Like many industries, architecture has jumped on the artificial intelligence bandwagon. AI tools are becoming everyday parts of the practice of architecture, from iterating design concepts to optimizing floor plans to accelerating the creation of construction documents. Some architecture firms are even branding themselves as “AI-driven.”
AI’s infusion into architecture is well underway, but it’s also an ongoing process. Firms are finding new ways of making these emerging tools work for the way they design buildings, while also grappling with what AI could do to a profession so dependent on actual human intelligence. Fast Company asked architects from some of the top firms working in the U.S. and around the world how AI is making its way into their work and business, and what we might expect to see in the next year as AI adoption continues.
Here’s the question we put to a panel of designers and leaders in architecture: How do you see AI changing architecture in 2026?
Fluid movement
AI is moving from experimentation to expectation, particularly in early-stage exploration. Its real value isn’t replacing creativity but removing friction from the design process and making it easier for architects to express intent and quickly see viable options. Were moving toward a world where teams can load contextual project data and project outcomes and immediately explore design solutions, without getting bogged down in manual setup or repetitive tasks. With AI that supports seamless collaboration and iteration in context, architects will be able to collaborate freely with stakeholders and move fluidly between ideas, levels of details, and outcomes. The architects who succeed will be those who use AI to expand their creative range and sharpen decision-making, not replace it.
– Amy Bunszel, EVP of architecture, engineering and construction solutions, Autodesk
More rigorous and transparent design process
In 2026, the question will no longer be whether firms use AI, but how responsibly and intentionally they do so. At WXY, we see AI as a way to make design processes more rigorous and transparent, not faster for the sake of efficiency alone. Used well, AI can strengthen analysis, clarify tradeoffs, and support more informed decision-making. Used poorly, it risks flattening complexity and distancing designers from accountability. The fundamental shift that AI will spur at WXY will be cultural, honing our understanding of judgment, authorship, and ethical use rather than the firm’s technical capability.
– Claire Weisz, founding principal, WXY architecture + urban design
Option curation, not object generation
AI will continue to be less about sexy imagery, and more about rapid test-fitting. We’ve already created tools that incorporate climate analysis and evaluate massing iterations to maximize value for our clients. We will continue to develop systems with AI that enable option curation versus object generation, to assist more with early feasibility and storytelling.
– Trent Tesch, principal, KPF
Exploring, but safely
AI is rapidly changing design practice, in everything from the legal review of contracts to building code reviews of design solutions to how we generate design visualization. Its greatest impact to date has been in areas of practice that have large data sets, or that focus on repetitive and easily automated tasks. When it comes to creative exploration, the tools are changing so rapidly that designers are working hard to keep up with everything from protecting our intellectual property to communicating, disseminating, and training applications across the firm. We are already sandboxing AI to help us explore different creative tools safely.
– David Polzin, executive director of Design, CannonDesign
Power of persuasion
AI represents incremental (yet meaningful) gains in nearly every aspect of what we do as designers. From ideation and image generation to geometric optimizations and environmental analysis, AI is helping both architects and engineers move more quickly, be more creative, and communicate more persuasively.
– Colin Koop, partner, SOM
Augmented, not artificial, intelligence
There is an amazing opportunity to test ideas; the challenge is people see it as an opportunity to speed up the process, but that will not happen. It is far more nuanced. We expect to see different types of people come into the professioncoders, data analystswhich will provide an opportunity to analyze how we work and craft a relevant tool to support the design solution. The emergence of AI has sparked debates about the future of design professions, particularly in the built environment sector. However, rather than threatening to replace architects, urban planners, and landscape designers, AI can reshape their role and amplify their capabilities. The design profession of the built environment stands at a crucial intersection where human creativity meets technological advancement, where spatial understanding meets digital simulation, and where physical materiality meets virtual modeling.
Rather than being replaced by AI, design professionals’ roles aren;t diminishing but are evolving, becoming more vital than ever in our increasingly complex urban world. In a pervasive AI world, design and artificial intelligence should complement one another. Perhaps if we replace “artificial” with “augmented” we can get a better understanding how to use this powerful tool. While AI can process patterns and performance data, it cannot comprehend the subtle cultural tones, and community needs that inform great architecture and urban spaces. Designers bring this crucial layer of human insight, ensuring the built environment is not just technically efficient but culturally meaningful and socially sustainable. The future of architectural and urban design isn’t about choosing between human creativity and artificial intelligence it’s about leveraging both to create spaces that are more sustainable, livable, and impactful than ever before.
– Nick Leahy, co-CEO and executive director, Perkins Eastman
Human-AI collaboration
In 2026, the biggest challenge is not simply AI itself, but how humans and AI systems collaborate effectively – new workflows, authorship, copyright, ethical frameworks, responsibility of charge, and decision-making approaches to leverage collaborative intelligence rather than treating AI as a standalone tool. We hav incorporated and will extend the use in 2026, of an AI “embedded partner”an always-on reasoning layer that synthesizes emails, text, images, slides, presentations, calculation, drawings, data, and real-time context to support architects and engineers across ideation, analysis, images, coordination, presentations, and decision-making, rather than replacing human authorship.
By seamlessly integrating multimodal understanding, rapid scenario evaluation, cross-domain knowledge retrieval, and natural-language collaboration, this cognitive partner enables designers to think faster, test deeper, and act with greater confidence while keeping creative and ethical control firmly human-led. AI-enabled tools will accelerate early-stage design through rapid scenario testing, optimizing massing, structure, energy, carbon, daylight, and indoor air quality simultaneously, allowing teams to explore orders of magnitude more options while focusing human effort on judgment, synthesis, and design intent. Also, this process will be informed by past and present project data.
– Luke Leung, sustainable engineering studio leader, SOM
A great, fictional man once declared: “I believe virtually everything I read.” David St. Hubbins, lead singer and guitarist of Spinal Tap, mocked the earnest confidence of rock stars in the same way AI futurists are now mocking critical thinking itself.
Right now, most of the tech industry has adopted St. Hubbins’ line without the irony. Google is embedding AI into Chrome. Tech leaders are declaring the end of websites. Hundreds of links will collapse into single answers, traffic will disappear, the open web gets hollowed out. The future belongs to whoever wins inclusion in the AI’s response, not whoever builds the best site.
Sigh.
We spent the last decade learning that you can’t believe everything on Facebook. Now we’re about to make the same mistake with ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.
Clean story. Wrong conclusion. It assumes people will stop thinking critically about information just because it arrives in a prettier package.
Same Problem, New Wrapper
The fake news crisis taught us something: Polished presentation doesn’t equal reliable information. Nice formatting, confident tone, and shareable graphics do not come with a guarantee of truth.
We had to relearn basic media literacy. Check the source. Understand methodology. Look for bias. Read multiple perspectives. Think critically. Now answer engines arrive with a seductive promise: “Don’t worry about all that. Just trust what we tell you. This is fake news 2.0.
The Work Slop Warning
Harvard Business Review documented what happens when people stop interrogating AI outputs. They call it “workslop, content that looks professional but lacks substance. Polished slides, structured reports, articulate summaries that are incomplete, missing context, and often wrong.
Employees now spend two hours on average cleaning up each instance. One described it as “creating a mentally lazy, slow-thinking society.”
Another said: “I had to waste time checking it with my own research, then waste more time redoing the work myself.”
This is what happens when we outsource critical thinking. The polish looks good. The substance isn’t there. Someone downstream pays the price. If AI can’t reliably produce good work internally, where context and accountability exist, why would we blindly trust it externally, where neither exists?
High Stakes Require Verification
Imagine your doctor uses an AI summary for your diagnosis. Your lawyer relies on ChatGPT for contract advice. Your financial advisor trusts Gemini’s recommendations without checking. You’d demand they verify, right? Check sources. Show methodology. Prove they’re not just accepting whatever the algorithm says.
Medical decisions, legal issues, financial choices, and safety concerns all require source transparency. You need to see the work. You need context. You need to verify. A chat interface doesn’t change that fundamental need. It just makes it easier to skip those steps.
The existence of these facts points to a clear, yet countercultural conclusion.
Websites Aren’t Going Anywhere
Yes, discovery patterns are changing. Yes, traffic shifts. Yes, AI surfaces some content while burying others. That doesn’t make websites obsolete. It makes them more important.
The sites that die will deserve it: SEO farms gaming algorithms, content mills producing garbage. The sites that survive will offer what compressed answers can’t: verifiable sources, transparent methodologies, deep context that can’t be summarized without losing meaning.
When fake news dominated social media, the solution wasn’t “stop using sources.” It was “get better at evaluating them.” Same thing here. Answer engines are a new entry point, not a replacement for verification. The smart response to an AI answer isn’t “thanks, I believe you.” It’s “interesting, now let me dig deeper.”
We’re Not That Lazy
The “websites are dead” thesis assumes something bleak: that humans will stop being curious, critical, and careful about information that matters. That we’ll just accept whatever Google tells us.
People want to understand things deeply, not just know the answer. They want to form opinions, not inherit them from algorithms. They want to verify claims when stakes are high. That requires going to sources. Comparing perspectives. Thinking critically instead of letting technology think for you. You can’t do all of that in a chat window.
The Bar Just Got Higher
AI answer engines aren’t killing websites. They’re exposing which ones were never worth visiting.
The question isn’t whether websites survive. It’s whether your website offers something an algorithm can’t: real expertise, transparent sources, and content valuable enough that people want the full story, not just the summary.
We learned this with fake news. Now we’re learning it again with answer engines.
Trust, but verify. Always verify.
A self-described rat pack of five food-loving journalists just bought the trademark to the defunct food magazine Gourmet, updated it for the modern reader, and brought it back as an online newsletterall without consulting the magazines former publisher, Condé Nast. And if you didn’t know that already, you might’ve been able to guess it from the publication’s new wordmark.
The logo looks nothing like what you’d expect from the magazine that shuttered in 2009. Instead of a crisp, delicate script, this wordmark is unapologetically blocky, chunky, and weird. It’s more reminiscent of forgotten sheet pan drippings: certainly not pretty too look at, but more delicious than you’d expect. Introducing the modern Gourmet: Its pithy, recipe-obsessed, and designed for the home chef whos sick of brightly lit photos of one-pan dinners.
Gourmet on the newstand, ca. 2009. [Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images]
A new, Substack-era food mag with no interest in being a crowd-pleaser
The idea to bring back the magazine began when former Los Angeles Times writer and Gourmet cofounder Sam Dean noticed something strange. He called me and was like, Dude, I think I just figured something out,'” says graphic designer Alex Tatusian, another of the brands cofounders. “‘I’m on the U.S. Trademark Office site, and I’m pretty sure that Condé forgot to renew the trademark for Gourmet. Tatusian and Dean found three other collaborators, formed an LLC, and bought the trademark for a few thousand dollars.
The creatives behind Gourmet follow in the footsteps of several other journalists and writers who have recently departed the endlessly beleaguered realm of traditional media in favor of their own self-published ventures. These include worker-owned shops like Hell Gate, Defector, and 404 Media, as well as food-based titles like Vittles and Best Food Blog, and even individual food creators like Molly Baz and Claire Saffitz.
In the Gourmet founders’ opening salvo to readers, they propose that legacy brands largely botched the transition from print to digital, and diluted their missions in the process.
I think what Ive seen in food media are these dual forces: The recipes have become more relatable or lowest common denominator, but its being put in these very shiny packages,” says cofounder Nozlee Samadzadeh.
[Image: Gourmet]
So in lieu of clicky 10 minute recipes with flash photography, Gourmets founders want to make work for an audience that really, really enjoys food: long, reported features on Gavin Newsoms Napa wine empire; odes to baked rice pudding; and manifestos for people who are sick of easy dinners. (And it wont appeal to everyone.)
Tatusian calls todays Gourmet, which is available on the open source platform Ghost with a $7 monthly subscription, a transmogrified version of the original. Given its limited resources, its embracing an unapologetically craft-focused, funky, punk-rock approach designed for the modern newsletter resurgence. In short, its a wholesale rejection of the highly produced, SEO-optimized content thats come to dominate the modern food media space.
Gourmet’s ‘shit-stirring energy’ takes aim at expected design taste
Looking through Gourmets new site feels a bit like being bombarded with a series of ingredients that dont entirely go together. And for the publication’s general premise, that makes an odd kind of sense: Its a group of young people, reviving a magazine that was once mainly for the wealthy elite, in an accessible format and on a shoestring budget.
You look at old Gourmet and there’s black letter Gothic text, and script, and cursive, and, God, they want you to be rich, you know what I mean? Tatusian says. It has such a classist energy. I think there’s something about that that we both want to celebrate, because it is beautiful and it is the history of this publication going way back, but we also need to lightly lampoon. With the whole crew, theres a bit of a shit-stirring energy.
[Image: Gourmet]
That spirit is embodied by the new em>Gourmet logo, which is perhaps the furthest image one could image from the publications buttoned-up, cursive font. The design was created by trombonist Zekkereya El-magharbel, who Tatusian discovered after noticing his charmingly off-kilter posters for jazz events in L.A.
Each letterform looks almost like it was cut haphazardly from a piece of cardstock, with unexpected bumps, sharp angles, and wonky curves throughout. The process, Tatusian says, was a mix of El-magharbel responding to the prompt and picking up on “the energy of the magazine that we were going formaking something punk and unusual.
[Image: Gourmet]
The publication’s illustration style, which mimics 19th century motifs, also pokes some lighthearted fun at what Tatusian calls the “hilarious formality of older cooking and food magazines. In one key image at the top of the page, a real vintage line drawing is paired with a slapdash digital rendering of a red soda can. And, as a cheeky so what? to the broader food media landscape, the entire Gourmet site is rendered in what would traditionally be considered an off-putting brown.
Its a little bit of a visual joke, in that people in food media are often telling you to put color in a dish when youre styling something or in a photoshoot or on the page, because brown food is unappetizing, its disgusting, blah, blah, blah, Tatusian says. Actually, its not! We eat so much good brown and beige food.
[Image: Gourmet]
Samadzadeh and Tatusian say they plan on running some image-centric stories in the future, but they dont have a specific aesthetic vision in mind for the publications photographyinstead, theyd rather let contributors bring their own styles to the work. For now, they’re more focused on creating the kind of food content that they’d like to read.
We do want them to be beautiful, Tatusian says. It’s not that we want them to be disgusting, but I also think that we’re also interested in how people spend time together around food, and not as much about making an Instagramable product out of all the art that we produce.
For professionals looking to moodboard, but sick of juggling Instagram lists and Pinterest boards, Cosmos arrived in 2023 to woo millions of users in an otherwise crowded market.
With a pared-back design, and an algorithm trained on a carefully seeded list of creatives, it topped the Design category in the App Store, and the company reports its now used by creative teams at companies including Nike, Apple, and Amazon, who snag over 10 million pieces of content a month from across the internet for their collections.
This growth has been enough to raise a $15 million Series A from Matrix Partners, GV, Accel, and Squarespace CEO Anthony Casalena, as the company considers monetization strategies ranging from its premium subscriptions to an upcoming e-commerce play. The platform, despite launching much like Pinterest, will soon be a home for creative portfolios, more like how designers use Instagram and Behance.
But as founder Andy McCune charts the companys future, hes openly wrestling with the right ways to employ the latest AI technologies to support the creative communityeven as a sizable chunk of the community says they don’t want it at all.
[Image: Cosmos]
When to use AI, and when not to
Generative AI, of course, is still as controversial as it is inevitablewhile creatives I speak to are adopting it en masse as part of their own process, theres a most certain ick factor among the public to the current wave of AI marketing and the rise of the catchall word of 2025: AI slop.
Its very morally and ethically important to me to create a platform that champions the artists and the creatives, says McCune. Now, does that mean that we’re going to be a company that says, AI-generated imagery does not have a place here? Thats not a line that I want to draw.
Currently, Cosmos uses machine learning models to identify what it considers high-quality imagery that would appeal to its users tastes, airing that into their feeds. It also uses AI to track and automatically label image provenance. Whereas Instagram is so often a context-less smash-and-grab of other peoples work, Cosmos systems scour the web to figure out what film that compelling frame came from or who took that photo, and tag it appropriately.
The company also offers a setting, much like Pinterest, allowing creatives to blur or block all AI content in their feeds. Cosmos shares that 10% of all users have actually opted to block AI contentwhich was higher than they originally anticipated. Very few people customize the settings in any app already, and Cosmos has done nothing to promote that the setting even exists.
It was definitely surprising to me, says McCune. And now were having some conversations around like, should that [setting] actually be in the onboarding?
At the same time, blocking AI is not a setting he wants to apply by default, even if it would be a way to distinguish Cosmos from its peers. When the setting first launched, it blurred peoples AI contentand that was enough to give its users whiplash.
All of a sudden, they went back into their mood boards, and they saw a bunch of their images that they had saved in the past get blurred out. And they’re like, Wait, I didn’t know that I was saving AI images. And that was frustrating to them, McCune notes. They’re like, I feel like I’ve been tricked, right? I think for the end consumer, it’s really important that you have a decision in that process of being able to choose what you see.
Why not just block AI?
Andy McCune [Image: Cosmos]
A big reason that McCune doesnt want to block AI-generated content is that he knows some users want it, and more generally speaking, the design industry at his core will be using more AI tools into the future. Especially as he pivots Cosmos away from mere moodboarding to become someones own creative portfolio, he realizes that blocking AI generated work would block their voicesand their potentially cutting-edge experimentation.
I think [AI] will be one medium that people use to express themselves, just like you know, painting is one and digital photography is one, and graphic design is another, says McCune. I think it’s important for us if we really want to be a home for creatives to not pick and choose what mediums we think are holy or not.
And yet, there are lines around AI that McCune wont cross because they feel off-mission, and somehow, at odds with his own creative community.
I will say that there is a very easy path for us to take right now, which we have not taken, which is to bring Gen AI into the forefront of the product, says McCune. We could have very quickly and very easily built a multibillion-dollar company, if you could just right-click on any image on Cosmos right now and prompt on top of that thing. That’s something that we have not done, because that is not the company that we want to build.
The most qualified marketing candidates already know how to spot a bad ad. They scroll past headlines that dont resonate, tune out vague language, and ghost messages that feel robotic. And when your job post reads like a corporate compliance document instead of an invitation to do meaningful work, they wont even click.
More than 80% of job seekers check company reviews and ratings before applying, according to Glassdoor. And its not just about perks: Edelmans Trust Barometer found that nearly 6 in 10 employees choose where to work based on shared values. These arent surface-level preferences; they signal a deeper shift in expectations. Candidates want a reason to believe, not just a list of requirements.
The shift is clear: Candidates now behave like consumers. They compare, research, and screen opportunities with the same discernment they apply to products. That makes your job post more than just a filter. Its a first impression, a trust signal, and, if done well, a conversion tool.
Its time to start treating your recruitment process like a campaign. The tactics marketers use to capture attention, communicate value, and compel action are the same tactics that now determine whether you attract the right people or lose them to someone else.
1. START WITH SEGMENTATION, NOT GENERIC MESSAGING
Too many job ads aim for the widest possible audience and miss the best-fit candidates in the process. Effective marketers learned this lesson long ago: The more precisely you define your audience, the more persuasive your message becomes.
Segment your recruitment messaging by level, background, industry fluency, or even likely motivators. Speak differently to a mid-level paid media strategist than to a head of brand. When you identify what specific candidates care abouttheir career arc, their need for impact, their desire to work with modern tech stacksyou can write job ads that feel like they were written for one person, not one hundred.
2. EMOTIONAL STORYTELLING WINS OVER LOGICAL LISTS
Marketers know how to sell ideas with stories, not specs. And they expect that same level of narrative craft when reading about a potential job.
Instead of leading with company history, start with the roles emotional hook. What will this person get to own, change, or build? What kind of team are they walking into? How will their work shape the customer experience? One small shift, from We were founded in 2012 to Youll define how thousands of users discover their next step, can transform how your post lands.
The strongest applicants dont apply for tasks. They apply for purpose.
3. TREAT JOB ADS LIKE LANDING PAGES
Once your message is targeted and your story resonates, structure becomes the next make-or-break factor. A job post is essentially a landing page: It must be skimmable, structured, and compelling enough to inspire action.
Use clear subheads. Prioritize the candidates perspective: what theyll learn, lead, or influence. Include compensation early if possible. And always, always include a strong CTA. Would you ever run a marketing campaign without one?
Formatting is part of your employer brand. If your job post is cluttered, hard to read, or missing details, the assumption is that your hiring process will feel the same way.
4. USE A/B TESTING TO MOVE FROM GUESSING TO GROWTH
Most marketers live in testing platforms. Recruiters should, too. You can A/B test job titles (is Paid Social Lead more effective than Growth Marketing Strategist?), intros, compensation placement, or even whether adding team quotes improves apply rates.
Youll start to see trends. Youll learn what tone resonates with passive candidates, what format converts better, and where drop-off happens. When you approach hiring with the mindset of growth marketing, you move from static job listings to evolving, performance-based messaging.
Recruiting becomes less about gut instinct and more about insight.
5. BUILD EMPLOYER BRAND INTO EVERY TOUCHPOINT
Every element of your hiring funneljob descriptions, outreach messages, Glassdoor responsesspeaks volumes about your company. The question is whether they all speak the same language.
Strong employer branding isnt about polished taglines; its about consistent, honest communication. Candidates should feel the same tone and clarity across the careers page, the interview emails, and the job post itself. When branding is aligned, candidates trust the experience. When it isnt, they disengage.
Even review sites matter. Candidates read them before applying. If your companys response strategy looks defensive or silent, it will undercut even the best-crafted post. Think of these channels as the retargeting ads of recruiting; they reinforce or unravel the brand story youve worked to build.
A job post is no longer a static announcement. Its a performance asset. It carries weight, signals quality, and affects the caliber of people willing to bet on your company. The teams that understand this and build hiring processes that reflect it wont merely fill seats. Theyll attract the kind of marketers who know how to move an audience and recognize when someone else knows how to do the same.
Protein is everywhere these days. The cultural obsession with the macronutrient has become unavoidable; from constant protein-adjacent Instagram ads to protein-focused recipes and protein-filled Chipotle bowls, Starbucks drinks, and Pepsi products. All of these products are starting to sound like part of some big, loud, fitness influencer chorus. But theres one brand thats managed to break through the noiseoften, by saying nothing at all.
Early this month, the protein bar company David debuted a print campaign in the New York City subway system featuring plain images of its bars, with no text or embellishments, surrounded by a sea of blank white space. Its the encapsulation of a marketing strategy thats catapulted the brand into the cultural zeitgeist and the protein bar big leagues.
Where other protein bars sport colorful, energetic packaging with bold fonts and crisp product imagery, David bars come in sleek gold packages with a serif wordmark and a few simple macronutrient descriptors. Instead of vying for consumer attention with eye-catching graphics and silly ads, David shows up online and in the real world with a distinctly minimalist aesthetic and serious, no-frills brand voice. Its an approach that founder Peter Rahal describes as anti-marketingbut, counterintuitively, is actually a highly effective marketing tactic.
[Photo: courtesy David]
Rion Harmon, executive creative director of the creative agency behind the David brand, Day Job, says an atypical ethos has guided the creative from the start: [The brand] should not be your best friend.
Every brand was trying so hard to win you over, to be just like you, Harmon says. David didnt care. David was here to be effective. To design solutions. To create a superior product, with a superior brand.
How David built a protein-obsessed following
Since it debuted last September, David has amassed an almost cult-like following of customers who patiently await its next protein innovation.
David was founded by Rahal, a serial entrepreneur who also cofounded the brand RXbar; and Zach Ranen, who previously founded the better-for-you cookie brand Raize. After launching, the company managed to sell more than $1 million worth of bars in a week. By the following May, it had raised $75 million in Series A funding, at a $725 valuationand, according to a report from The New York Times in September, it was on track to hit $180 million in retail sales this year. (David declined to share updated financial information with Fast Company.) This month, David announced that it would appear on shelves at Walmart and Target.
[Photo: David]
Fitness gurus and casual protein-seekers alike are attracted to the David bar by its impressive macros (28 grams of protein for 150 calories and zero grams of sugar; a ratio thats almost unbeatable in the bar category). But a large part of Davids meteoric success is also owed to its branding and marketing strategies.
As a student of the protein bar category, Rahal says, hes noticed that natural food players like Lärabar and his own RXBar kicked off a trend from around 2000 to 2015, wherein protein bar companies stopped using their packaging to signal a certain brand, but to instead convey flavor.
What happened is when you would look at the category, you would see confusion, Rahal says. Rather than identifying brands, it was organized by flavor. So you’d see purple, blue, green, red, yellow. That was innovative in the 2010s, he adds, but it quickly turned the protein aisle into a colorful kaleidoscope of sameness.
David returned to an earlier era of brandingthink ’80s and ’90s candy bars, for examplewhen the primary goal of the packaging was to communicate brand, and the secondary goal was to communicate flavor. One thing we did is make gold the primary focus,” Rahal says. “This is ironic because it’s actually really differentiated. I find it interesting how history repeats.
Davids brand guidelines are fairly straightforward: It stands out by embracing simplicity. Instead of adding more product descriptors or colors on its packaging, it subtracts them. Its loud by being quiet, Harmon says.
‘Restraint can cut through when chaos is the norm’
Nowhere is that less is more philosophy more clear than in Davids latest print campaign in the NYC subway.
The campaign comes directly on the heels of several other headline-grabbing subway brand stunts. Those include a controversial September campaign from the AI companion company Friend, which inspired intense vandalism, and, just over a month later, a campaign from the embryo screening company Nucleus Genomics that incited widespread backlash online. Both of these campaigns were intentionally designed with provocative copy and imagery to spark conversation. Compare that to Davids designwhich is quite literally just a David bar on a blank canvas, with zero copy in sightand the difference is almot visceral.
[Photo: David]
When everyone is doing one thing, theres often an advantage in doing the opposite, Harmon says. A lot of shock-driven work depends on escalation. It has to keep pushing harder to stay visible. Restraint can cut through when chaos is the norm. This campaign isnt trying to provoke a reaction so much as invite your own.
Rahal says he doesnt like marketing, and prefers a non-traditional, anti-marketing approach whenever possible. It would be wrong to characterize David as a buttoned-up brand, thoughin fact, its pulled several audacious marketing stunts in the last few months. Earlier this year, the brand introduced a real line of frozen boiled cod to its portfolio as a nod to its protein bars similar macronutrient profile (David declined to share sales data on the cod, though Rahal says it was not that convenient and expensive. You can still buy it online for $69.)
And, this month, David sent out PR packages that included both a protein bar and a vibrator, alongside copy like, Finish twice, and Pick your pleasure; seemingly insinuating that its bars are orgasmic. Harmon and Rahal argue its still ultimately in line with the brands anti-marketing ethos.
David usually keeps things pretty straightforward, he says. This one seems like an outlier, but honestly it still fits the same principle. No fluff, no over-explaining, just the product in a context that feels true to the brand. If anything, it’s just a different take on the same idea. Rahal adds, The thinking is still anti-marketing: one clear message rooted in the product truth, delivered in a novel way.”
Remember a couple of years ago when Intel declared that the “age of the AI PC” had arrived?
Back at CES 2024, the chip giant was saying that its Core Ultra processors would usher in a new era of personal computing, enabling all kinds of new on-device AI capabilities. As Michelle Johnston Holthaus, then the company’s CEO of products, said in a keynote presentation, AI is “fundamentally transforming, reshaping, and reimagining the PC experience.”
Two years later, there’s been a vibe shift.
While Intel is still talking about AI, it now believes its PC processors will play more of a supporting role for cloud-based AI tools. At the CES trade show earlier this month, the company put a bigger emphasis on meat-and-potatoes concerns such as performance and battery life.
“With all the excitement around AI, we always remind ourselves, fundamentals still matter,” Jim Johnson, head of Intel’s Client Computing Group, said at a CES launch event.
A disconnect with consumers
David Feng, VP/GM for Intel’s PC client segments, says in an interview that the change in emphasis was intentional. For all the talk about AI PCs, consumers haven’t been all that interested.
“There’s this disconnect between people in the industry who are looking a couple generations or a couple years ahead, versus the general public,” Feng says.
He jokes that for a while, Intel had a hard time getting through meetings without explaining its AI strategy, but when it asked retailers if customers were seeking out AI PCs, the answer was typically “no.”
“I’ll sort of confess in a way, and say, when we first coined the term AI PC, in hindsight we probably spent a little bit too much energy trying to justify running AI on the PC locally,” Feng says.
Unsurprisingly, what consumers want instead are basic PC things like better battery life and improved graphics performance. Intel’s partners are realizing the same thing, with one unnamed Dell executive telling PCWorld that it’s shifting its marketing focus away from AI PCs and “getting back to our roots with a renewed focus on consumer and gaming.”
While Microsoft remains all in on the AI PC concept, it too has started downplaying the value of on-device AI in favor of the cloud, declaring that all Windows 11 computers are AI PCs now.
Meanwhile, Intel began its shift toward more fundamental concerns with its Core Ultra 200V processors, which were an attempt to compete on power efficiency with Apple’s M-Series processors and new PC chips from Qualcomm. Now, Intel is promising further improvements with its Core Ultra Series 3 chips, which uses a new manufacturing process and started shipping in laptops this month.
The new chips have double the number of low-power computing cores, which are optimized for basic tasks such as web browsing and document editing, and those cores are more performant than before. Intel now plans to move all of its processors over to this architecture, including those for desktop PCs and gaming laptops.
“It’s a big leap,” Feng says.
Moving to hybrid AI
None of this means that Intel has stopped talking about AI PCs entirely. But instead of emphasizing AI tools that run on-device, Intel is now touting “hybrid” applications, in which the AI primarily runs in the cloud but offloads certain tasks to the PC.
“We’re just more mature about thinking about this,” Feng says. “We’re not going to replace ChatGPT or Perplexity, and nobody’s asking us to replace them. The whole premise of a hybrid is, instead of choosing either or, how about you make them work together?”
For example, ByteDance’s CapCut video editor can now use on-device AI for its “AI Clipper” feature, which analyzes videos for potential highlights. This helps reduce the strain on ByteDance’s cloud servers.
Intel also teased a potential partnership with Perplexity, with Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas speaking at the chipmaker’s CES event. While Srinivas didn’t announce anything specific, he talked about how on-device large language models could preserve privacy, reduce latency, and cut cloud computing costs. A browser like Perplexitys Comet, for instance, might use on-device large language models to provide insights on users’ browser histories, but turn to the cloud for web-based queries.
“Performance, security, economics, controlthese make local compute such an obvious thing to work on,” Srinivas said.
Still, it’s early days even for these efforts, so why all the early hype about AI PCs a couple of years ago? Feng says Intel was just signaling that it was the start of a new era. Now, it can thankfully turn its attention to more near-term concerns that PC buyers actually care about.
“Right now, we’re just saying, look, the future is AI PC, but we don’t have to keep beating the drum the same way we beat it two years ago,” he says.
Most of us know that job loss is emotionally difficult, but whats less talked about is the experience of knowing you will be terminated without knowing when. This process can be drawn out and draininga form of anticipatory griefan emotional response to a loss before it occurs. Often experienced by the loved ones of terminally ill patients, a version applies in the workplace when job loss is on the horizon. In todays volatile landscape, this kind of professional uncertainty is increasingly common, prompting leadersin limbo due to mergers, acquisitions, funding losses, or downsizingto feel a loss of self-identity, irritability and helplessness at not being in control.
As an executive career coach and former headhunter, I have worked with dozens of leaders facing these circumstances. Here are four practical strategies to help you stay grounded, proactive, and resilient during uncertain times.
1. Plan for the future (even when you dont feel ready)
Its tempting to wait for clarity on your situation before taking action. But even during the fog of ambiguity, creating time for thinking is beneficial. One of my clients, Matt, was a director at a global finance firm that was being acquired, creating duplicate functions. He agreed to stay on to lead the reorganization and focused all his time on the business priorities, not his own. He was so dedicated he didnt start planning for his future until his boss was let go and reality hit home that it could be him at any moment.
Give yourself the gift of forward planning by scheduling time to reflect on what is important to you in your work and life both in the short and longer term. Ask yourself a series of questions to determine what you want your ideal future to look like and steps to move you towards it:
Where do I see myself in 10 years? Be as specific as you can about what you would love to do, not just what you could do. You may even consider creating a career vision board for your future using images and statements.
With that vision in mind, what experience do I want to gain in my next organization? For instance, if you aspire to be a nonexecutive director long term, you may wish to strengthen your committee experience in the roles you hold between now and then.
What are my nonnegotiable and desirable criteria in my next role? For example, you might want to be on the same time zone as corporate HQ but are flexible about the business size. Or increasing your compensation may be nonnegotiable, but you would be willing to travel more.
2. Refocus on what you need to thrive in the short term
Take an honest look at your role and what you want to prioritize. One equity partner I worked with in consulting, Claire, knew the firm would be sold at some stage but the date was ambiguous. As the time stretched on, she became disengaged and frustrated, especially in meetings which were becoming increasingly political. She was ready for a change but was tied into the business financially. She realised shed moved away from the work where she most excelled.
Ask yourself: What activities energize you at work? What activities drain you? For example, perhaps you thrive on being client facing, selling the services of the business, but you find writing the proposal document dull. Perhaps you love leading teams but find large leadership meetings sap your energy. This will help you identify your strengths. The more you use them the happier, more energized and resilient you will feel.
Claire negotiated changes to her role that protected her future package whilst moving into a client practice she excelled in. She took on more mentoring work internally, negotiated greater flexibility, and relinquished elements she no longer enjoyed such as the board meetings.
While many leaders would avoid making waves, when the timeline is unknown, its worth a discussion with your line manager about ways to do more of the activities you thrive on, build experiences you want to gain, and make your remaining time more meaningful. You may be there longer than you think and its beneficial to exit on a high.
3. Reconnect with your external network
When I surveyed more than 100 leaders for a forthcoming research project, the vast majority (nearly 90%) said they would like to network more, yet only a handful proactively scheduled time for it. They regarded it as importantbut never urgentso consistently let their regular responsibilities take priority.
Your wider network is an important source of executive leadership positions. Dont wait until you exit and are job hunting, instead reach out now. Begin with genuine connections you havent spoken to in a whileyour weak ties. Be discreet, but where you can, open up and seek support. If its been some time since you were last in touch, acknowledge this, and offer support in return.
A simple message might look like this:
Hi [Name], I hope you are well. Ive been thinking back to our conversations at [Company/Project] and I always valued your insights. Id welcome your perspective on a work challenge I am navigating. Would you be open to a short coffee or video call soon? Let me know how I can support you in return.
4. Expect and respect your emotions
When significant change is coming in your work, it is normal to feel a rollercoaster of emotionsworry, sadness, resentment. Serena Williams shared the emotional difficulty of approaching the end of a long-term role, describing transitioning from professional tennis as painful.
Emotions are interpretations of your feelings and it helps to understand them. Instead of ignoring or suppressing them, pay attention to them and explore what they are telling you. For instance, the sadness you are feeling may, more specifically, be guilt about letting your family down or disappointment that you didnt achieve everything you hoped for in the role.
Reflective writing has been linked to improved mental well-being and laid off professionals being more quickly rehired. Get a notebook, set a timer and let your thoughts flow freely. The Feelings Wheela tool that lists 114 emotionscan help you recognize and articulate what you’re experiencing.
You may not be able to control the situation of your impending job loss, but you can control how you respond. Invest time in yourself and your future plans. Harness your professional relationships and manage your emotions. With the right mindset and actions, this unplanned change could serve as a catalyst to a positive career step.
Is the future of concert venues more spheres? It seems so.
Following on the success of Sphere in Las Vegas, plans are underway to bring a smaller-scale version to the National Harbor in Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C. Wes Moore, the governor of Maryland, announced on Sunday that the state and Prince Georges County are working with Sphere Entertainment Co. and Peterson Companies to develop a 6,000-seat sphere, its second venue in the U.S.
This will be one of the largest economic development projects in Prince Georges County history, Moore said in a statement. Were excited for what this means for our people, and how it will showcase the best of what Maryland has to offer to everyone who visits.
The collaborators are estimating that Sphere National Harbor could generate an economic impact in excess of $1 billion annually and support 4,750 jobs once operational. Though theres not yet an estimate of the cost of construction, this project could receive state, local, and private funding to the tune of approximately $200 million.
MORE SPHERES COMING
Located across the Potomac River from Alexandria, Virginia, National Harbor already draws tourists and convention-goers alike. Its attractions include the Capital Wheel, a giant Ferris wheel, and an MGM resort that boasts more than 135,000 square feet of gambling and a 3,000-seat concert venue. A rendering of the new Sphere indicates a potential location set off from the Harbor and next to the MGM.
Even at a smaller size, the sphere would still feature the same Exosphere as the one in Las Vegas, which is an exterior LED display that allows the venue to take on different looks. Inside, the venue would feature the highest-resolution LED screen, haptic seating, 4D environmental effects, and other advanced technologies found in the original that seats more than 17,000 people.
Construction is well underway for Sphere Entertainments second Sphere in Abu Dhabi, and National Harbor would mark the first smaller-scale version of the concert venueand potentially pave the way for others.
Our focus has always been on creating a global network of Spheres across forward-looking cities, James L. Dolan, executive chairman and CEO of Sphere Entertainment, said in the statement. He also praised local and state lawmakers for recognizing the potential that a Sphere at National Harbor could elevate and advance immersive experiences across the area.
There is no estimate on timing for the new Sphere yet, as the proposed venue is still being negotiated and requires various approvals.
NOT SOLD ON SPHERES
Though the planners behind the project boasted that Sphere in Las Vegas topped rankings by Billboard and Pollstar for top-grossing venues worldwide, many people havent been entirely sold on the venue. It has an average rating of 3.3 out of 5 on Tripadvisor, while panning events held there has become somewhat of a sport for some influencers.
Whats more, the Sphere has been the topic of much criticism since it opened in 2023. Most recently, some film fans fumed because The Wizard of Ozcurrently showing at the Sphere for tickets starting at $104 per seatused generative AI to reimagine aspects of visuals from the classic to fit the venues capabilities.
Even so, such criticisms havent slowed Sphere Entertainments meteoric rise. Its stock has surged 134% in the past year.
U.S. Donald Trump linked his aggressive stance on Greenland to last year’s decision not to award him the Nobel Peace Prize, telling Norway’s prime minister that he no longer felt “an obligation to think purely of Peace,” two European officials said Monday.Trump’s message to Jonas Gahr Stre appears to ratchet up a standoff between Washington and its closest allies over his threats to take over Greenland, a self-governing territory of NATO member Denmark. To force European countries that have rallied around Denmark and Greenland toward talks, Trump on Saturday announced a 10% import tax starting in February on goods from eight nations, including Norway.Those countries issued a forceful rebuke. But British Prime Minister Keir Starmer sought to de-escalate tensions on Monday. While the White House has not ruled taking control of the strategic Arctic island by force, Starmer said he did not believe military action would occur.“I think this can be resolved and should be resolved through calm discussion,” he said.Still, the American leader’s message to Gahr Stre could further fracture a U.S.-European relationship already strained by differences over how to end the nearly four-year war in Ukraine, previous rounds of tariffs, military spending, and migration policy.In a sign of how tensions have increased in recent days, thousands of Greenlanders marched over the weekend in protest of any effort to take over their island. Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a Facebook post Monday that the tariff threats would not change the their stance.“We will not be pressured,” he wrote. “We stand firm on dialogue, on respect, and on international law.”
Trump sends a message to the Norwegian leader
According to two European officials, Trump’s message to Gahr Stre read in part: “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.”It concluded: “The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.”The officials, who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said it had been forwarded to multiple European ambassadors in Washington. PBS first reported on the content of Trump’s note.Gahr Stre confirmed Monday that he had received a text message from Trump but did not release its contents. The White House did not respond to questions about the letter or the context for Trump sending it.Gahr Stre said Trump’s message was a reply to an earlier missive sent on behalf of himself and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, in which they conveyed their opposition to the tariff announcement, pointed to a need to de-escalate, and proposed a telephone conversation among the three leaders.“Norway’s position on Greenland is clear. Greenland is a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and Norway fully supports the Kingdom of Denmark on this matter,” Stre said. “As regards the Nobel Peace Prize, I have clearly explained, including to president Trump what is well known, the prize is awarded by an independent Nobel Committee and not the Norwegian Government.”The Norwegian Nobel Committee is an independent body whose five members are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament.Trump has openly coveted the peace prize, which the committee awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado last year. Last week, Machado presented her Nobel medal to Trump, who said he planned to keep it though the committee said the prize can’t be revoked, transferred, or shared with others.
Starmer says a trade war is in no one’s interest
In his latest threat of tariffs, Trump indicated they would be retaliation for last week’s deployment of symbolic numbers of troops from the European countries to Greenlandthough he also suggested that he was using the tariffs as leverage to negotiate with Denmark.European governments said that the troops traveled to the island for Arctic security training in response to Trump’s own concerns about interference from Russia and China.Starmer on Monday called Trump’s threat of tariffs “completely wrong” and said that a trade war is in no one’s interest.He added that “being pragmatic does not mean being passive and partnership does not mean abandoning principles.”Six of the eight countries targeted are part of the 27-member European Union, which operates as a single economic zone in terms of trade. European Council President Antonio Costa said Sunday that the bloc’s leaders expressed “readiness to defend ourselves against any form of coercion.” He announced a summit for Thursday evening.Starmer indicated that Britain, which is not part of the EU, is not planning to consider retaliatory tariffs.“My focus is on making sure we don’t get to that stage,” he said.Denmark’s defense minister and Greenland’s foreign minister are expected to meet NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in Brussels on Monday, a meeting that was planned before the latest escalation.
Associated Press writer Josh Boak in West Palm Beach, Florida, contributed to this report.
Aamer Madhani, Geir Moulson and Jill Lawless, Associated Press
