Ever feel like your solo business is running you into the ground? Solopreneurs don’t have the luxury of handing off tasks to a team. Everything lands on your plate, and there’s never enough time.
AI won’t run your business for you (despite what some of the big AI companies would have you believe). But it can give you back hours every week. Some tools are AI-first, meaning their primary job is to perform an AI-driven task. You can also look at adding AI features inside tools youre already using.
I rely heavily on AI in my solo business. I can get more done in less time, without sacrificing quality in any of my work.
Here are a few AI tools that can make a huge difference in a solo business.
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Meeting notetakers
An AI notetaker was the first AI-first tool I added to my business. My notetaker auto-joins my calls, records the conversations, transcribes everything, and sends me a recap with action items. Instead of scrambling to remember what a client said three months ago, I have a searchable archive of every meeting.
This solves a real problem: You can be fully present during the conversation rather than taking notes by hand. You also dont risk missing something important, which can happen with manual note-taking.
Tools: Otter, Fireflies, Fathom
Knowledge systems
Over time, solopreneurs accumulate a mountain of valuable material: proposals, client emails, blog drafts, research notes, and random thoughts. Most of it gets buried in folders (or notebooks), which makes it hard to track through your thinking or find related ideas.
A personal knowledge system changes that. It creates a searchable “second brain”like your own Wikipedia. Add AI into the mix, and you can chat with your own content instead of digging through your notes and files. Think of AI as a personal research assistant who has read everything you’ve ever written.
Tools: Google NotebookLM, Tana, Notion AI, Reflect
Standard operating procedures
Even if you work alone now, you might eventually bring on help (like a virtual assistant, a subcontractor, or a specialist for a specific project). When that happens, you’ll need documented processes. The problem is that writing step-by-step instructions for everything you do is tedious. Most solopreneurs never get around to it.
AI tools solve this by recording your screen as you complete a task and automatically generating written documentation. You walk through a process once, and the tool creates a standard operating procedure (SOP), complete with screenshots and written instructionswithout any extra effort on your part.
SOP tools are uncannily good. I usually only need to make small tweaks to the written version, and sometimes dont need to make any edits at all. I store them on my Google Drive so I can easily share them if needed.
Tools: Loom AI, Scribe, Tango
A business coach
One of the hardest parts of working solo is not having colleagues to bounce ideas off of. You make decisions about pricing, clients, marketing, etc., without a gut check from anyone else.
AI chatbots can serve as an on-demand sounding board. They won’t replace your judgment, since they cant understand the nuance of the real world and human relationships. But they’re useful for thinking through options, drafting difficult emails, or walking you through the different angles of an idea you might have.
In Claude, Ive created a Business Coach project. Ive uploaded a lot of files so Claude has context, including information about who I am, the work I do, my brand, and the potential clients Im targeting. When Im trying to think through something, Claude asks me questions. By responding, I clarify my own thinking.
The key is prompting well. The more context you give about your business, your situation, and any constraints (like your time or finances), the more useful the output.
Tools: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini
AI features embedded in existing tools
Every company has been rushing to add AI features to its products. Some are good. Some are included with your existing subscription, while others treat AI as an add-on.
For example, I rely on Airtable to run the back-end portion of my business. AI-powered field agents have been able to accomplish a lot of tasks I used to do manually.
A few other ideas:
AI-powered transaction matching in accounting software like QuickBooks or Kick can categorize your expenses and spot anomalies.
AI scheduling assistants in tools like Motion or Reclaim can help you plan your day and protect your calendar from too many meetings.
AI email features in apps like Superhuman or Spark can draft replies or prioritize your inbox.
The tools you already pay for are getting better. If AI has been added since you originally signed up, the features are worth exploring.
Start with one new tool
AI fluency is becoming a baseline skill, like knowing how to use a spreadsheet. And its becoming ubiquitous: Apps will keep adding AI features to make work easier and faster.
But you don’t need to master everything at once. Pick the tool that solves an obvious problem or can complete a tas that drains a lot of time from your day. Figure out how to get the most out of it before adding the next thing.
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The 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics are giving people at home a first-of-its-kind, first-person view of the Winter Games, all thanks to a fleet of custom-built drones.
The small, agile drones can be spottednot to mention heardbuzzing across Olympic venues, and they’re giving what broadcasters call a “third dimension” to the viewing experience. Instead of capturing the action only from fixed or semifixed cameras on cables and cranes, operators of these drones give viewers an athletes perspective as they race down slopes and around tracks.
“This is the closest you can get to feeling a jump,” ski-jumper-turned-drone-operator Jonas Sandell said in a statement.
A drone captures Team Great Britains Makayla Gerken Schofield during the women’s Olympic moguls qualifying event on February 10, 2026, in Livigno, Italy. [Photo: Getty Images]
It’s a thrilling perspective, and it’s at the heart of the visual concept for the Games, which is about showing movement in sport.
“It’s about capturing the motion of the athletenot just the result, but the sensation of speed, the tactics, the technique, and the environment in which they compete,” Mark Wallace, Olympic Broadcasting Services chief content officer, said in a statement.
The custom drones are designed for agility and speed, with inverted blades and propellers mounted on the bottom so they can make smoother flight curves and tighter turns, providing viewers with immersive aerial coverage. What the drones are not designed for? Endurance; their batteries only last an average of two athlete runs before having to be replaced, according to the Olympics media guide.
Broadcasters are deploying 25 drones during the Games, including these agile, custom drones as well as the standard drones used for scenic and transitional coverage.
Each of the custom first-person-view drones is operated by a team of threea pilot, director, and technicianand they’re supported by technical crew. Heated support cabins feature battery charging stations, spare drones, and receivers the drone teams use to communicate.
Drones have made cameos at the Olympics before. More than 1,218 drones put on a light show during the 2018 PyeongChang Games, and drones also filmed mountain biking for the 2024 Paris Games.
For Milan Cortina, drones are being deployed more widely than ever for a slew of events, including bobsled, luge, ski mountaineering, and indoor speed skating. For sliding sports, the drones are following athletes traveling at speeds of up to nearly 90 mph. It’s a view of the Olympics viewers have never seen before.
A little over a year after TikTok temporarily went dark in the United States and users were greeted with a message explaining that a law banning TikTok has been enacted, those same U.S. users opened the app to find a pop-up message requiring them to agree to new terms before they could continue scrolling.
The new terms of service and privacy policy went into effect on January 22, 2026, following the apps sale from ByteDance to TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, a majority American-owned company that reportedly will control U.S. users data and content and the apps recommendation algorithm.
People see this kind of pop-up all the time, and according to research, the biggest lie on the internet is that people ever read anything before clicking agree. But given many users unease about the ownership changeincluding fears of swapping Chinese surveillance for U.S. surveillanceit is unsurprising that this time, people paid attention. Screenshots of legal language spread quickly online, accompanied by warnings about sweeping new data collection.
Im both a TikTok content creator and a tech ethics and policy researcher who has studied website terms and conditions, especially whether people read them (they dont) and how well they understand them (they also dont). When I saw the outrage on social media, I immediately dove down a terms of service and privacy policy rabbit hole that had me tumbling into the wayback machine and also looking at similar policies on other apps and TikToks policies in other countries.
In the end, I discovered that in the most widely shared examples, the language that sounded most alarming had either hardly changed at all or described practices that are fairly standard across social media.
Some changes arent really changes
Consider the list of sensitive personal information in TikToks new privacy policy, which includes items like sexual orientation and immigration status. Many users interpreted this list as evidence that TikTok had begun collecting more personal data. However, this exact same list appeared in the previous version of TikToks U.S. privacy policy, which was last updated in August 2024. And in both cases, the language focuses on information you disclosefor example, in your content or in responses to user surveys.
This language is in place presumably to comply with state privacy laws such as Californias Consumer Privacy Act, which includes requirements for disclosure of the collection of certain categories of information. TikToks new policy specifically cited the California law. Metas privacy policy lists very similar categories, and this language overall tends to signal regulatory compliance by disclosing existing data collection rather than additional surveillance.
Location tracking also prompted concerns. The new policy states that TikTok may collect precise location data, depending on your settings. This is a change, but its also common practice for the major social media apps.
The change also brings the companys U.S. policy in line with TikTok policies in other countries. For example, the companys European Economic Area privacy policy has very similar language, and users in the U.K. have to grant precise location access to use a Nearby Feed for finding events and businesses near them.
Though apps have other ways to approximate location, such as IP address, a user will have to grant permission through their phones location services in order for TikTok to access precise location via GPSpermission that TikTok has not yet requested from U.S. users. However, the new policy opens the door for users having the option to grant that permission in the future.
This CBC report describes the aftermath of the TikTok sale and why many users are deleting the app.
No news does not equal good news
None of this is to say that users are wrong to be cautious. Even if TikToks legal language around data privacy is standard for the industry, who controls your data and your feed is still very relevant. Uninstalls for the app spiked 130% in the days following the change, with many users expressing concern about the ties that the new owners have to President Donald Trumpnotably Oracle, the company led by Trump supporter Larry Ellison.
It also didnt help that TikToks first week under American ownership was a complete disaster. Severe technical problemslater attributed by TikTok to a data center power failurehappened to coincide with the new ownership announcement, fueling widespread concerns about censorship of content critical of the U.S. government. Perhaps some users remembered that Trump once joked about making the platform 100% MAGA.
But regardless of what actually happened, at this point, distrusting tech companies isnt exactly irrational.
Clarity and trust
Conflating very real structural risks with unfamiliar sentences in legal documents, however, can obscure what is actually changing and what isnt. The misleading information about TikToks policy changes that spread across social media is also vidence of a well-known design failure: Most tech policies arent made to be read.
My own work revealed that these documents are often written at a college or even graduate school reading level. Another analysis once calculated that if every American read the privacy policy for each website they visit for just a year, it would cost $785 billion in lost leisure and productivity time.
So the discussion about TikToks policies is a case study in the deep mismatch between how tech companies communicate and how people interpret risk, particularly in an era of exceptionally low trust in both Big Tech and government. Right now, ambiguity doesnt feel neutral. It feels threatening.
Instead of dismissing these reactions as overblown, I believe that companies should recognize that if a huge portion of their user base assumes the worst, thats not a reading comprehension problem; its a trust problem. So writing data privacy policies more legibly is a start, but rebuilding any kind of inherent trust in the stewardship of that data is probably the more important challenge.
Casey Fiesler is an associate professor of information science at the University of Colorado Boulder.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Below, Maya Shankar shares five key insights from her new book, The Other Side of Change: Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans.
Shankar is a cognitive scientist and host of the podcast A Slight Change of Plans. She served as a senior policy adviser in the Obama White House, where she founded and chaired the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team. She was also appointed as the first behavioral science advisor to the United Nations.
Whats the big idea?
What if the life upheavals that shake you most could also be your greatest opportunities? Change can feel like loss, but it can also be the start of a stronger, reimagined self.
Listen to the audio version of this Book Biteread by Shankar herselfbelow, or in the Next Big Idea app.
1. Our brains arent wired to like uncertainty.
We tend to dislike uncertainty, and a big change can inject a whole lot of uncertainty into our lives. Theres a fascinating scientific study showing that people are more stressed when they think they have a 50% chance of receiving an electric shock than when they think they have a 100% chance. We would rather know that something bad is going to happen than to wrestle with any ambiguity.
Another reason change is scary is because it involves loss of some kind. By definition, change means were moving from an old way of being into a new one. We may find that, in addition to feeling fear, we also feel profound grief for what were losing. And when a big change happens, we can experience the loss of our self-identity. We might think, Who am I now that change has taken away what I once was?
2. A robust, expansive self-identity can make you more resilient to unexpected changes.
As a kid, I was a budding concert violinist who studied at Juilliard under Itzhak Perlman. A sudden hand injury ended my dreams of becoming a professional overnight. I distinctly remember grieving, not just the loss of the instrument, but also who I was fundamentally.
Fast-forward several decades, and I again found myself grappling with an unexpected, unwanted change in my personal life. After years of navigating numerous obstacles and disappointments, my husband and I were finally on the cusp of starting a family together. But life made other plans. I found myself not only grieving pregnancy losses, but also the loss of my identity as an aspiring mom.
During these moments, I wish someone had given me this guidance: Try to define yourself not simply by what you doroles or labelsbut by why you do those things. For example, Ive discovered that a love of human connection was at the root of my musical and parenting aspirations. I am a person who thrives on emotional connections with others. And just because I lost the violin, that didnt mean I lost what led me to love it in the first place. I now see that its just a matter of finding new outlets to express these parts of myself.
For instance, Ive been able to fulfill my desire for emotional connection through my role as an interviewer for my podcast and through writing this book. Its been freeing and empowering to reimagine myself in this way. By anchoring my identity to why specific pursuits make me light up, Im giving myself a softer landing the next time my what is put at risk. My why will still be there and can serve as the compass that guides me toward my next chapter.
Ask yourself, What is your why? And can you anchor your identity to it? Research shows that you can, and engaging in a self-affirmation exercise could help. This takes only five or 10 minutes. Write out all the identities that you value about yourself that are not threatened by the change. Doing so can zoom you out to a perspective that reminds you that your identity and self-worth do not hinge solely on what life has taken away from you.
3. Distraction can be a healthy, productive coping mechanism.
One narrative that has become pervasive, particularly in Western conversations about wellness, is that the only healthy way to move on from a bad experience is to fully confront it and immerse yourself in your negative feelings. Otherwise, you risk having those emotions resurface in the future with greater force. But recent research on resilience reveals a far more complex story.
Individual differences play a big role in determining what makes for a healthy response. If directly and persistently confronting your negative emotions is working for you, stay the course. But if youre not gravitating toward that method and are doing fine, or if some combination of both approaching and avoiding your negative emotions is your sweet spot, theres no need to feel guilty or fear that you will pay for it later. If something doesnt keep resurfacing, its unlikely that it will suddenly haunt you with greater intensity years down the line.
On a related note, if, in the wake of a change, you or your loved ones enter a state of denial, this reaction can be for the better in the short term. There is a grace in denial, as grief researchers Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler say. It is natures way of letting in only as much as we can handle. Denial can give us a powerful feeling of control, motivation, and hope, which is sometimes the lifeline we need to stay resilient during our hardest moments. One research study explored the recovery trajectories of patients with heart problems. Those with high levels of denial in the short term spent less time in intensive care and had fewer heart-related symptoms during their hospital stays.
4. Change can serve as a critical moment of revelation.
When a bad thing happens, it can feel like the world we know has been destroyed and that were experiencing a personal apocalypse. But apocalypse comes from the Greek word apokalypsis, which means revelation. This etymology is instructive. Change can upend us, but it can also reveal things to us. The unique demands and stresses of a change can uncover surprising things about who we are. Insights that, once revealed, we can use to challenge our self-limiting beliefs or otherwise guide our path moving forward.
Two stories of people I interviewed for my book come to mind. In one, the lingering impact of a biking accident revealed to a woman named Ingrid just how much shame she had been carrying regarding her familys heritage and indigenous practices. Once she understood this, she was able to rework her relationship with her belief system and challenge her own negative attitudes. In another, a woman named Tara had a deeply insecure attachment style and was forced to confront this aspect of herself when facing a big change in midlife. Dealing with this change gave her the impetus to take slow, deliberate steps toward opening herself up to others and letting them in. Over time, she has built a life that brims with love and is full of deep, secure relationships.
Many aspects of our self-identity are far more malleable than we might realize. Taras experience is corroborated by recent research showing that early childhood experiences are far less predictive of adult attachment styles than researchers previously thought. We can take active steps to reshape our attachment styles in adulthood.
5. We are bad at predicting how we will respond to big changes.
When we anticipate how we will respond to a change, we falsely assume that we will be the same person in the future as we are today. This psychological bias is known as the end of history illusion, and it captures the idea that our brains reliably underestimate how much will change in the futre, even though we fully acknowledge that weve changed considerably in the past.
We are always changing, and a major disruption in our lives can accelerate these internal shifts. Simply put, when a big change happens to us, it can lead to profound change from within. We become different people on the other side of change.
We become different people because of the experiences we endure. For this reason, you may be able to endure a negative change far better than you think at the outset, and thats because youre underestimating your own ability to evolve as a result of that change. The relevant question to ask yourself isnt How will I navigate this change? But rather, How will I, with potentially new capabilities, values, and perspectives, navigate this change?
By and large, the people Ive interviewed over the years have felt profound gratitude and awe for the person they became in the aftermath of what they went through. Personally, I was initially skeptical of this. I like to say that I have two allergies: soy and platitudes. But, amazingly, as I was writing this book and going through my own personal change, I witnessed this evolution within myself on the other side of change.
What if we start seeing big disruptions as a chance to reimagine ourselves? Change contains so much opportunity, and my hope is that you will come to feel the same way.
Enjoy our full library of Book Bitesread by the authors!in the Next Big Idea app.
This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
The Super Bowl LX ad blitz was a big budget highwire actfrom Anthropic’s shot at OpenAI to Lady Gaga’s homage to Mr. Rogers and Dunkin’s nostalgia-fueled celeb fest. Autodesk CMO Dara Treseder breaks down what worked, what didnt, and what the ads reveal about where marketing is headed next. Treseder also unpacks the business impact of Bad Bunnys halftime show, and what it signals for the NFL and Apple.
This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by former Fast Company editor-in-chief Robert Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with todays top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode.
I have to say that the on-field game wasn’t much of a contest, kind of a blowout, but plenty of trick plays and Hail Marys in the ad battle. The cost for a 30-second ad this year was somewhere between $8 [million] and $10 million to place. You talk about ROMIreturn on marketing investmentwhat’s worthwhile, what breaks through. Just quick off the bat, any big winners or losers that jumped out at you?
There were some big winners. I think Anthropic was a big winner this year. Rocket and Pepsi were big winners this year. So we can go into details, but off the bat, I would say those were some of the big winners this year.
I saw a lot of mentions in the other lists of the Dunkin ad, the “Good Will Dunkin” spot fronted by Ben Affleck. Does it fit on all of the criteria that you’re looking at?
So I thought that that ad was sincere. You saw a lot of insincere use of celebrity. The only winners this year from a celebrity standpoint were the celebrities who got paid. Okay? A lot of brands used celebrities in ways that they really did not need to do that. Over $250 million was spent on celebrity placements for these Super Bowl ads. That’s a quarter of a billion dollars.
Wow.
And the ROI was really not there. In fact, 60% of the Super Bowl ads this year used celebrities, and many did not use them intentionally or use them well. I think “Good Will Dunkin” was where celebrity use made sense. We all know one thing is true about Ben Affleck. He does like a Jennifer, and he does like Dunkin’ Donuts.
And like some of the more artsy highbrow ads, like Emma Stone for Squarespace or Adrien Brody’s TurboTaxsort of purposely overacting. That was effective or sort of modest?
I think it was modest. I don’t think it quite cut through as well. I would say that the Squarespace one was simple. Get a domain name using Squarespace. Many people might have thought about Squarespace to design their website, but not necessarily like, “I’m not even ready to design yet, but have I gotten my domain name yet?” That “If emmastone.com is unavailable, girl, what you sitting on? Go get your domain name right now”that cut through. I even had my kid say, “Mommy, should I get my domain name?” I was, like, “Wow, this is cutting through all generations right now.” We’ve got an 8-year-old wanting to figure out if he needs to get his domain name or not.
He better. Otherwise, someone else is going to get it.
He better.
Right. In some ways, one of the simplest ads to me that sort of cut through was the Levi’s ad, which just focused on rear ends.
It worked. It worked. My son was, like, “Are we looking at butts? What’s going on here?” But you know what? It showed that: “Look, every human body is original. And whoever you are, we’ve got jeans for you.”
The other ad that you mentioned and was also a bold shot was Anthropic’s jab at OpenAI. Definitely came in hard with their Claude spots. Did they win even before the Super Bowl ad ran?
They won.
Because people were talking about it.
Well, before the Super Bowl ad ran, they were talking about it. Very few times my husband sends me a text about an ad. It grabbed a lot of people. The ads were incredibly well done. When you also think about the 360 strategy of, “Hey, we are going to maximize conversation and ROI,” they absolutely did that. When you take a shot at another company, and the CEO and the CMO of that company start to comment, you know you’ve won because you struck a nerve. Now I think that the proof will be in the pudding. Because now, if they start to bring ads to their platform, the internet will not forgive.
Yes. It’s a strategic business decision to play that up. It’s not just a tagline. You got to live with it.
You got to live with that. You absolutely have to live with that.
There were a lot of AI-related ads. Something like one in four of the ads I was tracking were AI. One of my producers really liked OpenAI’s ad for Codex. Another one hated the Genspark ad, the one with Matthew Broderick, for being tone-deaf about people’s fear of AI. All of these ads around AI. Is it like it was a couple of years ago, where suddenly every ad seemed like it was from a crypto company? Is this a bubble? What does all that mean?
I think the big picture was AI is here to stay. That was the big picture. The ads were not as spot-on or bull’s-eye as they could have been. So there wasn’t a single AI ad that I would say, other than the Anthropic ad, that we talked about. It almost felt like Anthropic was over here, and everybody else was over here. So there was a huge gap. So the AI winner was Anthropic, and everybody else was either meh or even in the loser category. But in general, the AI ads, they were overdone this year.
I would say the overarching theme this year was disappointment. I think a lot of the ads were not that great. There were a few standout ads, and we’ve talked about them. And, I think, a few honorable mentions, and we’ve talked about a few of them as well. But the majority of the ads were a little meh. It’s like, when your agency comes to you and suggests Bowen Yang, Jon Hamm, and Scarlett Johansson in a spot, your question should be: “Why?” And if it’s not clear, maybe don’t do that.
They were just trying to reach every demographic.
It doesn’t work. When you try to speak to everyone, you speak to no one.
In many ways, the biggest statement of the Super Bowl was the halftime show. Bad Bunny, singing in Spanish. At the Super Bowl party that I was at, some folks loved it. Some honestly were put off. “I donÙt understand what he’s saying.” What was the larger impact, do you think?
The best ad of the day, of the night, was Bad Bunny for Bad Bunny. I thought he did an incredible job. And at my Super Bowl party, I was up. I was dancing. I had a great time. Now, there were also people at my Super Bowl that were, like, they were not up, they were not dancing. And I think that was reflective. I think your Super Bowl party and my Super Bowl party were reflective of what’s going on in the world today. The people who didn’t want Bad Bunny there, there was nothing he could have done to have pleased them. So to have tried to please them would have been a failure.
I thought he was a tremendous success because he spoke to the people who he needed to speak to, and he did it in a way that was incredibly authentic to them. From a real life couple getting married, to Lady Gaga performing, to just the joy. The overwhelming thing was joy and unity. He said, “God bless America.” And he said it in English, so everybody could understand that. He had the football that said, “Together, we are America.”
But the America he referred to then wasn’t just the United States of America, right? He referred to all of the countries in the Americaswhich again, turned some people off. There’s risk in that.
I thought what he was sayingand this might be my own little interpretationbut I thought he was talking about all of these people come to America, and then they are American. And that very much resonated with me as an immigrant.
I’ll go a step further and say I thought it was a win for Apple. I thought it was a win for the NFL because they are trying to be global. These are global brands. And guess what? Who is global? Bad Bunny is global. A lot of people all over the world love Bad Bunny. The NFL is trying to go global. You saw that they were even showing the watch parties. Here are people watching the NFL in London. And they’re trying to be more global as an institution.
On a sidewalk, an unassuming junction box sits strapped to a fence. Inside, dozens of keychains, stickers, mini figurines, and other novelties wait to be discovered by eagle-eyed passersby or trinket traders who have traveled across the city to exchange their treasure.
Trinket trading has taken off on social media in recent weeks. The trend first originated in Philadelphia, where Phillys Trinket Trove began documenting the contents of a repurposed junction box on TikTok in September of last year.
@phillytrinkettrove We’ve rebranded and made some upgrades! After a small identity crisis, we’re back as @phillytrinkettrove. Same little box full of joy with a new name and some minor upgrades for use-ability! Come visit and leave some trinkets or take some trinkets. Find a little sunshine in this crazy world! trinket #trinkets #sidewalkjoy #philly #phillypublicart #visitphilly original sound – Philly Trinket Trove
It has since spread nationwide, with communities from New York to San Francisco setting up their own boxes of assorted knick-knacks for anyone to stop by and trade. The only rule: Give a trinket, take a trinket.
@onefinedaynyc The cutest little trinket boxes around NYC! Ive been seeing quite a few of these around West Village and Chelsea and had to share Commerce Street & Bedford Street W12th St & W4th St W23rd St & 10th Ave W20th St & 8th Ave . . . #westvillage #trinkets #ducklibrarynyc Walking Around – Instrumental Version – Eldar Kedem
TikTok creators across the platform have jumped on the trend with enthusiasm, documenting what they find and what they leave behind in vlog-style videos. Others are announcing new trinket box locations, inviting neighbors and fellow social media users to spread the word and join the fun.
@bevvvvs Update! WE MADE IT! It was everything I ever hoped for @sunset.trinket.trade thank you for bringing community together through a shared love of trinkets! #trinkettrade #sfbayarea #sanfrancisco #sunsettrinkettrade #thingstodoinsf show me how – <3
While the trinket boxes are primarily aimed at children, trinkets themselves are having a moment globally. Since hitting the market in 2019, Labubus have become a global phenomenon, sparking a viral craze for the palm-sized monster dolls in 2025. Smiskis and Sonny Angels, both cutesy figurines, have also had their own viral moments as blind boxes continue to populate social feeds. Even Michaels and Walmart have begun carrying their own mystery boxes to capitalize on the trend.
@itsalexissimone Replying to @2amores UMMM DID YOU KNOW @Walmart HAD THESE LABUBU BEAUTY STYLE BLUND BOXES?! Im obsessed actually #walmartfinds #walmartblindbags #beautybublindbox #newatwalmart2025 #blindboxopening original sound – ItsAlexisSimone
In much the same way, the trinket box trend offers a wholesome moment of surprise. Instead of encouraging people to purchase something new, it promotes the more sustainable idea that one persons trash is another persons treasure.
Like little free libraries or geocaches before them, trinket boxes lean into whimsy and analog activities, two trends forecasted for 2026 as antidotes to brainrot and digital fatigue.
Across social media, one of the biggest trends right now is being offline. Analog bags, snail mail and grandma hobbies have all been trending in recent months. The hashtag #AnalogLife is up 330% this year, according to TikTok data shared with Axios, and analog wellness was named a top trend for 2025 by the Global Wellness Summit.
Parents have long expressed concern about the iPad generation and the impact of growing up glued to screens and reliant on technology for perpetual distraction. Here, something as simple as a trinket could offer a small moment of respite in an increasingly saturated technological world. Just make sure to leave something behind for the next person.
Target CEO Michael Fiddelke is reshuffling his leadership team and making other changes shortly after stepping into the top job at the retailer that has struggled operationally.
Rick Gomez, the 13-year Target veteran who oversees the chain’s vast inventory of merchandise, will leave the company. And Jill Sando, the chief merchandising officer overseeing a handful of categories like apparel and home and who has been with the company since 1997, will retire.
Lisa Roath, who oversaw food, essentials, and cosmetics, will take Fiddelke’s previous job as chief operating officer, the company said Tuesday. Cara Sylvester, who had been chief guest experience officer, will become the company’s chief merchandising officer.
The changes will allow Target to move with greater speed, Fiddelke said.
Its the start of a new chapter for Target, and were moving quickly to take action against our priorities that will drive growth within our business, Fiddelke said in a release.
Gomez and Sando will remain with the company for a short time to help with the transition, but the changes become effective Sunday.
Also on Tuesday, the company reiterated its profit guidance. It is also increasing investment in store staffing at stores while eliminating about 500 jobs at distribution centers and regional offices, according to a memo sent to employees that Target shared with The Associated Press. The cuts make up just a tiny fraction of Target’s overall employee count of more than 400,000.
It is the first substantial change under Fiddelke, a 20-year company veteran who took over for Brian Cornell this month. The company’s decision to choose an insider surprised many industry analysts who believe the company needs new ideas as it tries to revive sales.
Target has struggled to find its footing as many Americans have cut back on spending. Customers have also complained of disheveled stores that are missing the budget-priced niche that long ago earned the retailer the nickname Tarzhay.
The company has also been buffeted by consumer boycotts and backlash after it scaled back its corporate diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
It has also faced protests for what some critics see as an insufficient response to President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics in Minneapolis, its hometown, where two U.S. citizens where fatally shot last month by federal agents.
Target has not commented publicly after federal agents detaining two of its employees this month although Fiddelke sent a video message to the companys 400,000 workers calling recent violence incredibly painful.”
Fiddelke was one of 60 CEOs of Minnesota-based companies who signed an open letter in January calling for state, local, and federal officials to find a solution after the fatal shootings.
Anne D’Innocenzio, AP retail writer
Paramount is again sweetening its hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, while again extending the deadline for its tender offer as it scrambles for more shareholder support.
On Tuesday, the Skydance-owned company said it would pay Warner shareholders an added ticking fee if its deal doesn’t go through by the end of the year amounting to 25 cents per share, or a total of $650 million, for every quarter after Dec. 31. Paramount also pledged to fund Warner’s proposed $2.8 billion breakup payout to Netflix under its studio and streaming merger agreement.
The value of Paramount’s offer otherwise remains unchanged. The company is offering to pay $30 per share in cash to Warner’s stakeholders, who now have until March 2 to tender their shares.
In a statement, Paramount CEO David Ellison said that the additional benefits announced Tuesday clearly underscore our strong and unwavering commitment to delivering the full value WBD shareholders deserve for their investment.
Paramount wants to buy Warner’s entire company for $77.9 billion, with a total enterprise value of $108 billion including debt. Beyond studio and streaming operations, that includes Warner’s networks like CNN and Discovery.
But it has a long way to go in terms of getting shareholder support which, according to recent company disclosures, has appeared to decline over the last month. As of Monday, Paramount said that more than 42.3 million Warner shares had been validly tendered and not withdrawn from its bid, down from over 168.5 million Warner shares on Jan. 21.
Warner has about 2.48 billion shares outstanding in series A common stock today. Paramount would need more than 50% to effectively gain control of the company.
Netflix and Warner did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
The new March 2 deadline marks the third time Paramount has pushed back the expiration of its tender offer, which it may keep extending. Paramount has also promised a proxy fight. Last month, the company begun soliciting proxies to challenge Warner’s agreement with Netflix.
Warner’s leadership has consistently backed the deal it struck with Netflix. In December, Netflix agreed to buy Warners studio and streaming business for $72 billion now in an all-cash transaction that the companies have said will speed up the path to a shareholder vote by April. Including debt, the enterprise value of the deal is about $83 billion, or $27.75 per share.
Netflix and Warner have maintained that their agreement is better Paramount’s bid. But Paramount argues that its offer is superior and on Tuesday pointed to a sliding scale value of the Netflix merger, which could range from $21.23 to $27.75 per share, depending on debt spanning from Warner’s previously announced spinoff of its networks business.
Unlike Paramount, Netflix doesn’t want to acquire Warner networks like CNN and Discovery. Under Netflix-Warner’ agreement, Discovery Global would become its own separate public company before their merger is closed.
The prospect of a Warner sale to either company has raised tremendous antitrust concerns from lawmakers worldwide. The U.S. Department of Justice has initiated reviews of both Warner’s agreement with Netflix and Paramount’s hostile bid with all three companies disclosing that they’ve been in contact with the DOJ over requests for more information.
The companies have argued their proposed deals will be good news for consumers and the wider entertainment industry, claiming that merging will give streaming customers more content through bigger libraries. But unions and other trade groups have warned that further consolidation in the industry could result in job losses and less diversity in content with particularly negative consequences for filmmaking.
Wyatte Grantham-Philips, AP business writer
Under questioning from Democrats Tuesday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick acknowledged that he had met with Jeffrey Epstein twice after his 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a child, reversing Lutnick’s previous claim that he had cut ties with the late financier after 2005.
Lutnick again downplayed his relationship with the disgraced financier who was once his neighbor in New York City as he was questioned by Democrats during a subcommittee hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He described their contact as a handful of emails and a pair of meetings that were years apart.
I did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with him, Lutnick told lawmakers.
But Lutnick is facing growing scrutiny, including calls for his resignation, from lawmakers after the release of case files on Epstein contradicted Lutnick’s claims on a podcast last year that he had decided to never be in the room with Epstein again after a 2005 tour of Epstein’s home that disturbed Lutnick and his wife.
The commerce secretary told senators Tuesday that he and his family actually had lunch with Epstein on his private island in 2012 and he had another hour-long engagement at Epstein’s home in 2011. Lutnick, a member of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet, is the highest-profile U.S. official to face bipartisan calls for his resignation amid revelations of his ties to Epstein. His acknowledgement comes as lawmakers are grasping for what accountability looks like amid the revelations contained in what’s known as the Epstein files.
In countries like the United Kingdom, the Epstein files have triggered resignations and the stripping of royal privileges, but so far, U.S. officials have not met the same level of retribution.
Senators want to dig into Lutnick’s ties to Epstein
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, the Democrat who questioned Lutnick, told him, “There’s not an indication that you yourself engaged in any wrongdoing with Jeffrey Epstein. It’s the fact that you believe that you misled the country and the Congress based on your earlier statements.”
Van Hollen, D-Md., stopped short of calling for Lutnick’s resignation on Monday, but requested documentation from Lutnick on any of his ties to Epstein.
It’s absolutely essential that he provide Congress with those documents, given the misrepresentations he’s made, and then we’ll go from there, he said.
Lutnick during the Senate hearing said he would give that request some thought, adding, I have nothing to hide.
However, several Senate Republicans were also questioning Lutnick’s relationship with Epstein. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said the visit to Epstein’s private island would raise questions. And Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told reporters, It’s something I’m concerned with.
Tillis stayed away from calling for Lutnick to leave his post, but added that he would do himself a service by just laying exactly what and what did not happen over the course of what seems to be an interesting relationship that included business entanglements.
A pair of House members call for resignation
Meanwhile, House members who initiated the legislative effort to force the release of the files are calling for Lutnick to resign. Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky called for that over the weekend after emails were released that alluded to the meetings between Lutnick and Epstein.
Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, joined Massie in pressuring Lutnick out of office on Monday.
Based on the evidence, he should be out of the Cabinet, Khanna said.
He added, It’s not about any particular person. In this country, we have to make a decision. Are we going to allow the rich and powerful people who are friends and (had) no problem doing business and showing up with a pedophile who is raping underage girls, are we just going to allow them to skate?
Stephen Groves, Associated Press
Dont feel bad splurging on that $7 latte the next time youre in a mid-afternoon attention slump.
A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association this week provides some strong evidence that drinking coffee and tea is linked to a lower risk of developing dementia. The longitudinal research followed a group of around 130,000 people for more than 40 years, collecting behavioral and health information over the course of their lifetimes.
The results paint a clear picture: People with a habit of drinking two to three cups of coffee or one to two cups of tea on a daily basis demonstrated a lower risk of dementia compared to their less caffeinated peers. People who drank up to five cups of coffee had around 20 percent less risk of dementia, while those who drank one or more cups of tea showed 15 percent less of developing the neurodegenerative condition.
Decaf coffee wasnt linked to the same benefits, according to the new research. Caffeine is the key ingredient that appears to be providing some protection from cognitive decline for coffee and tea drinkers, possibly through its ability to reduce inflammation in the brain. The molecule we rely on to wake us up in the morning has also shown promise in reducing insulin sensitivity and lowering the risk of type 2 diabetes a big risk factor for age-related cognitive decline.
While caffeine appears to be the magic ingredient, other substances in coffee and tea have also been shown to positively impact health. Beyond caffeine, coffee and tea contain bioactive compounds like polyphenols, chlorogenic acid, and catechins, which offer antioxidant and vascular benefits by reducing oxidative stress and improving cerebrovascular function, the researchers wrote. Furthermore, tea components such as epigallocatechin-3-gallate and L-theanine may provide additional benefits by enhancing relaxation and neuroprotection.
Coffee and tea show promise but questions remain
With such a massive sample size and so many years of data, the new research on dementia and caffeine is about as robust as an Italian dark roast. Still, the studys design asking people about their behavior and tracking their diagnoses doesnt lend itself to causal explanations. While the evidence that caffeine provides some neuroprotective effects against one one of the most devastating age-related conditions is exciting, scientists still cant definitively say what causes the decreased risk, only that coffee and tea intake is correlated with less risk.
In the analysis, the researchs authors did control for participants genetic risk of developing dementia along with an array of other potential confounding factors, including education, socioeconomic status, smoking, exercise habits and medication use.
In spite of its scale and depth, the NIH-funded study still has a few notable limitations beyond the observational nature of its design. The study exclusively relied on large, gender-divided data sets collected from people who work in health-related jobs, drawing on the Health Professionals Follow-up Study and the Nurses Health Study. It also did not collect granular data about the kind of tea the participants consumed, so its not clear if green and black tea are created equal or if only caffeinated tea showed promise for keeping people sharp as they age.
While the link between coffee and reduced dementia risk is promising, more coffee also doesnt necessarily mean less risk. Researchers found that the positive impact tapered off after two or three cups of coffee and one to two cups of tea, so dont go ordering that quad shot or black eye hoping to squeeze even more benefit out of your caffeine intake. Caffeine raises your heart rate and can raise blood pressure too, so keeping your bodys full health picture in mind is important.
