At the Winter Olympics, skiers, bobsledders, speedskaters, and many other athletes all have to master one critical moment: when to start. That split second is paramount during competition because when everyone is strong and skilled, a moment of hesitation can separate gold from silver. A competitor who hesitates too much will be left behindbut moving too early will get them disqualified.
Though the circumstances are less intense, this paradox of hesitation applies to daily life. Waiting for the right moment to cross the street, or pausing before deciding whether to answer a call from a number you dont recognize, are daily examples of hesitation. Importantly, some psychiatric conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder are characterized by impulsivity, or a lack of hesitation, while excessive hesitation is a crippling consequence of several anxiety disorders.
As a neuroscientist, I have been working to uncover how the brain decides when to act and when to wait. Recent research from my team and me helps explain why this split-second pause happens, offering insight not only into elite athletic performance, but also how people make everyday decisions when the potential outcome isnt clear.
We found that the key to hesitation is a response to uncertainty. This could be where a dropped hockey puck will land, when a race starts, or placing your order at a new restaurant.
Hesitation and the brain
To understand how the brain controls hesitation, my colleagues and I designed a simple decision-making task in mice.
The task required the mouses brain to interpret signals that were predictably good, predictably bad ormost importantlyuncertain, meaning somewhere in between. Different auditory tones indicated whether a drop of sugar water would soon be delivered, not delivered, or had a 50/50 chance of delivery.
How the mice behaved would not affect the outcome. Nevertheless, mice would still wait longer before licking to see whether a reward had been given in the uncertain scenario. Just like in people, unpredictable situations led to delays in response. This hesitation was not the result of vacillating between options in indecision, but an active and regulated brain process to pause before acting due to environmental uncertainty.
When we examined neural activity associated with the onset of licking, we identified a specific group of neurons that became active only when outcomes were unclear. Those neurons effectively controlled whether the brain should commit to an action or pause to gather more information. The degree to which these neurons were active could predict whether mice would hesitate before making a decision.
To confirm that these neurons played a role in controlling hesitation, we used a technique called optogenetics to briefly turn these brain cells on or off. When we activated the neurons, mice hesitated more. When we silenced them, that hesitation faded, and their responses were quicker by several hundred milliseconds, in line with their reactions to predictable situations.
Researchers can use optogenetics to turn brain cells on or off.
Daily life, disease, and downhill racing
Our findings suggest that, rather than a weakness to overcome, hesitation appears to be a fundamental brain feature that helps people and animals navigate an uncertain world and avoid costly mistakes.
Our study also provides insights into the balance of action and inaction in health and disease. The hesitation neurons are located in the basal ganglia, the same part of the brain affected in Parkinsons disease, OCD, and addiction. While researchers must still determine how much overlap or interaction there is between the cells involved in hesitation and those affected in psychiatric disorders, their overlap in circuitry points to possible targets for treatment.
Our next step is to understand how cells controlling hesitation interact with drugs treating ADHD and OCD, conditions where patients can respond impulsively during volatile or uncertain situations.
We also aim to identify which brain areas provide these cells with information about uncertaintythe environmental signal so critical to hesitation. While researchers have found that several parts of an area of the brain called the prefrontal cortex encode uncertainty, its unclear how the brain actually makes use of this information, where the rubber meets the road.
Hesitation is not a flawits a critical feature for navigating an unpredictable world. Whether youre a figure skater waiting for the perfect moment to launch your jump or just going about your day, the circuitry behind hesitation plays an important role in figuring out the timing to get the action right.
Eric Yttri is an associate professor of biological sciences at Carnegie Mellon University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Before The Whale, I had everything to prove. And now, to be honest, not so much, Oscar winner Brendan Fraser, 57, told AARP The Magazine in an interview last month.
The 50-and-older segment is the fastest-growing demographic in the world, according to Myechia Minter-Jordan, AARPs CEO. And three years ago, Frasera Hollywood mainstay for 35 years whose career has been marked by challenges like depression and work droughtwas nominated for (and won) his first Academy Award for playing the lead in director Darren Aronofskys prestige drama The Whale. In his acceptance speech, Fraser thanked Aronofsky for throwing me a creative lifeline.
In the interview with AARP, he delves further into his professional journey, sharing high points and personal setbacks, as well ambitious persistence in middle age.
From Encino Man and George of the Jungle to The Mummy and The Whale, Fraser has long been a leading man. But he flashes back to his first paid gig as a mascot for a storage unit company in Seattle, making $14 an hour: Ive never been flipped off more in my life, he said. Eventually, he got acting gigs and moved from roles like “Sailor Number One” to becoming a Hollywood megastar and blockbuster headliner.
Fraser also detailed struggling with depression after an incident in 2003, when he alleged that the president of the Foreign Press Association groped him at an event. He talked about the importance of safeguarding his mental health following the incident: Ive learned to check in with myself and constantly reevaluate whats important. And you also need to ask for help when you need it. Early on, I didnt know you could ask for help. I only saw the stigma of it. I was afraid to say, I need a hand.
Fraser said he again found himself in a dark place when, despite being a Hollywood A-lister, he ended up in a prolonged career lull for the entire 2010s (despite the fact that he never actually stopped working). The AARP The Magazine article called it a less star-studded period in which he wasnt connecting with audiences the way he once had.
The silence in a career can be deafening, Fraser told the magazine.
He expounded on his philosophy of perseverance: For a long time there, I felt like I disappointed people because I hadnt met their expectations, he said. But Im still here, you know? This is what I do.
This lesson in humility and gratitude can create confidence and better health. In fact, theres research that shows gratitude’s heath perks, such as greater emotional and social well-being, improved sleep, lower depression risk, and even better heart heath markers, according to Harvard Health.
In this job, you live in a constant state of panic, and you cant get too comfortable, Fraser revealed. Ive learned to check in with myself and constantly reevaluate whats important.
Staying true to your values and your core goals can keep you focused on your career path, too. The intersection of values, passion, and purpose can culminate across industries, whether thats working as an actor, a software designer, an account executive, an attorney, or a small-business owner.
In a Harvard Business Review article titled Values, Passion, or PurposeWhich Should Guide Your Career?, writer Irina Cozma summarizes the principle: We all know following this advice isnt as easy as it sounds, Cozma wrote. This commitment to self-reliance is a continual and evolving commitment. Incorporating these mantras can help you build a career that is a combination of feeling successful, but also deeply fulfilling, she said.
Finally, supporting each others mental health is crucial. Fraser touched on the importance of reaching out for helpand the same is true in professional contexts.
A 2024 study by the University of New Mexicos Anderson School of Management, published in The Journal of Social Psychology, showcases how receiving help at work can mitigate exhaustion levels for workers. This research points to the importance of us working together. Being able to find unique and creative ways to still foster those relationships, even virtually, is extremely important, said associate professor Andrea Hetrick, the studys lead author, in a press release.
Frasers most recent film, 2025s Rental Family, has him starring as an American actor doing stand-in work for strangers for a Japanese talent agency. Its the latest movie in his decades-long careerone marked by resilience in the face of prolonged dry spells and huge mental health roadblocks in a brutally competitive, age-conscious industry.
He said he relies on therapy, as well as reaching out to friends, getting the exercise you need, even having a bit of breakfast. Theyre small things, but when youre dealing with those feelings, they can make a monumental difference.”
Imposter syndrome happens when we have the feeling that we do not deserve what we have achieved, fearing that we’ll be discovered to be fakes or frauds. Our successes, we tell ourselves, were achieved not through our actual abilities and talents, but through some combination of luck, timing, and mistakes others made that allowed us to slip through the cracks. Nobody is immune to this feeling, and it affects all segments of the publicfrom leaders, artists, actors, and the people we see as high achievers.
Sheryl Sandberg, Harvard grad and former Facebook COO, wrote in her 2013 book Lean In: Every time I took a test, I was sure that it had gone badly. And every time I didnt embarrass myselfor even excelledI believed that I had fooled everyone yet again. One day soon, the jig would be up. Sandberg is joined by a long list of well-known people who have readily admitted feeling this way.
But emotional intelligence offers us help and direction in overcoming this pervasive yet very common problem.
Commonly understood as the ability to recognize, understand, and manage our emotions, emotional intelligence gives us the ability to understand ourselves and others in ways that increase our ability to work through our unpleasant thoughts and feelings.
As an author of two books on emotional intelligence, I have written extensively on the topic. When we experience imposter feelings, they provide us with guidelines and tools that will help us to release the negative impacts that come with them. Instead of experiencing self-doubt, we will move toward welcoming our success.
Self-awareness, the root of emotional intelligence, is a powerful aide in determining how we relate to self-doubt and our inner voice. When we are self-aware, we learn to create space between how we are feeling and what we know to be facts. We can choose to feel fear and self-doubt without accepting them as being based in reality. This allows us to choose thoughts that support that we have genuinely earned our achievements.
People with strong emotional intelligence have the ability to relate to and connect well with others. When sharing their doubts, they soon become acutely aware of how common this problem is, allowing them to normalize their feelings around the issue. This provides them with relief that what they are experiencing is nothing out of the ordinary that needs to be feared and overly stressed about. Knowing that there are many others who experience the same thing takes a lot of the sting out of our feelings that we are alone with this experience.
One of the characteristics of people who struggle with imposter syndrome is that they tend to be very hard on themselves. This was true for Suzanne Smith, a college professor and the CEO of the nonprofit management company Social Impact Architects, who describes herself as a recovering perfectionist.
As Smith tells her entrepreneurship students: Imposter syndrome isnt proof youre unqualified. Its often evidence that youre growing. She has spent the last decade becoming more emotionally aware of that tendency and intentionally practicing positive self-talk. And now she shares that journey with her students and clients and the readers of her weekly Substack newsletter, helping them differentiate between perception and reality in order to build healthier habits. Often, when we’re being hard on ourselves, it means that we are giving little attention to our strengths and instead are amplifying our weaknesses.
Empathy, a major aspect of emotional intelligence, helps us not only to see others strengths more clearly but also to acknowledge our own abilities and treat ourselves with compassion when we fail to reach our goals. It helps us to recognize that we are a work in progress, and to understand that setbacks and failures are a normal part of the learning process. It allows us to see our achievements, not with arrogance, but as a result of our determination and ongoing growth.
One of the skills of emotional intelligence is the ability to regulate our emotions. Imposter syndrome can bring up strong feelings of anxiety, causing us to overprepare or avoid so that we dont have to deal with strong feelings. People who know how to regulate are able to keep thoughts and feelings from overwhelming their ability to think rationally and logically. They have developed the ability to remember times that they successfully overcame stressful times and to think of situations that ended well.
Emotionally intelligent people use setbacks and failures as learning opportunities rather than taking them personally as indicators that there is something lacking in them. They understand that oftentimes, very successful people have failed multiple times. This way of thinking becomes useful once imposter syndrome takes hold.
But when it does, we can look back and see that our progress indicates a persistence, determination, and ability that, over time, end up showing resultsrather than internal doubts about our success.
In 2013, when Meredith OConnor was 16, the music video for her debut single “Celebrity” went viral. Afterward, she channeled her own stardom into championing childhood mental health: As a hyperactive kid, OConnor says she was often the subject of bullying, and when her music career gave her a platform, she was eager to use it to advocate on behalf of other victims.
I knew my fan base was younger, but I didn’t know how many people would resonate with mental health challenges, she says. I realized there were millions of gifted people that are being marginalized, and that’s when I really wanted to start the mental health study.
Since blowing up YouTube over a decade ago, OConnor earned a masters degree in mental health counseling and cofounded the Mental Health Counseling Services of Manhattan in 2024. In working closely with public schools, OConnor says she was struck by the many ways in which standardized tests disadvantage neurodivergent students. That observation led me to speak directly with leaders across law, advisory firms, and business about how hiring and evaluation systems might evolve in an AI economy.
OConnor explains that the more she spoke with AmLaw 20 firms and Fortune 500 executives, the more she realized that the kinds of skills they desired from graduates were not the skills that were measured and rewarded on standardized tests. Thats especially true for those like herself with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), who have many natural advantages, but often struggle with memorization and sustaining focus.
Before age 23, the ADHD brain is gifted in many things. But one of the areas of slower development is executive function, she says, explaining that the limitation affects short-term memory, concentration, and impulse control. By the time [those with ADHD] are 18, you’ll have taken all these aptitude tests that are studying parts of the brain that have not developed yet.
Those with ADHD, however, often excel in areas like abstract thinking, creative problem-solving, resilience, and empathyall of which are seeing heightened value by employers in the age of artificial intelligence.
Its better than humans at many of the tasks that people who are neurodivergent struggle with, OConnor says. Skills that are aligned with being an entrepreneur, skills that align with communication, skills that align with problem-solvingthose are the things that AI can’t do better than humans yet.
People with ADHD often demonstrate certain natural strengths and challenges. By sheer coincidence, many of the challenges can now be mitigated using AI tools. And at the same time, many of the ADHD advantageslike creative problem-solving, abstract thinking, and intuitionare seen as increasingly valuable in an AI-enabled world.
AI Excels Where ADHD-ers Often Fall Short
Those with ADHD often struggle with routine processes, time management, and processing large volumes of information. But AI tools are proving effective in helping them overcome those gaps.
Rather than sitting still and paying attention for long periods in an academic lecture or a meeting, for example, AI software can now record that information, transcribe it, and highlight key points in a more condensed format.
Traditional environments are not designed for them; they are designed for the neurotypical person. And I think AI can help level the playing field, says Rebecca Koniahgari, the founder of Bryge AI, a tool that helps neurotypical people better communicate with ADHD-ers (or “bridge the gap,” the inspiration for the product’s name).
The New York-based engineer says she developed the product to better communicate with colleagues and friends who have been diagnosed with the condition. Instead of asking people with ADHD to adapt their communication style, Bryge AI is intended to be used by those who love, live, or work with someone who has ADHD.
Im neurotypical, and the burden of communication has always been on the other person [with ADHD], so lets meet them halfway, Koniahgari says.
The online app allows users to input a message and then translates it into a more ADHD-friendly structure that emphasizes clarity, brevity, and emotional intelligenceflagging potential issues, such as language, that might trigger anxiety, lack clarity, or use negative framing. After launching the prototype she developed at a hackathon event hosted by AI coding platform Bolt, Koniahgari was awarded a silver medal for Bryge AI at the 2025 Stevie Awards for Women in Business.
Now, Koniahgari says shes looking to integrate the technology into other AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude AI, and eventually into workplace communication platforms like Slack, to make it even more accessible and widely available.
ADHD-ers Often Excel Where AI Falls Short
Just as the technology can help fill the gaps where ADHD-ers struggle the most, ADHD-ers seem well positioned to fill the gaps where the technology often struggles, like with creative problem-solving, out-of-the-box thinking, and adaptability.
According to a recent study conducted by researchers at Drexel University, those with ADHD tend to solve problems using insight rather than analytical skills. Instead of working out problems in steps, their brains often make subconscious connections that result in an aha moment of insight.
We hypothesized that people who have stronger ADHD symptoms would solve more of these puzzles with an a-ha moment, with insight, and that turned out to be true, explains John Kounios, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at Drexel University, and one of the papers coauthors.
The thing that was surprisingalthough, in retrospect, it makes perfect senseis that the people who solved the most puzzles were the ones who were lowest in ADHD symptoms and [who were] highest in ADHD symptoms.
The study asked participants a series of questions that are commonly used to screen for ADHD symptoms, and only included participants who had not been diagnosed with, or weren’t taking medication for, a cognitive disorder. Kounios explains that those who demonstrate more ADHD symptoms excel at solving problems using insight, those with the fewest symptoms also tend to excel by using analytical reasoning, while those in the middle arent particularly good at either.
The chatbots do not do this kind of spontaneous cognition that humans do, so human creativity sets the agenda, Kounios says. What people who have ADHD are good at is coming up with solutions to problems that no one knew they had.
A Team Effort Between the Neurotypical, Neurodivergent, and AI
Kounios warns, however, that like other technology tools, there is a fine line between assistance and distractionand AI could pose challenges to those who are already struggling to maintain focus.
It would require the person with ADHD to have the discipline to use chatbots n [a productive] way, he says. Certainly, it can be a rabbit hole that people can fall into.
That is why Kounios believes that people can best leverage their unique strengths and limit their natural challenges when they solve problems using the latest AI tools alongside teammates who think differently.
There’s research literature on the benefits of having sort of diverse teams,” he says. “You want to have some people who are older and some people who are younger . . . male and female . . . all kinds of different people. Kounios adds that similar research is proving the same for neurodiversity.
I think it’s also good to have a mixture of cognitive profilessome people who are going to be more scattered, less focused, maybe more creative, along with people who are much more analytical, focused, and systematic.
Three AI companiesOpenAI, Google, and Perplexityare on the verge of receiving approval to sell their technology, hosted on their own cloud systems, directly to the government, a person familiar with the matter tells Fast Company. That authorization will be on a low impact and pilot level, the person said, but constitutes a major step toward independence.
That independence could help those companies avoid some of the complications created by ongoing partnerships between AI firms and longtime government tech contractors. As large language models have gone mainstream, AI companies have often relied on tech firms that have already passed arduous government security reviewsincluding Microsoft, Palantir, and Amazon Web Servicesto host their chatbots for federal users. In the early days, these partnerships made it easier for AI labs to quickly get their tech in front of government officials, but also meant ceding at least some control over when and how their AI was made available.
The downside of that kind of dependence is now playing out in the brewing feud between Anthropic and the Pentagon, which appears to have been fueled, in part, by its partnership with Palantir. The Defense Department is threatening to cancel a $200 million contract after Anthropic requested limits on the use of its AI for certain applications, including autonomous weapons and mass surveillance.
Anthropics Claude model was made available to military officials with the help of Palantir’s systems and was even used in the U.S. operation to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, according to reports. According to Semafor, tensions mounted after an Anthropic official asked a Palantir executive how Claude had been used in the operation, prompting concern inside the Pentagon about the companys willingness to support military applications.
This is all to say that not relying on a company like Palantir makes selling to the government far less complicated. In pursuit of that independence, OpenAI, Perplexity, and Google applied for, and received, expedited review of their cloud systems last year under a federal security initiative called FedRAMP 20x. Now, Fast Company can report, theyre almost certain to be approved. These approvals are separate from any decision by a specific federal agency to purchase their products, but they show the companies have taken concrete steps to engage the government on their own terms.
Anthropic, by contrast, has leaned heavily on partners like Palantir to help sell its technology to government customers. The company does not appear to have participated in FedRAMP 20x, though its not clear why. Still, the question of independence is one Anthropic has publicly acknowledged. We would also like to be able to directly provide services to governments and not necessarily go through a partner at all times, Michael Sellito, the companys head of global affairs, told FedScoop in 2024.
Neither Palantir nor Anthropic responded to Fast Companys request for comment.
Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of Swedish fintech company Klarna, says the organization is set to drastically downsize. And he says he shares his outlook on the workforce with another CEO: Anthropics Dario Amodei.
Siemiatkowski made the comments on the 20 VC podcast with Harry Stebbings earlier this week, where the CEO didn’t deny that the company has been steadily shrinking.The CEO said that currently the company has about 3,000 employees. That’s down from 7,000 just four years ago. In another four, he says there will likely be less than 2,000a reduction of one-third.
Siemiatkowski cited both layoffs and the employees leaving the company and not being replaced, and explained that AI’s integration allows for fewer employees.Klarna’s slimming down comes even as buy now, pay later (BNPL) services are booming. Around 30% of Americans say they have used them, according to a 2025 Bankrate report. And in 2025, according to a PartnerCentric survey, 35% said they planned to use the services even more. The popularity is driven by the fact that Klarna, like other BNPL options, allows shoppers to split purchases into interest-free installments, pay within 30 days, or even opt for longer-term financing options. Likewise, thousands of retailers now accept BNPL.
Still, the success of such businesses no longer seems to equate to the need for more employees, as AI’s impact looms largersomething some leaders have been increasingly warning about.
Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei wrote of his gravest concerns about AI in a recent essay that included items like loss of autonomy, “misuse for destruction” and “powerful AI” which he writes is “definitely coming.”
Amodei writes: “I think it should be clear that this is a dangerous situationa report from a competent national security official to a head of state would probably contain words like ‘the single most serious national security threat weve faced in a century, possibly ever.’ It seems like something the best minds of civilization should be focused on.” The CEO also predicted AI could cut 50 percent of all white-collar entry-level jobs in the next one to five years, doubling down on a stance he’s warned about previously. Worryingly, Klarna’s CEO doesn’t disagree with Amodei’s stance, acknowledging that he’s “in Dario’s camp” on concerns around AI.
“I want to be honest about the fact that I do think there’s going to be a very big shift,” Siemiatkowski said on the podcast.
Specifically, he echoed the concerns around job loss. “I’m an optimist at heart, but I also want to be a realist around what’s going to happen in the shorter term, and it’s going to be a lot of turmoil in this.”
Regardless, while the CEO seemed to express some major concerns around AI’s rapid advancements, Siemiatkowski has leaned into them heavily. In 2024, he announced that AI could handle a growing number of jobs as the company paused hiring and cut 2,000 employees. But it wasn’t long before customer satisfaction dipped, and the company had to scramble to reassign workers to customer support to handle the fallout.
The CEO later took to X to explain what went wrong, writing that he was “tremendously embarrassed” about the turn of events.
Fast Company reached out to Klarna to inquire on whether the company would scale back its relationship with AI. A representative said Klarna “did not lean too much into AI,” but its “thinking on human customer service” has changed.
The representative continued, “When you automate a large amount of the simpler customer service requests, you are left with the most complex and sensitive cases . . . So we have begun to directly hire a small number of human agents directly employed by Klarna, not at outsourced providers.”
Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of Swedish fintech company Klarna, says the organization is set to employ drastically fewer people. And he says he shares his outlook on the workforce with another CEO: Anthropics Dario Amodei.
Siemiatkowski made the comments on the 20 VC podcast with Harry Stebbings earlier this week, where the CEO didn’t deny that the company has been steadily shrinking.The CEO said that currently the company has about 3,000 employees. That’s down from 7,000 just four years ago. In another four, he says there will likely be less than 2,000a reduction of one-third.
Siemiatkowsk said employees leaving the company are not being replaced, and explained that AI’s integration allows for fewer employees.Klarna’s slimming down comes even as buy now, pay later (BNPL) services are booming. Around 30% of Americans say they have used them, according to a 2025 Bankrate report. And in 2025, according to a PartnerCentric survey, 35% said they planned to use the services even more. The popularity is driven by the fact that Klarna, like other BNPL options, allows shoppers to split purchases into interest-free installments, pay within 30 days, or even opt for longer-term financing options. Likewise, thousands of retailers now accept BNPL.
Still, the success of such businesses no longer seems to equate to the need for more employees, as AI’s impact looms largersomething some leaders have been increasingly warning about.
Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei wrote of his gravest concerns about AI in a recent essay that included items like loss of autonomy, “misuse for destruction” and “powerful AI” which he writes is “definitely coming.”
Amodei writes: “I think it should be clear that this is a dangerous situationa report from a competent national security official to a head of state would probably contain words like ‘the single most serious national security threat weve faced in a century, possibly ever.’ It seems like something the best minds of civilization should be focused on.” The CEO also predicted AI could remove the need for 50 percent of all white-collar entry-level jobs in the next one to five years, doubling down on a stance he’s warned about previously. Worryingly, Klarna’s CEO doesn’t disagree with Amodei’s stance, acknowledging that he’s “in Dario’s camp” on concerns around AI.
“I want to be honest about the fact that I do think there’s going to be a very big shift,” Siemiatkowski said on the podcast.
Specifically, he echoed the concerns around job loss. “I’m an optimist at heart, but I also want to be a realist around what’s going to happen in the shorter term, and it’s going to be a lot of turmoil in this.”
Regardless, while the CEO seemed to express some major concerns around AI’s rapid advancements, Siemiatkowski has leaned into them heavily. In 2024, he announced that AI could handle a growing number of jobs as the company paused hiring and reduced its size by 2,000 employees. But, as Business Insider reported, it wasn’t long before customer satisfaction dipped, and the company had to scramble to reassign workers to customer support to handle the fallout. (Klarna says that because AI can handle the simple requests, the ones remaining are more complex and required hiring new customer support agents).
Fast Company reached out to Klarna to inquire on whether the company would scale back its relationship with AI. A representative said Klarna “did not lean too much into AI,” but its “thinking on human customer service” has changed.
The representative continued, “When you automate a large amount of the simpler customer service requests, you are left with the most complex and sensitive cases . . . So we have begun to directly hire a small number of human agents directly employed by Klarna, not at outsourced providers.”
This article has been updated to reflect the fact that Klarna’s reduction in size has been due to attrition, not to layoffs. Additionally, we have removed a reference to a social media post by Siemiatkowski that was taken out of context.
When I cofounded Brilliant Earth in 2005, e-commerce was still in its infancy. I believed technology could reshape the jewelry industry entirelychanging how customers find pieces they love, personalizing their own designs, and reimagining the customer experience. We launched as a digital-first venture to do just that.
Now, two decades into our pioneering digital journey, I’ve realized something surprising: Our most sophisticated online tools have actually made in-person interactions more valuable. I believe the brands leading the next wave of innovation aren’t choosing between digital and physical. They’re using digital excellence to help create meaningful in-person connections and lifelong brand affinity.
BOLSTER HUMAN CONNECTION THROUGH DIGITAL
Over the years, Brilliant Earth introduced several industry firsts. Before we launched, buying diamond jewelry online was unheard of; we became one of the first companies to sell engagement rings and fine jewelry through e-commerce, and were early to offer lab-grown diamonds when few knew what they were. We developed online tools for customers to design their own engagement rings and fine jewelry. But we also understood that the future wouldnt be dominated by digital. Seamlessly integrating online and physical experiences would be key.
Even as digital tools get more sophisticated, leading companies aren’t eliminating the in-person element. They’re doing the opposite: harnessing these innovations to make human touchpoints more meaningful. In doing so, they create branded experiences that feel more personal and authentic than traditional retail was doing.
This transformation spans every retail categoryfrom IKEA’s Place app that lets customers visualize furniture in their homes to Nike’s data-driven inventory localization, based on neighborhood shopping patterns. Even legacy media companies are getting involved: Condé Nast is preparing to launch Vette, a creator-commerce platform using AI-driven tools to help influencers curate personalized storefronts. It bridges the gap between content discovery and purchase decisions.
The key insight for any industry leader is this: Modern shoppers no longer see a divide between online and offline shopping. Both are now intrinsic parts of the customer journey, not opposing concepts. No matter your industry, customers expect each digital tool to serve a dual purpose: enhancing their online experience while creating richer, more meaningful interaction when they choose to engage in person. The companies getting this right aren’t using digital tools to replace human touchpoints. They’re giving their teams better information, so every interaction feels more personal and valuable.
3 PILLARS OF NEXT-GENERATION EXPERIENCE
As I look toward the future, I see three fundamental principles driving the evolution of exceptional customer experiences:
1. Invest in tech-powered personalization: Digital tools that recognize customers across all touchpoints are delivering increasingly sophisticated personalization. Take Ralph Lauren’s “Ask Ralph,” which launched last fall. Its like having a personal stylist in your pocketone who knows the brands entire archive, drawing upon that knowledge to provide personalized styling advice, complete with live inventory. The experience feels like a natural extension of the world Ralph has built for almost 60 years.
In the big box world, Walmart is using AI features like a personalized algorithm that can predict and preempt customer needs, including frequency and quantity of orders. It expanded testing of a GenAI shopping assistant to help customers make the best choices for their needs. At Brilliant Earth, we’ve taken this approach into our showrooms where we use dozens of customer data points to curate each appointment and continue that personalized journey long after customers leave our stores. But we’ve also learned to lean into what our customers find most special: the unique guidance and expertise they get from our jewelry specialists. The goal is to build unified systems that remember customer preferences no matter how they shop with you, so every interaction feels personal and connected.
2. Focus on immersive technologies to eliminate friction: Deploying smart technologies to allow customers to experience products before purchasing will fundamentally change how customers interact with your brand world. Released last summer, Warby Parker’s new AI-powered Advisor feature scans customers’ faces to capture style preferences and measurements, then recommends glasses while offering virtual try-on capabilities that calculate frame sizes.
And Sephora launched its latest digital extension this fall called My Sephora Storefront, where creators can build their own beauty shops inside Sephora’s website and app, so shoppers never have to leave the platform. These integrations eliminate the traditional friction points between discovery and purchase, and allow customers to experience products virtually before committing.
3. Emphasize human-AI collaboration: The most successful AI implementations preserve authentic human connections while augmenting capabilities. Condé Nast’s Vette platform demonstrates another approach by using AI to handle complex backend operationslike inventory management, product recommendations, and sales analytics. This allows creators to focus on what humans do best: building authentic relationships with their audiences and providing personal curation reflecting their unique voice and taste. The best AI implementations don’t replace peoplethey make them better at their jobs. Smart companies are learning to use AI to give their teams insights about individual customers, making every interaction more relevant without losing the human touch that builds real loyalty.
THE NEXT WAVE OF INNOVATION
I’m proud of how far we’ve come in using innovation to enable self-expression and connect with authentic human needs at Brilliant Earth. But more than that, I’m energized by the opportunities ahead.
Todays digital transformation has given us capabilities that seemed impossible just a few years ago. While there are many questions about AI’s future impact on jobs and human connection to be answered, the companies and leaders succeeding right now aren’t using AI to eliminate human contact. They’re using it to make those human moments count even more. Those who get this right will reshape the next generation of retail.
Beth Gerstein is the cofounder and CEO of Brilliant Earth.
Mark Zuckerberg and opposing lawyers dueled in a Los Angeles courtroom on Wednesday, where the Meta CEO answered questions about young peoples use of Instagram, his congressional testimony, and internal advice hes received about being authentic and not robotic.
Zuckerberg’s testimony is part of an unprecedented social media trial that questions whether Meta’s platforms deliberately addict and harm children.
Attorneys representing the plaintiff, a now 20-year-old woman identified by the initials KGM, claim her early use of social media addicted her to the technology and exacerbated depression and suicidal thoughts. Meta Platforms and Googles YouTube are the two remaining defendants in the case, which TikTok and Snap have settled.
Beginning his questioning, the plaintiff’s attorney Mark Lanier laid out three options of what people can do regarding vulnerable people: help them, ignore them, or prey upon them and use them for our own ends. Zuckerberg said he agrees the last option is not what a reasonable company should do, saying, I think a reasonable company should try to help the people that use its services.
When he was asked about his compensation, Zuckerberg said he has pledged to give almost all of his money to charity, focusing on scientific research. Lanier asked him how much money he has pledged to victims impacted by social media, to which Zuckerberg replied, I disagree with the characterization of your question.
Lanier also asked Zuckerberg about what he characterized as extensive media training, including for testimonies like the one he was giving in court. Lanier pointed to an internal document about feedback on Zuckerberg’s tone of voice on his own social media, imploring him to come off as authentic, direct, human, insightful and real, and instructing him to not try hard, fake, robotic, corporate or cheesy in his communication.
Zuckerberg pushed back against the idea that hes been coached on how to respond to questions or present himself, saying those offering the advice were just giving feedback.
Regarding his media appearances and public speaking, Zuckerberg said, I think Im actually well known to be sort of bad at this.
The Meta CEO has long been mocked online for appearing robotic and, when he was younger, nervous when speaking publicly. In 2010, during an interview with renowned tech journalists Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, he was sweating so profusely that Swisher asked him if he wanted to take off the hoodie that was his uniform at the time.
Lanier spent a considerable stretch of his limited time with Zuckerberg asking about the companys age verification policies.
I dont see why this is so complicated, Zuckerberg said after a lengthy back-and-forth, reiterating that the companys policy restricts users under the age of 13 and that they work to detect users who have lied about their ages to bypass restrictions.
Zuckerberg mostly stuck to his talking points, referencing his goal of building a platform that is valuable to users and, on multiple occasions, saying he disagreed with Laniers characterization of his questions or of Zuckerbergs own comments.
Zuckerberg has testified in other trials and answered questions from Congress about youth safety on Meta’s platforms, and he apologized to families at that hearing whose lives had been upended by tragedies they believed were because of social media. This trial, though, marks the first time Zuckerberg will answer similar questions in front of a jury. And, again, bereaved parents are expected to be in the limited courtroom seats available to the public.
The case, along with two others, has been selected as a bellwether trial, meaning its outcome could impact how thousands of similar lawsuits against social media companies are likely to play out.
A Meta spokesperson said the company strongly disagrees with the allegations in the lawsuit and said they are confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people.
One of Meta’s attorneys, Paul Schmidt, said in his opening statement that the company is not disputing that KGM experienced mental health struggles, but rather disputing that Instagram played a substantial factor in those struggles. He pointed to medical records that showed a turbulent home life, and both he and an attorney representing YouTube argue she turned to their platforms as a coping mechanism or a means of escaping her mental health struggles.
Zuckerberg’s testimony comes a week after that of Adam Mosseri, the head of Meta’s Instagram, who said in the courtroom that he disagrees with the idea that people can be clinically addicted to social media platforms. Mosseri maintained that Instagram works hard to protect young people using the service, and said it’s not good for the company, over the long run, to make decisions that profit for us but are poor for peoples well-being.
Much of Mosseri’s questioning from the plaintiff’s lawyer, Mark Lanier, centered on cosmetic filters on Instagram that changed peoples appearance a topic that Lanier is sure to revisit with Zuckerberg. He is also expected to face questions about Instagrams algorithm, the infinite nature of Metas feeds and other features the plaintiffs argue are designed to get users hooked.
Meta is also facing a separate trial in New Mexico that began last week.
Kaitlyn Huamani and Barbara Ortutay, AP technology writers
A new $7.25 billion settlement between Bayer and a group of cancer patients could wrap up a huge wave of lawsuits against the company over allegations that it didnt warn consumers about cancer risks associated with the weedkiller Roundup.
Bayer faces more than 180,000 claims over Roundup, which contains the herbicide glyphosate the chemical at the center of the controversy. Most of those claims are from people who used the weedkiller, which is sold at any hardware or garden store, at home. The lawsuits have prompted Bayer to pull glyphosate out of many products under the Roundup brand, though glyphosate is still commonly used by farmers and in the agriculture business broadly.
The science around glyphosate is controversial. The Environmental Protection Agency has said that glyphosate is not likely to cause cancer in users if applied as directed, and does not require companies selling it to include a warning about links to cancer. The World Health Organizations cancer agency classified the chemical as a substance likely to cause cancer in humans more than a decade ago, though those findings faced scrutiny a few years later over reports that the published version differed from a draft.
Just last month, a landmark study determining that glyphosate didnt pose a risk to human health was retracted, 25 years after its publication. The retraction, prompted by emails revealing Monsantos influence, undermines a longstanding regulatory foundation that has cited the key research for decades.
A long battle
The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments over Bayers effort to fend off an onslaught of cancer-related lawsuits over Roundup in April. While the new settlement proposal wont affect that case, it could help both Bayer and the plaintiffs hedge their bets if the Supreme Court doesnt side in their favor.
Bayer, a German pharmaceutical and biotech giant, is best known for making the common pain reliever Aspirin. The company acquired Roundup maker Monsanto in 2018 for $63 billion, betting that owning a major player in the agriculture business would diversify its business and pay dividends down the road as farming supplies boomed. That hasnt come to pass, and Monsantos costly litigation has further dragged Bayers share price down from its highs around a decade ago. Today, Bayer is worth less than the price it once paid for Monsanto.
Hundreds of thousands of lawsuits
Out of the cases against Bayer over Roundup so far, only a sliver were decided by a jury, yielding 13 decisions favoring the pharmaceutical giant and 11 siding with plaintiffs. Last year, a jury in Georgia ordered Bayer to pay $2.1 billion in damages to a plaintiff who suffers from non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a cancer that begins in white blood cells. Some other cases have been resolved in separate settlements, but many remain unresolved.
Under the terms of the proposed settlement, Bayer would make payments into a designated fund on a yearly basis for 21 years, which could total up to $7.25 billion, to resolve most of the outstanding Roundup lawsuits. That money would then be doled out to people based on their Roundup usage, age of cancer diagnosis and the severity of their disease.
Under the settlements terms, agricultural and industrial workers who faced regular exposure to the products chemicals could receive an average of $165,000 if they were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma under the age of 60. Residential users, those diagnosed later in life, and those with less aggressive cancer could receive tens of thousands in compensation.
Bayer has said that it could still cancel the settlement, which does not yet have court approval, if too many plaintiffs decide to opt out and reject its terms.
Supreme Court poised to decide
Last month, the Supreme Court said that it would hear a case on the issue in order to determine if federal laws protect Bayer, which complies with the Environmental Protection Agencys rules, from lawsuits filed in state courts. The EPA does not require products including glyphosate to be sold with a cancer warning.
Bayer praised the Supreme Courts decision to take the case, arguing that farmers need regulatory clarity around the widely used product and calling the milestone an important part of its effort to significantly contain litigation around Roundup. It is time for the U.S. legal system to establish that companies should not be punished under state laws for complying with federal warning label requirements, Bayer CEO Bill Anderson said.
