday, its weight had fallen to 7.3% of the Dow and 0.9% of the S&P.
If you do the math, you’ll see that if you had $10,000 in a Dow index fund when the market opened last Thursday, UnitedHealthcares plunging price would have cost you about $207. By contrast, if you had $10,000 in an S&P 500 index fund, your UnitedHealth loss was about $27.
Thats an example of why about $9 trillion was indexed to the S&P in 2023 (the most recent date for which data is available), according to S&P Dow Jones Indices, but only about $76 billion was indexed to the Dow.
Please keep all of this in mind when people mistakenly refer to the DJIA asthe market. Sure, the Dow is a long-standing, venerable metric. But despite the massive exposure that Dow changes get each day, it is not the whole stock market.
For that matter, neither is the S&P 500, which was launched in 1957 and is used by many investors and institutions as a performance benchmark. But as we can see from UnitedHealths disproportionate market impact on the DJIA relative to its S&P impact, the S&P measures a lot more of the market than the Dow does. Which makes it a far more useful and accurate metric. And that, as they say, is the bottom line.
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter.
Back in the housing frenzy of 2021, homeowners were bombarded with inquiries from eager investors looking to see if they were open to selling. The outreach came in all formstext messages, postcards, phone callsand often felt relentless.
Redfin data shows that in Q4 2021, investors scooped up 94,715 U.S. homes, a 51% jump from the 62,581 homes they purchased in Q4 2019.
But that investor-driven surgepowered by rock-bottom interest rates, pandemic stimulus, and the remote work boombegan to fade as the Federal Reserve pivoted to fighting inflation. Mortgage rates climbed from 3% to over 6% in 2022, putting pressure on capital markets. The higher borrowing costs squeezed a wide range of housing playersfrom small landlords and short-term rental operators to house flippers and big institutional buyersmaking it tougher to make the numbers work for new rental acquisitions.
In Q4 2024, investors purchased 47,004 homesthats 50% below the level of investor purchases made in Q4 2021 (94,715) during the pandemic housing boom and 25% below pre-pandemic Q4 2019 (62,581).
To better understand what rental property owners plan to do in the housing market over the next year, ResiClub partnered on a survey with Flock Homes, a startup backed by Andreessen Horowitz that provides services to help landlords transition their properties into a professionally managed pool while preserving tax advantages.
The Flock HomesResiClub Real Estate Investor Survey was conducted between March 31 and April 7, 2025. It surveyed 245 real estate investors who own rental properties.
Here are some of the big takeaways. (Note: Due to rounding, some totals will exceed 100%.)
Housing market conditions
The majority of housing investors aren’t focused on expanding right now. Of the U.S. real estate investors surveyed, 65% say they are focused on maintaining their portfolio size (56%) or exiting/selling it off (9%). Only 36% say they are focused on growing their portfolio.
Among investors surveyed, 45% say that “purchase price relative to the market” has had the greatest impact on long-term performance when acquiring properties.
Even so, 41% of U.S. real estate investors say their real estate investment returns are “far better” than what they believe they would have earned in the stock market, while 6% say their returns are “far worse.”
Rising costs
More than 20% of U.S. real estate investors surveyed say their home insurance costs have risen by more than 50% over the past five years.
Maintenance costs are also a concern: 32% of U.S. real estate investors say “unexpected maintenance costs” are “the most underestimated risk in rental property investing,” followed by 26% who cite “tenant-related issues.”
You can find the full results below:
Methodology: Among the 245 real estate investors who participated in the ResiClub Real Estate Investor Survey, heres how many rental/investment properties they own:
1-4 units: 55.9%
5-19 units: 26.9%
20-99 units: 11.8%
100+ units: 5.3%
Here’s how we grouped the regions by state in the survey:
Midwest: IA, IL, IN, KS, MI, MN, MO, ND, NE, OH, SD, and WI
Northeast: CT, DC, DE, MA, MD, ME, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, and VT
Southeast: AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, and WV
Southwest: AZ, NM, OK, and TX
West: AK, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NV, OR, UT, WA, and WY
Every week, millions of Americans toss their recyclables into a single bin, trusting that their plastic bottles, aluminum cans, and cardboard boxes will be given a new life.
But what really happens after the truck picks them up?
Single-stream recycling makes participating in recycling easy, but behind the scenes, complex sorting systems and contamination mean a large percentage of that material never gets a second life. Reports in recent years have found 15% to 25% of all the materials picked up from recycle bins ends up in landfills instead.
Plastics are among the biggest challenges. Only about 9% of the plastic generated in the U.S. actually gets recycled, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Some plastic is incinerated to produce energy, but most of the rest ends up in landfills instead.
So, what makes plastic recycling so difficult? As an engineer whose work focuses on reprocessing plastics, I have been exploring potential solutions.
How does single-stream recycling work?
In cities that use single-stream recycling, consumers put all of their recyclable materialspaper, cardboard, plastic, glass, and metalinto a single bin. Once collected, the mixed recyclables are taken to a materials recovery facility, where they are sorted.
First, the mixed recyclables are shredded and crushed into smaller fragments, enabling more effective separation. The mixed fragments pass over rotating screens that remove cardboard and paper, allowing heavier materials, including plastics, metals and glass, to continue along the sorting line.
Magnets are used to pick out ferrous metals, such as steel. A magnetic field that produces an electrical current with eddies sends nonferrous metals, such as aluminum, into a separate stream, leaving behind plastics and glass.
The glass fragments are removed from the remaining mix using gravity or vibrating screens.
That leaves plastics as the primary remaining material.
While single-stream recycling is convenient, it has downsides. Contamination, such as food residue, plastic bags, and items that cant be recycled, can degrade the quality of the remaining material, making it more difficult to reuse. That lowers its value.
Having to remove that contamination raises processing costs and can force recovery centers to reject entire batches.
Which plastics typically cant be recycled?
Each recycling program has rules for which items it will and wont take. You can check which items can and cannot be recycled for your specific program on your municipal page. Often, that means checking the recycling code stamped on the plastic next to the recycling icon.
These are the toughest plastics to recycle and most likely to be excluded in your local recycling program:
Symbol 3 Polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, found in pipes, shower curtains and some food packaging. It may contain harmful additives such as phthalates and heavy metals. PVC also degrades easily, and melting can release toxic fumes during recycling, contaminating other materials and making it unsafe to process in standard recycling facilities.
Symbol 4 Low-density polyethylene, or LDPE, is often used in plastic bags and shrink-wrap. Because its flexible and lightweight, its prone to getting tangled in sorting machinery at recycling plants.
Symbol 6 Polystyrene, often used in foam cups, takeout containers and packing peanuts. Because its lightweight and brittle, its difficult to collect and process and easily contaminates recycling streams.
Which plastics to include
That leaves three plastics that can be recycled in many facilities:
Symbol 1 Polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, widely used in soda bottles.
Symbol 2 High-density polyethylene, or HDPE, commonly used in milk jugs and laundry detergent bottles.
Symbol 5 Polypropylene, PP, used in products such as pill bottles, yogurt cups, and plastic utensils.
However, these arent accepted in some facilities for reasons Ill explain.
Taking apart plastics, bead by bead
Some plastics can be chemically recycled or ground up for reprocessing, but not all plastics play well together.
Simple separation methods, such as placing ground-up plastics in water, can easily remove your soda bottle plastic (PET) from the mixture. The ground-up PET sinks in water due to the plastics density. However, HDPE, used in milk jugs, and PP, found in yogurt cups, both float, and they cant be recycled together. So, more advanced and expensive technology, such as infrared spectroscopy, is often required to separate those two materials.
Once separated, the plastic from your soda bottle can be chemically recycled through a process called solvolysis.
It works like this: Plastic materials are formed from polymers. A polymer is a molecule with many repeating units, called monomers. Picture a pearl necklace. The individual pearls are the repeating monomer units. The string that runs through the pearls is the chemical bond that joins the monomer units together. The entire necklace can then be thought of as a single molecule.
During solvolysis, chemists break down that necklace by cutting the string holding the pearls together until they are individual pearls. Then, they string those pearls together again to create new necklaces.
Other chemical recycling methods, such as pyrolysis and gasification, have drawn environmental and health concerns because the plastic is heated, which can release toxic fumes. But chemical recycling also holds the potential to reduce both plastic waste and the need for new plastics, while generating energy.
The problem of yogurt cups and milk jugs
The other two common types of recycled plasticsitems such as yogurt cups (PP) and milk jugs (HDPE)are like oil and water: Each can be recycled through reprocessing, but they dont mix.
If polyethylene and polypropylene arent completely separated during recycling, the resulting mix can be brittle and generally unusable for creating new products.
Chemists are working on solutions that could increase the quality of recycled plastics through mechanical reprocessing, typically done at separate facilities.
One promising mechanical method for recycling mixed plastics is to incorporate a chemical called a compatibilizer. Compatibilizers contain the chemical structure of multiple different polymers in the same molecule. Its like how lecithin, commonly found in egg yolks, can help mix oil and water to make mayonnaisepart of the lecithin molecule is in the oil phase and part is in the water phase.
In the case of yogurt cups and milk jugs, recently developed block copolymers are able to produce recycled plastic materials with the flexibility of polyethylene and the strength of polypropylene.
Improving recycling
Research like this can make recycled materials more versatile and valuable and move products closer to a goal of a circular economy without waste.
However, improving recycling also requires better recycling habits.
You can help the recycling process by taking a few minutes to wash off food waste, avoiding putting plastic bags in your recycling bin and, importantly, paying attention to what can and cannot be recycled in your area.
Alex Jordan is an associate professor of plastics engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Stout.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Jack in the Box announced Wednesday that it will close between 150 and 200 underperforming restaurants as part of a broad restructuring effort, with approximately 80 to 120 restaurants shuttering by December 31, 2025. The remainder will close over time, based on the termination dates of their respective franchise agreements.
Fast Company reached out to Jack in the Box for a list of locations it will be closing, but did not hear back by time of publishing.
The initiative is part of the companys JACK on Track strategya comprehensive plan aimed at improving long-term financial performance across its restaurant system, strengthening its balance sheet, and reaffirming its commitment to an asset-light business model, all in pursuit of sustainable growth, according to a company press release.
As part of the strategy, Jack in the Box has also retained BofA Securities to explore strategic alternatives for the Del Taco brand, including the potential sale of the business.
Our actions today focus on three main areas: addressing our balance sheet to accelerate cash flow and pay down debt, while preserving growth-oriented capital investments related to technology and restaurant reimage; closing underperforming restaurants to position ourselves for consistent net unit growth and competitive unit economics; and, an overall return to simplicity for the Jack in the Box business model and investor story, said Lance Tucker, chief executive officer at Jack in the Box.
The company also released select preliminary results in the press release for the second quarter of fiscal year 2025, which ended April 13. Same-store sales declined 4.4% for the Jack in the Box brand, while Del Taco saw a 3.6% decrease. Jack in the Box said in the press release that it will no longer provide financial guidance for Del Taco as it explores a sale.
One of the largest hamburger chains in the U.S., Jack in the Box operates approximately 2,200 restaurants across 22 states, with a strong presence on the West Coast. Del Taco has approximately 600 restaurants across 17 states.
Shares were down around 13% on Thursday morning. Over the past year, the stock has lost more than half its value.
Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Companys weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week here.
Coming soon: The one-person, billion-dollar startup
Were beginning to see a new kind of lean startup company, enabled in large part by new AI agents. Since these companies rely far less on people power, some of themthe ones addressing real market needsare achieving extraordinary revenue-per-employee numbers.
AI coding tools could become major enablers of these lightly staffed AI startups, simply because theyre starting to automate software development tasks that once required a human designer or engineer. The makers of these coding tools provide early examples of such startups.
We are seeing the rise of the AI-first company, where tech companies use AI and agents to complete tasks before hiring employees, says Jeremiah Owyang, general partner at Blitzscaling Ventures.
A few notable examples:
Anysphere, the company behind the Cursor AI coding tool, has only about 20 employees. By the end of 2024, its annual recurring revenue (ARR) had reached $100 millionroughly $5 million per employee. Now, TechCrunch reports that its ARR has surged to $300 million in 2025, bringing its per-employee revenue to $15 million. (Anysphere was named one of Fast Companys Most Innovative Companies in the Applied AI category.) The company has reportedly turned down several buyout offers, including one from OpenAI, to remain independent.
Another AI coding tool maker, Windsurf (formerly known as Codeium) has reached $40 million in ARR, up from $12 million at the end of 2024. With around 170 employees, this implies a revenue-per-employee figure of approximately $235,000. OpenAI is reportedly in advanced talks to acquire Windsurf for around $3 billion, or about $17 million per employee.
A South Korean startup called Nari Labs, with just two employees, recently unveiled a new text-to-speech model called Dia that may outperform category leaders ElevenLabs and Sesame in terms of voice authenticity. Voice samples posted to X by the company appear to support this claim. Nari Labs has shared its model on GitHub and could potentially build a business around licensing future models. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
Midjourney, the creator of the well-known text-to-image AI tool, has kept a lean profile, with only about 10 employees. PitchBook estimates that by the end of 2024, the company was generating approximately $200 million in annual recurring revenuearound $20 million per employee.
A lesser-known AI company, Nexad, which develops and deploys AI-native advertising within AI applications, has just six employees but has already reached 30 million users through its chat app partnerships. Founded in 2024, the startup has secured $6 million in seed funding in a round co-led by Andreessen Horowitzs Speedrun accelerator and Prosus Ventures.
This trend will only continue as companies realize they can gain efficiencies by using software for repeatable tasks, says Blitzscaling Ventures Owyang, while reserving human talent for strategy, innovation, creativity, leadership, and community.
These AI-first companies are becoming more viable as AI models improve. The generative AI boom began with models that could string words together in useful ways, but only recently have models gained the ability to reason independently and work through processes with a degree of autonomy and agency.
The place where this ability is having the greatest impact today is in AI coding assistants, but many expect AI agents to take over other tasks, like invoicing and customer support, that were formerly the sole province of humans. In the future, when Company A wants to buy from Company B, it could be a matter of two AI agents working together to open the business relationship.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speculated in early 2024 that because of AI agents, a billion-dollar company employing one individual might be created. In fact, Altman said he has a running bet with some of his peers on when such a unicorn might appear. That day might be coming sooner than we think.
It might even go further than Altman envisions, Owyang says: In a future that once seemed like science fictionbut may be just a few years awaywe could see companies comprised entirely of AI agents, with no clear indication of whether any humans are at the helm.
Why OpenAI buying Chrome could face antitrust headwinds
A federal court ruled last August that Google holds a monopoly on internet search. This week, the court is working to determine a list of remedies to address that antitrust issue. Federal antitrust officials are urging Judge Amit Mehta to order Google to sell its Chrome browser, which acts as a major funnel of user traffic to Google Search. Google earns the majority of its revenue by selling ads around search results and referring users to brands when they search for products.
Depending on the buyer, selling Chrome might fix one monopoly only to create another a few years down the line. OpenAIs head of ChatGPT, Nick Turley, testified that his company would be willing to purchase the popular browser, which could fetch as much as $20 billion, according to Bloomberg. That would place the browser in the hands of a company currently building its own internet search business. OpenAI licenses Bing search data and is developing its own search index. The company reportedly tried to license Googles search datathe most complete inventory of the webs contentsbut was denied. The Justice Department has also proposed requiring Google to license its search index to other search competitors.
“To grow further, OpenAI needs to move beyond supplying models and start owning the customer connection,” says Info-Tech principal research director Brian Jackson. “Gaining control over a major browser like Chrome would expand its reach and create new data opportunities, while helping it better compete with Google and its Gemini platform.”
OpenAI is among the first companies to offer an alternative to the classic Google search thats become almost reflexive for many webusers. Instead of returning a list of most relevant links, ChatGPT, Perplexity and other chatbots return a direct answer to a users question, in narrative form (Google has its own AI search format called AI Overviews). Instead of doing searches from Chrome (by either using the URL bar or right-clicking on search terms) Ive found that using a chatbot desktop app, which typically display a handy little prompt window triggered by a keyboard shortcut, is just as easy and often yields more useful results, depending on the type of search. A ChatGPT-optimized Chrome could provide another easy entry pointone that far more people would likely use. In that experience you might highlight something in the browser, right-click, and see a search with ChatGPT menu item where search with Google used to be.
Of course, that would create a major advantage for OpenAI in search, while other AI search providers such as Google, Perplexity, and Anthropic could be put at a disadvantage. If AI search continues to grow in popularity, theres a real chance that it becomes the dominant way of searching the web at some point in the future. Does that make OpenAI the next search giant?
Meta rolls out new AI features in its Ray-Ban AR glasses
Im excited about Metas Ray-Ban smart glasses, both because of their stylish design (theyre not bulky or awkward), and their potential to integrate useful AI features. Meta has chosen a great feature to lead with: On Wednesday, the company began rolling out its live translation capability to smart glasses users in all markets. (The feature was first teased back in October.)
In effect, people will be able to travel abroad and hold reasonably smoothif occasionally clunkyconversations with speakers of different languages. When the microphones on the glasses hear a different language, the words are sent to an AI server in the cloud, which then sends the translated words back down and through the glasses earphones. And, in a nod to on-device AI, Meta allows users to download language packs directly to the glasses, enabling offline translation without a network connection. For now, live translation supports English, French, Italian, and Spanish, with more languages on the way.
Meta also seemed to move up the timeline for another AI featureLive AI, in which the AI continually watches the live view from the devices cameras in order to assist the user in things they may be doing. If it sees food preparation, the Meta assistant might offer recipes from the web or substitutes for missing ingredients, or if the user is exploring a new neighborhood it might supply mapping or navigation features. Meta now says Live AI is coming soon to general availability in the U.S. and Canada. Live AI gives a feel for how Meta has hoped AI would enhance the user experience in its smart glasses.
More AI coverage from Fast Company:
Microsoft thinks AI colleagues are coming soon
Trump is reportedly drafting an executive order to integrate AI into public schools
Broadcom is betting big on ethernet to disrupt AI workloads and data centers
This startup wants to reprogram the mind of AIand just got $50 million to do it
Want exclusive reporting and trend analysis on technology, business innovation, future of work, and design? Sign up for Fast Company Premium.
Even as the right to disconnect movement has picked up steam, true work-life balance is still hard to come by for many employees. Fielding emails and other work-related messages after hours continues to be the norm across workplaces, despite ample evidence that it can contribute to burnout and actually decrease productivity.
Part of the issue may be that the average workday is punctuated by a mounting number of drains on productivity. A new report from Microsoft, which compiled input from 31,000 workers across more than 30 countries, sheds light on the scale of interruptions and hurdles workers are currently facing on the job, as well as the degree to which the average workday has stretched beyond traditional business hours.
The price of near-constant interruptions
While 53% of leaders say they want to see a spike in productivity, the overwhelming majority of employees and managers alikeabout 80% of workers globallyclaim that they don’t have the time or energy to effectively do their jobs.
Employees say they are being interrupted near constantly during the workday, juggling emails, meetings, or real-time messages every two minutes. That can amount to 275 daily interruptions on the whole, when taking into account the additional time employees spend on the job beyond standard working hours.
In fact, the report also captures a marked increase in the number of pings that workers receive after hours: Chats outside of the 9-to-5 window increased by 15% year over year, yielding an average of 58 messages when tallied over the course of four weeks.
An expanding workday
Even meetings appear to be happening around the clock, according to the report, in part because so many companies now employ people who are working across time zones. Meetings that take place after 8 p.m. had increased by 16% year over year, and 30% of meetings involve employees in different time zones.
Part of this shift could also be driven by the fact that the majority of meetings60%are unscheduled and convened on an ad hoc basis. (Also of note: The number of PowerPoint edits jump by 122% in the 10 minutes leading up to a meeting, a stark contrast to PowerPoint activity in the hours prior.)
What could help reduce burnout
All this points to a broader disconnect between the business needs of many companies and what their workforce can reasonably accommodate, a strain that both employees and leaders seem to be feeling. According to Microsofts findings, 48% of employees and 52% of leaders claim their workload is chaotic and fragmented.
The report makes the case for why companies will need to use AI agents to bridge the gap, and almost half of all leaders have already said using digital labor to augment the existing capabilities of their workforce is a top priority for the next 18 months. But AI alone wont alleviate the many pains of modern work for employees or managersand it certainly wont put a stop to superfluous meetings overnight.
Uncertainty over tariffs and an unpredictable trade war is weighing heavily on companies as they report their latest financial results and try to give investors financial forecasts.Some tariffs remain in place against key U.S. trading partners, but others have been postponed to give nations time to negotiate. The tariff and trade picture has been shifting for months, sometimes changing drastically on a daily basis. Those shifts make it difficult for companies and investors to make a reliable assessment of any impact to costs and sales.On Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he expects a “de-escalation” in the trade war between the U.S. and China, but cautioned that talks between the two sides had yet to formally start.Here’s how several big companies are dealing with the tariff confusion:
Chipotle
Chipotle Mexican Grill said Wednesday that its costs are rising due to the tariffs.The Tex-Mex chain said it gets some beef from Australia and packaging from Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand. It also sources avocados from Colombia and Peru. All are now subject to a 10% tariff.The tariffs may also impact the cost of building new restaurants, since items like shelving and parts for equipment come from China, Chipotle Chief Financial Officer Adam Rymer said during a conference call with investors. But Rymer said the impact of the tariffs on imports from China is harder to predict. This week, Trump administration officials have said they expect a “de-escalation” in the trade war between the U.S. and China.Chipotle reported weaker-than-expected revenue in the January-March period and lowered its outlook for full-year same-store sales.CEO Scott Boatwright said concern about the economy was the “overwhelming reason” consumers reduced their visits to Chipotle during the quarter. That trend has continued through April, he said.
Tesla
Tesla is in a better position than most car companies to deal with tariffs because it makes most of its U.S. cars domestically. But it still sources materials from other nations and will face import taxes.The bigger impact will be seen in the company’s energy business. The company said the impact will be “outsized” because it sources LFP battery cells from China.The broader trade war could also hurt the company as China, the world’s largest electric vehicle market, retaliates against the U.S. Tesla was forced earlier this month to stop taking orders from mainland customers for two models, its Model S and Model X. It makes the Model Y and Model 3 for the Chinese market at its factory in Shanghai.CEO Elon Musk, an adviser to President Donald Trump, on Tuesday reiterated that he believes “lower tariffs are generally a good idea for prosperity.” But he added that ultimately the president decides on what tariffs to impose.
Akzo Nobel
The Amsterdam-based maker of paints and coatings for industrial and commercial use said the big risk from tariffs could come in the form of lower demand for its products.The company said almost all sales of finished goods in the U.S. were locally produced, with the majority of raw materials locally sourced.“Over the years, we deliberately localized both our procurement and production in the U.S.,” said CEO Gregoire Poux-Guillaume, in a conference call with analysts. “We also largely run China for China and use the rest of Asia instead as an export base.”The company’s products range from paints and coatings for the automotive industry to the do-it-yourself homeowner. Broader tariffs could squeeze consumers and businesses and hurt sales.
Boston Scientific
The medical device maker said it expects most of the effecs of tariffs to hit the company during the second half of the year, but that it can absorb the impact.The company raised its earnings and revenue forecasts for the year, despite the tariffs. It estimates a $200 million impact from tariffs in 2025, but said it can offset that through higher sales and reductions in discretionary spending.The company said it has a long-standing supply chain around the globe and has made significant investments in the U.S.
Boeing
Boeing said much of its supply chain is in the U.S. and many of its imports from Canada and Mexico are exempt from tariffs under an existing trade agreement.The company does have suppliers in Japan and Italy, but it expects to recover those tariff costs. The net annual cost of higher tariffs on the supply chain is less than $500 million.A bigger concern is the potential for retaliatory tariffs, which could impact its ability to deliver aircraft. China, a key target for U.S. tariffs, has retaliated in part by no longer accepting deliveries of Boeing aircraft.
AT&T
AT&T, like its peers in the telecommunications sector, faces higher costs for cellphones and other equipment.The company said it believes it can manage anticipated higher costs, based on the current pause in some tariffs and its supply chain.“The magnitude of any increase will depend on a variety of factors, including how much of the tariffs the vendors pass on, the impact that the tariffs have on consumer and business demand,” said CEO John Stankey, on a conference call with analysts.
Damian J. Troise, AP Business Writer
Few periods in modern history have been as unsettled and uncertain as the one that we are living through now. The established geopolitical order is facing its greatest challenges in decades, with a land war in Europe entering its third year and shifting power dynamics upending what were once settled relationships across the globe. The economy is teetering on the edge of recession, with financial markets in chaos, central banks struggling to navigate inflationary pressures, and consumer confidence levels at historic lows. And beneath these more visible disruptions runs a quieter but perhaps more fundamental transformation: the accelerating advancement of artificial intelligence, a technology that is reshaping how we think about work, productivity, and economic value.
It is tempting to push aside worries about the future effects of new technologies when we are distracted by the global turmoil that is outside our windows right now. But if we fail to get ahead of the question of how our societies and economies will deal with automation, the consequences may be far more profound and enduring than the crises that absorb us today. The questions of who works, how they work, and whether that work provides dignity and sustenance will ultimately define our economic future more fundamentally than any temporary market correction or geopolitical realignment.
Historically, technological advances have led to long-term economic growth and new employment opportunities even when automation has caused short-term job losses. It would be easy to assume that this pattern will be repeated with artificial intelligence. But this would be a grave mistake. When algorithms can learn, create, and act independently, assumptions that have evolved around the automation of mechanical processes can no longer be treated as reliable guides.
The Numbers Game
One of the reasons things will be different this time is the sheer speed and scale of the transformation that is rushing toward us. Researchers have calculated that 60% of current job roles did not exist 80 years ago, which is already an astonishing fact. Yet AI promises even faster and more profound changes to the job market.
Recent projections are sobering:
McKinsey projects that 30% of all hours worked in the U.S. could be automated by 2030
Goldman Sachs argues that up to 300 million jobs globally are exposed to automation
The IMF suggests that 40% of jobs are at risk globally, rising to 60% in advanced economies
And these are just the short-term predictions. In the longer-term, many tech leaders agree with Bill Gates that humans will no longer be needed for most things.
So, whats the business as normal prediction? The World Economic Forum offers a more optimistic forecast: While 92 million jobs will be displaced globally over the next five years, 170 million new positions will be created.
Not a rosy picture
The arguments for the increases in future roles, however, are far from persuasive.
The largest area of growth, the report argues, will come in very traditional roles like farm workers, delivery drivers, and food processing workers. Yet these are precisely the jobs that existing technology can already automate. The fastest growing roles, meanwhile, are projected to be in technology, including many new positions for specialists in data analysis, software development, and fintech engineering. But the assumption that AI will create rather than take jobs in these fields is optimistic, to say the least.
The real-world data paints a less than rosy picture. For instance, while the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts an 18% rise in the number of software developers between 2022 and 2032, recent research suggests that actual numbers in 20222025 figures have declined, with significant falls in both employment and job openings in this field.
Waves Not Ripples
Even in the best-case scenario where AI increases both overall economic activity and overall employment, major disruptions are inevitable. If millions of low-skilled jobs are soon to be replaced by high-skilled tech jobs, we will need an unprecedented global re-skilling program to ensure that displaced workers can find new roles. Without this, we risk abandoning millions of workers, and it is no exaggeration to suggest that the social and political effects of such a move will be catastrophic. Western nations are still struggling to adapt to the collapse of traditional manufacturing industries. A new employment crisis for those who already have the fewest prospects will be devastating. Yet there are few signs of any kind of organized response at the governmental level.
In the worst-case scenario, these social waves will become a tsunami. Rapid automation causing widespread unemployment could trigger the kind of unrest that destroys communities and topples governments. A generation of jobless, purposeless youth unable to secure entry-level roles because the only remaining human positions require experience and expertise will pose a grave geopolitical threat.
Macroeconomically, excessive automation risks create a dangerous demand deficiencya situation in which our economy can efficiently produce more goods and services than an ever-shrinking base of employed consumers can afford to purchase. This creates a paradox for businesses rushing to automate: the very efficiency gains they seek might ultimately undermine their markets. Machines don’t purchase smartphones, subscribe to streaming services, or buy homes. Humans do. When companies optimize for efficiency without considering employment, they may inadvertently be sabotaging the consumer spending ecosystem that sustains them. If AI causes sustained unemployment, the resulting drop in aggregate demand wont just harm individual businessesit could trigger a deflationary spiral that threatens the stability of the entire economy.
Democratizing Responsibility
Automation isnt inherently neative. Just as previous technological advances freed us from hard and dangerous physical labor, AI has the potential to relieve us of many routine burdens that stand in the way of true human flourishing. But it can only fulfill this promise if it is thoughtfully integrated into our lives and societies.
In theory, governments could mitigate the economic risks through regulation. But history suggests that regulatory frameworks rarely keep pace with technological revolutions. We cannot wait for top-down solutions to emerge. Instead, we need to democratize both responsibility and leadership when it comes to managing the pace of automation and protecting the social and economic foundations on which we all depend.
Businesses have a crucial role to play in this process. They must adopt regenerative leadership that looks beyond short-term efficiency gains and instead considers the long-term sustainability of the broader ecosystem. Leaders must recognize that their employees aren’t merely replaceable resources but also consumers driving economic demand. This requires shifting from traditional thinking that focuses on quarterly results to systems thinking that considers long-term economic sustainability.
Companies that embrace this responsibility will implement automation strategies that enhance human potential through:
Preserving entry-level positions. Companies must maintain some starter roles to develop skilled workers, even when automation seems more efficient.
Re-skilling and workforce transition programs. Corporations should fund upskilling initiatives to help displaced workers transition into new roles, such as managing and curating the workflows of AI agents.
Recognizing societal interdependence. Businesses exist within communities in which employees and customers form an interconnected system, and that system will break down if customers lack jobs. A holistic view of this symbiotic relationship between companies and the markets they serve will be essential in the AI age.
Choosing Our Future
The AI revolution presents us with a critical choice between unchecked automation and thoughtful implementation. Each business decision today will shape our collective future. By prioritizing human well-being alongside innovation, responsible leaders won’t just be protecting their own customer basethey will be contributing to the resilience of our entire economic system. The future belongs not to those who automate fastest, but to those who navigate this transition with wisdom, treating AI as a tool for augmentation rather than replacement, and recognizing that true prosperity requires both technological advancement and human flourishing.
