Every season, the Next Big Idea Club editorial team reviews dozens of upcoming books to curate a selection of the most exciting, must-read nonfiction titles. We start with a broad pool of nominees from which we identify a small handful of finalists and, ultimately, an official season selection.
Today, its our pleasure to share our list of five finalists for Season 29! Without further ado, the new books were most excited about right now are . . .
The Way of Excellence: A Guide to True Greatness and Deep Satisfaction in a Chaotic World
By Brad StulbergPublication Date: January 27, 2026
A practical guide to realizing our potential amid the chaos of modern life and learning how to reconnect to ourselves, our work, and each other by focusing on the pursuit of excellence. View on Amazon
Why We Click: The Emerging Science of Interpersonal Synchrony
By Kate MurphyPublication Date: January 27, 2026
Why do you immediately click with some people while others just as inexplicably turn you off? Do people emit vibes? Is it possible to read a room? Are bad habits contagious? Kate Murphy answers these and other fascinating questions. View on Amazon
The Other Side of Change: Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans
By Maya ShankarPublication Date: January 13, 2026
A revelatory exploration of the ways we can find meaning in the tumult of change, from a renowned cognitive scientist. View on Amazon
A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness
By Michael PollanPublication Date: February 24, 2026
A panoptic exploration of consciousnesswhat it is, who has it, and whyand a meditation on the essence of our humanity. View on Amazon
How to Live a Meaningful Life: Using Design Thinking to Unlock Purpose, Joy, and Flow Every Day
By Bill Burnett and Dave EvansPublication Date: February 3, 2026
A groundbreaking guide to transforming your daily routine into one brimming with joy, purpose, and meaning. View on Amazon
Mattering: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose
By Jennifer Breheny WallacePublication Date: January 27, 2026
A landmark book that introduces a transformative new framework to confront the loneliness, burnout, and lack of purpose so many of us face today. View on Amazon
Flourish: The Art of Building Meaning, Joy, and Fulfillment
By Daniel CoylePublication Date: February 3, 2026
A science-based, practical blueprint for cultivating a lifeat work and at homefull of belonging, joy, and vitality. View on Amazon
Intentional: How to Finish What You Start
By Chris BaileyPublication Date: January 6, 2026
A productivity expert distills a decade of deep research on productivity to deliver a profound, practical, and counterintuitive road map to getting things done. View on Amazon
The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us
By Rebecca Newberger GoldsteinPublication Date: January 13, 2026
Drawing on biology, psychology, and philosophy, Goldstein argues that this need to matterand the various mattering projects it inspiresis the source of our greatest progress and our deepest conflicts. View on Amazon
The Key Ideas in 15 Minutes
If you are going to get anywhere in life, you have to read a lot of books, Roald Dahl once famously said. The only trouble is, reading even one book from cover to cover takes hoursand you may not have many hours to spare.
But imagine for a moment: What if you could read a groundbreaking new book every day? Or even better, what if you could invite a world-renowned thinker into your earbuds, where they personally describe the five key takeaways from their work in just 15 minutes?
With the Next Big Idea app, weve turned this fantasy into a reality. We partnered with hundreds of acclaimed authors to create Book Bites, short audio summaries of the latest nonfiction that are prepared and read aloud by the authors theselves. Discover cutting-edge leadership skills, productivity hacks, the science of happiness and well-being, and much moreall in the time it takes to drive to work or walk the dog.
I love this app! The Book Bites are brilliant, perfect to have in airports, waiting rooms, anywhere I need to not doomscroll You guys are the best! Missy G.
Go Deeper with a Next Big Idea Club Membership
The Next Big Idea App is free for anyone to tryand if you love it, we invite you to become an official member of the Next Big Idea Club. Membership grants you unlimited access to Book Bites and unlocks early-release, ad-free episodes of our LinkedIn-partnered podcast. You also gain entry to our private online discussion group, where you can talk big ideas with fellow club members and join exclusive live Q&A sessions with featured authors.
For a more focused learning experience, we recommend a Hardcover or eBook Membership. Every two months, we select a new nonfiction book as the must-reads of the season. We then send a hardcover copy straight to your doorstep, or eBook versions to your favorite digital device. We also collaborate with the authors of selected books to produce original reading guides that take you step-by-step through their most life-changing ideas. And yes, its all available through the Next Big Idea app.
My biggest Thank You is for the quality of book selections so far. I look on my shelf and see these great titles, and I find myself taking down one or two each month to reread an underlined passage. Full marks to all involved! Tim K.
Learn Faster, from the Worlds Leading Thinkers
Whether you prefer to read, listen, or watch, the Next Big Idea is here to help you work smarter and live better. Wake up with an always-fresh Idea of the Day, the perfect shot of inspiration to go with your morning coffee. Then dive into one of our Challenges, handpicked collections of Book Bites that form crash courses in subjects like communication, motivation, and career acceleration. Later, watch the playback of an interview with U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Stanford psychologist Jennifer Eberhardt, or philosopher John Kaag. And be sure to check the Events tab in the app, so that you can join an upcoming live Q&A and personally chat with the next featured thought leader.
If youre hoping to grow as a person or as a professional, we hope youll join us and tens of thousands of others who enjoy the Next Big Idea. Get started by downloading the app today!
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.
Below, Melissa Bernstein shares five key insights from her new book, The Heart of Entrepreneurship: Crafting Your Authentic Recipe for Success.
Bernstein founded a toy company, Melissa & Doug, with her husband, in 1988. In 2021, they launched their second company, Lifelines, a wellness brand offering sensory products to manage stress and enhance well-being. She is the entrepreneur-in-residence for the Inner MBA certification program created by Sounds True, LinkedIn, and Wisdom 2.0. She is also cofounder of Duke Universitys Melissa & Doug Entrepreneurs program.
Whats the big idea?
As we age, many of us lose touch with the childlike curiosity and wonder that once came so naturally. Yet, those are the very ingredients that fuel entrepreneurship. Everyone has the capacity to think creatively, solve problems, and innovate. But like any recipe, it requires a deliberate process.
Listen to the audio version of this Book Biteread by Bernstein herselfbelow, or in the Next Big Idea app.
1. Develop a start-from-scratch mentality.
Imagine walking into your kitchen each morning and seeing a completely empty potno leftovers, no old recipes, just a blank slate. Thats what I face every day as a creator: the daunting but exhilarating task of starting fresh.
This mindset is essential for innovation. We cant rest on yesterdays ingredients. We must embrace a beginners mind, a state of utter unknowing, like a child who can see infinite possibilities and the extraordinary in the ordinary.
This means letting go of ego, which is filled with fear and rigidity, and leaning into curiosity and exploration. Heres the litmus test: Are you truly passionate about what youre doing? If not, maybe its time to empty the pot, clean it out, and stir something entirely new.
2. Become an indiscriminate gatherer of ingredients.
I love the word indiscriminate because it means at random and without careful judgment. To cook something new, you need a pantry overflowing with diverse ingredients. In entrepreneurship, those ingredients come from your life experiences.
Follow your curiosity wherever it leads. Yes, wherever it leads, even if it seems odd and offbeat. Try new hobbies. Strike up conversations with complete strangers. Explore unfamiliar places, even within your own town. Every new experience is like a spice or herb that goes in your pantry and expands the creativity within it.
At some point, one of those ingredients will spark something profound in you. Its called a crystallizing experience, coined by Howard Gardner. These moments will make you want to dive deeper and learn more. Curiosity is not about rushing to an outcome. Its about patience, confidence, and enjoying the process of discovery.
3. Let your ingredients simmer.
This is the most challenging part of the creativity process because most people want to rush to the finish line. We have this tendency to want to reach the end goalto get to the noun instead of live the verb. Often, we throw all the ingredients into the pot too quickly. We dont allow it ample time to simmer and allow all those ingredients to combine and recombine. Because of that, the recipe is exactly the same as all those recipes in the past. It tastes the same every time.
One of my favorite definitions of creativity is by an amazing researcher, Paul Torrance. He describes creativity as the imaginative recombination of elements from the past into new configurations needed in the present. The ingredients need time and space to recombine in new ways. So, we must give those ingredients time to simmer in the unconscious.
What does this mean? You put ingredients in the pot, place the lid tightly, set the burner on low, and step away to allow the unconscious mind to do its magic. This simmering process is essential for new revelations. You must stop thinking about the problem and focus your mind on other thingscompletely. Our minds are so magical that even when focused elsewhere, we are still doing the work unconsciously of solving other problems.
The process is personal, and what you choose to do depends on the problem youre solving and who you are. For me, nature is my muse. Being in nature when I have a complex problem to solve frees my mind from thinking about the problem, because I focus on the beauty around me. This is my gateway to that unconscious work.
But for you, it may be something entirely different. Certain people may choose to listen to music, others drive, and some read. After minutes, days, or sometimes weeks of allowing your ingredients to simmer, that chefs kiss recipe emerges in a flash of intuition.
However, sometimes that chefs kiss recipe never arises. Why? Because a key ingredient may still be missing. And thats okay. Its not meant to arise if it doesnt arise. We cannot rush the process without risking bland, derivative results. Allow the process and see what magic unfolds.
4. Invite others into your kitchen.
Once you have a crystallized prototype of your ideaand only thendo you invite others to come into your kitchen and try it out. Theyre your taste testers, so to speak. But too often people seek feedback much too early, before their idea is crystallized in their own mind. This is a problem because then their unique idea or original take on an existing idea gets watered down by other peoples opinions and turns into something generic. Protect your vision until its strong enough to stand on its own, its roots deep.
When you are ready to invite tasters into your kitchen, make sure they are your target audience. These are the people who would actually choose your restaurant and purchase items on your menu. If you choose those who are not your target audience, you will get feedback that is not helpful to your particular concept.
The feedback from your target market is invaluable, but it doesnt mean you take every piece of feedback they give you and use it to change your recipe. In fact, you must filter every bit of feedback through your vision. Remember, no one with a clear vision ever uses all the feedback they receive. They pluck out those most relevant and salient pieces. Use those to iterate on and improve the recipe, then get rid of the rest.
5. Embrace imperfection and evolution.
I am a perfectionist and had a very hard time, early in my career, letting anything leave my brain or our office and go out into the world. To overcome this, I created the 80% rule. Basically, when something feels about 80% ready, I release it into the world. If I waited for it to achieve 100%, I would never have launched a single product because nothing is ever 100% ready.
I realized that I just had to do my best. I had to put everything I could into my product, allow ample simmering, let testers into my kitchen, and thenwhen I could think of nothing more to doI had to close my eyes, hold my breath, and release it into the world, recognizing that its not at 100%.
Without releasing it into the world, I could never get closer to that 100%: Let my consumers try it out, test it, and give me feedback. Then, I continue to hone, improve, and perfect it so that over time, every product gets closer to 100%. Does it ever get there? I dont think so. Ive had some that maybe are at 98%, but there is alway something that can be improved.
Every idea, every product is a continual work in progress, constantly evolving and improving. And isnt that the joy of life? That mindset keeps innovation alive. So, whether you are inventing a toy, a service, a company, or simply reigniting your own sense of wonder, the recipe is completely the same and something we all can engage in time and again, in the following order:
We start from scratch. As Buddhist monk Shunryu Suzuki said, In the beginners mind there are many possibilities, but in the experts there are a few.
We gather ingredients. We follow our curiosity wherever it leads and stock the pantry in our mind with disparate ingredients, not knowing yet how theyll be used.
We simmer those ingredients that captivate our attention most. If you have the right ingredients in the pot, in a matter of time, that amazing chefs-kiss recipe will emerge.
We invite taste-testers into our kitchen. These people should be part of your target audience. Listen to their feedback and filter it through the lens of your vision, incorporating the ones that make sense and letting go of the rest.
We set it free. We share it with the world before its perfect.
The heart of entrepreneurship is about reconnecting with the spark we all once had and realizing its still within, waiting to be rekindled.
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.
If youre in an unfulfilling job or are dissatisfied with your work, its possible to get a fresh start no matter what the season. In fact, there are a few strategies that can help you find meaning and enhance your experience even as you slog forward.
A lack of fulfillment in your job can have intense effects. It can derail your motivation, your energy, and even your performance. And these, in turn, get in the way of your happiness at work and can impact your overall happiness outside of work too.
For many people, it’s hard to find meaning at work. In fact, half of workers in the U.S. reported that they lacked satisfaction in their work, and 38% said their job was just a way to get by, according to the Pew Research Center. In addition, half of people globally say their job fails to give them a sense of meaning, based on a survey by PwC.
So how do you create meaning when you lack it? And how do you set up the conditions for fulfillment in your work? Here are a handful of strategies that will make a difference.
Stay dedicated
One of the key ways to improve your experience at work is to stay dedicated to it. Its tempting to check out, and it can be tough to devote yourself emotionally to a job that isnt satisfying. Still, do your best to perform well, participate in meetings, show up on time, and follow through on your work.
Sometimes we wait to feel satisfied with our jobs before we get motivated to perform well, but research published by the Association for Psychological Science shows that employees who approach their work with optimism, dedication, and focus are more productive and more engaged. Their positivity ends up creating an upward spiral.
When you repeatedly behave with dedication, it will become a habit, with each action taking less conscious effort. Youll also send yourself a message that your work matters. And even more importantly, that you matter.
In addition, behaving with dedication will affect how you perform and how others evaluate your contributions. When these are positive, it will pave the way to your next role and the greater meaning it will bring.
Find allies
Another surefire way to increase the meaning in your work is to connect with colleagues and build a sense of community. One of the primary symptoms of work that feels unfulfilling is being disconnected from others. If you dont know your coworkers well or dont feel like they know you or your work, it can make the work itself feel empty.
Having friendships with colleagues is tremendously helpful for finding satisfaction and happiness at work. A study published in the Journal of Theoretical Educational Science found that friendships are strongly correlated with both happiness and satisfaction, explaining more than a quarter of the differences felt by happy and satisfied people.
Additional research from KPMG finds that 84% of people say friends at work are very important to their mental health on the job. In addition, there is a 20% friendship premium in salary to have friends at work: Specifically, 57% of people would choose a role that pays 10% below the market instead of a role that’s 10% over the market for the opportunity to work with close friends.
Find people that you can admire and learn from. Invite them to coffee and consider asking them to mentor you or provide advice focused on your future. Also look for colleagues with whom you have things in common. Connect based on your shared interests or the projects youre working together on.
Set goals and take action
It can also help to reframe your current role as a stepping stone. Identify where you want to go next and how this role helps you get there. It may be teaching you skills that can help you in your next job, and it could even be an opportunity to learn more about what you dont want as you move forward. Both of these are constructive as you expand your self-awareness and your focus on whats next. Consider what else you need to learn, both in terms of more formal education like classes or informal approaches such as learning on the job or from others.
The process of taking action is also helpful to your mental health because it reinforces your agency and helps you feel more empowered.
Persevere through todays challenges and focus on the future so you can keep moving forward.
Focus on the holistic
Another way to bring more meaning to your work, surprisingly, is to create the conditions for happiness outside of work. In fact, there is a proven spillover between life and work. In a longitudinal study of almost 162,000 people published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior, those who were happiest outside of work perceived greater happiness with their work as well.
The bottom line is that you can increase happiness and satisfaction in your work by considering your life as a whole and finding meaning and joy outside of work. Do things you love with your family, enjoy time with friends, volunteer in your community, mentor youth in your area. These kinds of activities will contribute to your overall sense of meaning and positively affect your perceptions of work as well.
Ultimately, having a greater sense of meaning at work is one of the most important experiences to be concerned about, given how much time we spend working. We all have an instinct to want to matter, so when you stay dedicated, find allies, persevere, and think holistically, youll improve not only your work but your life as a whole.
Having a baby isn’t cheap, but sometimes, even the delivery alone can be a crushing burden on families.
According to a new survey, even moms who are insured can end up saddled with medical debt that adds to the financial stress of growing a family. What To Expect, a website that provides new and expecting parents with resources, surveyed 3,285 women on their experiences with labor and delivery charges. The research found that one in four moms have gone into debt due to the costs associated with giving birth. The survey found that, on average, moms are leaving the hospital with around $3,000 in debt.
And that’s before the baby expensesdiapers, formula, daycare!start piling up.
According to the respondents, even women with insurance are ending up with hefty tabs from the hospital. Almost half (48%) with self-purchased insurance plans say theyve gone into debt due to the costs. Almost a third (32%) of moms with employer-provided plans had the same experience. Furthermore, 18% of moms with Medicaid ended up with debt from out-of-pocket labor and delivery expenses, even though Medicaid is designed for low-income families.
While worrying about how you might pay off a rather large and unexpected hospital bill is something a lot of families aren’t prepared for, new moms have another consuming task (aside from trying to figure out how to care for a new human 24/7): the weight of deciding when to go back to work. Given there is no federally mandated maternity leave that ensures moms have time to rest, recover, and bond with their new babies in the U.S., for many, a return to work happens quickly.
According to a 2024 report from the Policy Center for Maternal Mental Health, one in four new mothers go back to work just 10 days after giving birth out of financial necessity.
Aside from the strain on their bodies, which are still recovering, that early return isn’t great for new moms’ mental health, either. Women who return to work before the 12-week mark are at an increased risk for developing postpartum mental health challenges, like postpartum depression, according to a 2021 study from Harvards T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Women who have at least 12 weeks of paid leave were 30% less likely to report depressive symptoms, the study found.
In most other countries, returning to work almost immediately is practically unheard of. In fact, the U.S. practically stands alone in its lack of mandated leave for new mothers. On average, moms receive 19 weeks of paid maternity leave, according to a 2023 study of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, including the United States. The United States is the only country of OECDs 38 member countries that does not guarantee any paid maternity leave.
Star Treka franchise that famously promotes the philosophy Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations”is being accused of “becoming” too woke.
Last week, White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller shared a post from the X account End Wokeness that featured a short clip from the premiere episode of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.
Tragic. But its not too late for @paramountplus to save the franchise. Step 1: Reconcile with @WilliamShatner and give him total creative control. https://t.co/HRMDcYeBnU— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) January 16, 2026
The clip showed cast members Tricia Black (playing Lt. Rork), Gina Yashere (Lura Thok) and Holly Hunter (Nahla Ake). The caption read: Star Trek 2026 Beyond parody
What sparked the vitriol? Three women talking.
Miller went on to describe the current state of the Star Trek franchise as tragic and suggested that Paramount+ should bring back 94-year-old William Shatner, who played Captain James T. Kirk in Star Trek from 19661969, offering him full creative control.
On Monday, Shatner responded. I am so on the same page with you @StephenM ! he wrote on X.
I am so on the same page with you @StephenM! The fact that they have not cure Hyperopia by the 32rd Century is an abysmal oversight on the writers!Also @paramountplus needs to up the budget because Im sure that a well oiled organization like Starfleet in the distant https://t.co/96MtYUGGWf— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) January 19, 2026
The fact that they have not cure Hyperopia by the 32rd Century is an abysmal oversight on the writers! he joked.
The sarcasm clearly went right over Millers head, who followed up with another post. Paramount screwed up royally when they decided to kill off Kirk in Star Trek Generations, he wrote.
@WilliamShatner disagreed strenuously but was a team player and out-acted everyone in the film. But its not too late for Paramount to make amends with Shatner and save the franchise, he urged. Do it!
Paramount screwed up royally when they decided to kill off Kirk in Star Trek Generations. @WilliamShatner disagreed strenuously but was a team player and out-acted everyone in the film. But its not too late for Paramount to make amends with Shatner and save the franchise. Do it! https://t.co/YORaoM0JEV— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) January 19, 2026
Many Star Trek fans were quick to point out Millers anti-woke hero is the same actor who famously took part in the first interracial kiss in U.S. television history, during Star Treks original run in the 1960s. They also pointed to Millers fundamental misunderstanding of the show, whose progressive values have long been light-years ahead of its time.
Fans have recently shared their concerns across Reddit forums about what Trump ally David Ellisons takeover at Paramount might mean for the Star Trek franchise.
Do you think the shows will continue to be liberal/socialist filled with science, diplomacy, democratic solutions, and human rights? one user mused. Will they devolve into combat based popcorn fair? Will they straight up become positive analogs for the current administration? Or racial allegories in the bad way?
[Photo: John Medland/Paramount+]
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, created by Gaia Violo, premiered last week on Paramount+. It has since become the target of review bombing from those accusing a show about aliens of being too woke.
Earlier in the month, Elon Musk also shared a post featuring the same clip. He wrote: Turns out they banned Ozempic and LASIK in the future lol.
Actress Tricia Black responded on Instagram with the caption, Ive seen this exact same comment probably 100 times already so whatever but its nuts that the richest man in [the world] felt the need to steal the joke. It doesnt get to me because I am comfortable in my skin most days but this one made me laugh.
She then quoted the shows original creator, Gene Roddenberry, who famously said: “Star Trek was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms.
The next time youve got an itchy throat and a stuffy nose, Amazon wants you to describe your symptoms to an AI chatbot deputized to do medicine.
On Wednesday, Amazon announced the launch of the new feature, inviting users who subscribe to its healthcare service to interact with an AI assistant for personalized medical advice. The chatbot is available now in the One Medical app, which patients can use to schedule appointments, message their primary care provider and access their medical records.
The U.S. health care experience is fragmented, with each provider seeing only parts of your health puzzle, Amazon Health Services Senior Vice President Neil Lindsay said in the announcement. Health AI in the One Medical app brings together all the pieces of your personal health information to give you a more complete picturehelping you understand your health, and supporting you in getting the care you need to get and stay well.
Amazon says that its new Health AI assistant can provide personalized insights that use a patients lab results, medical history, medication information and other records to paint a full picture of their health. In the app, Health AI will explain lab results, offer advice about symptoms, treatments, and other questions and help patients book appointments and renew medications.
The AI will see you now
The One Medical AI assistant is powered by Amazons Bedrock AI models and follows similar health-focused AI chatbots from major AI companies. Earlier this month, OpenAI launched ChatGPT Health, which similarly synthesizes its users medical history to provide tailored advice. Days later, Anthropic introduced Claude for Healthcare, an AI chatbot that can analyze a users health data to help them make sense of test results and prep questions for a doctors appointment.
Unlike its competitors, Amazon is already deeply invested in the business of healthcare. The retail giant jumped into the healthcare space in 2020 by launching its own online pharmacy, an offering that evolved from the companys previous acquisition of health startup PillPack.
Two years later, Amazon bought primary care and telehealth provider One Medical for $3.9 billion, further expanding its grand ambitions to become an established medical provider. Amazon kept the One Medical branding and now operates a network of locations across 19 major U.S. cities, with a telehealth service that reaches subscribers beyond those locations.
In 2023, Amazon tied One Medical into its Amazon Prime memberships, offering the health care subscription at a discounted $9 per month to Prime users. A One Medical membership covers the cost of on-demand virtual care through the service, including telehealth appointments, and simplified care for common problems, like cold and flu symptoms or allergies.
Amazon frames its new Health AI chatbot as a complementary tool that isnt designed to replace the human relationship between patient and provider. Thats for the best, considering that AI assistants have a very patchy record when it comes to providing safe, accurate health advice.
Googles often-questionable AI overviews, which appear at the top of search results, have served up potentially dangerous misinformation when prompted with health queries like what is the normal range for liver blood tests. Google isnt alone: a recent study from Mt. Sinais Icahn School of Medicine found that popular AI chatbots are prone to hallucinating when it comes to medical information, integrating false information and confidently giving descriptions of treatments and conditions that dont exist.
The 68th annual Grammy Awards will take place Feb. 1 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. This year marks a return to normalcy after the 2025 award show was altered to focus on supporting relief efforts following the devastating Los Angeles-area wildfires.
I think we will see some history-making moments, Recording Academy CEO and President Harvey Mason jr. told The Associated Press. With artists being nominated in categories they haven’t been previously nominated in, and a new crop of talent coming through the system this year I think we’re going to see some really exciting results.
Heres what you need to know about the 2026 Grammys, including how to stream and where you can see musics biggest stars walking the red carpet.
When are the Grammys and how can I watch or stream the show?
The main show will air live on CBS beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern on Feb. 1.
The Grammys can also be watched through live TV streaming services that include CBS in their lineup, like Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV, and FuboTV.
Paramount+ premium plan subscribers will be able to stream the Grammys live; Paramount+ essential subscribers will have on-demand access the next day.
The premiere ceremony will take place just ahead of the Grammys ceremony at 3:30 p.m. Eastern, 12:30 p.m. Pacific at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. It can be streamed at the Recording Academys YouTube channel and on live.GRAMMY.com.
Who is performing at the Grammys?
The 2026 award show will feature a special segment in which all eight of this year’s best new artist nominees will perform. That means Leon Thomas, Olivia Dean, global girl group Katseye, The Marías, Addison Rae, sombr, Alex Warren and Lola Young will all share the stage before going head-to-head for one of the night’s biggest prizes.
Sabrina Carpenter will also perform at the Grammys.
Carpenter is a leading nominee at this year’s ceremony, with six nods for record, album and song of the year as well as pop solo performance, pop vocal album and music video.
Who is hosting the Grammys?
Comedian Trevor Noah will host the show for the sixth consecutive time and it will be his last.
I am beyond thrilled to welcome Trevor Noah back to host the Grammys for his sixth, and sadly, final time, Grammys’ executive producer Ben Winston said in a statement. Hes been the most phenomenal host of the show. Hes so smart, so funny, and such a true fan of the artists and music. His impact on the show has been truly spectacular, and we cant wait to do it together one last time.
The only other people to host six or more Grammy telecasts were musical artists: Andy Williams hosted seven shows, followed by John Denver with six. Noah previously tied LL Cool J, with five.
Noah himself is a four-time Grammy nominee and is up this year in the audio book, narration, and storytelling recording category for Into The Uncut Grass, a childrens story.
He’s a special host. He really finds the right balance between being funny and smart and knowledgeable but also being a fan of music. And I love that. Its so hard to find that combination, Mason jr. said.
As for his departure? Every person at some point in their career, they decide they want to do something else, Mason jr. said. And were so appreciative of the years that we got from Trevor. Hes really helped define the show and make the show what its become over the last six years.
How can I watch the red carpet?
The Associated Press will stream a four-hour red carpet show with interviews and fashion footage. It will be streamed on YouTube and APNews.com.
Who is nominated for the Grammys?
Kendrick Lamar leads the nominations with nine total. He’s up for record, song and album of the year marking the third time hes had simultaneous nominations in those big categories as well as pop duo/group performance, melodic rap performance, rap song and rap album. Hes also nominated twice in the rap performance category.
Lady Gaga, Jack Antonoff, and Canadian record producer/songwriter Cirkut follow Lamar with seven nominations each.
Thomas, Bad Bunny, Serban Ghenea, and the aforementioned Carpenter all boast six nominations. Andrew Watt, Clipse, Doechii, Sounwave, SZA, Turnstile, and Tyler, the Creator have five each.
There are a number of first-time nominees as well this year, including Tate McRae, Zara Larsson, PinkPantheress, JID and Timothée Chalamet. You read that correctly.
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For more coverage of this years Grammy Awards, visit: www.apnews.com/hub/grammy-awards
Maria Sherman, AP business writer
On January 17, Copenhagen resident Jesper Rabe Tnnesen woke up, packed his cargo bike with 300 red hats, and trekked over to his citys U.S. embassy, where thousands of citizens were gathering in the street to protest President Trump’s proposed takeover of Greenland. By the end of the weekend, those hats had become the dominant symbol of the dissenting movement.
For months, Trump has insisted that the U.S. should control Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark. But, in recent days, he’s escalated his threat to take over the region, announcing on Truth Social that he would impose additional tariffs on eight allied nations who spoke out against the plan. In response, tens of thousands of protestors have gathered in Denmarks capital, Copenhagen, and Greenlands capital, Nuuk, to voice their dissent against American occupation of Greenland.
Nuuk, Greenland. January 17, 2026. [Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images]
Tnnesen, the owner of a vintage store in Copenhagen called McKorman, was one of those protestors. Hes also the designer behind a line of hats parodying Trumps Make America Great Again (MAGA) caps. Tnnesens hats substitute Trumps famous phrase for the line Nu det NUUK! which is a play on the Danish phrase, Nu det nok, literally meaning Now, it’s enough.
Tnnesens caps, as well as several similar designs, have emerged as the stand-out visual symbol of the protests, appearing in countless photos of the demonstrations. The caps were produced as a comedic response to Donald Trump thinking he could buy Greenland, Tnnesen says, and as a political statement that enough is enough.
Jesper Toennesen. January 13, 2026. [Photo: Thomas Traasdahl/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP/Getty Images]
“Enough is enough”
Tnnesen first created his Nu det NUUK! cap last summer, when he ordered 100 copies for his store and sent another 100 to Greenland. The philosophy behind his design, he says, was simple: The red MAGA hats have become a very visible political symbol, and so it seemed right to also make the anti-MAGA caps red and white too. Besides that, he adds, red and white are the two colors of both the Greenlandic and Danish flags, adding an additional layer to the parody.
Initial sales were slow. Just a few caps were sold in-store, while others were given away. But a week before Saturdays demonstration, in the wake of Trumps increasing insistence on a Greenland takeover, the hats went viral.
In just a few hours, people bought 80 hats, and Tnnesen says he could have sold hundreds or even thousands more, had they not sold out. He currently has thousands of new hats on the way from the manufacturer, and plans to donate all profits to the Greenlandic childrens charity Grnlandske Brn.
It’s been a few intense weeks of talking to global media and people wanting to show support by buying the caps, Tnnesen says. In times like these it’s important to stand strong in solidarity, and it’s been nice to see people doing that and agreeing that what’s going on is simply intolerable.
A c55 “Make America Go Away” hat in Sisimiut, Greenland, on Sunday, March 30, 2025. [Photo: Juliette Pavy/Bloomberg/Getty Images]
How satirical MAGA hats took off in Greenland and Denmark
While Tnnesens hats have recently shot into the spotlight, hes not the first Danish designer to satirize the MAGA cap. Indeed, Tnnesen was inspired by an earlier hat created by designer Jens Martin Skibsted.
Jens Martin Skibsted
Skibsted is the creative mind behind the website c55, which sells a variety of protest-based statement hats. In the past, hes created multiple hats in support of Ukrainian charities in the midst of the Russian invasion. He says that he was inspired to create something for Greenland after Donald Trump Jr. visited the territory back in January 2025, in protest against America’s ambition to assert control over the island.
His cap is called the Kalaallit, which is the name of the Greenlandic Inuit in their language, Kalaallisut. It features the slogan Make America Go Away, paired with the Greenlandic flag on one side. While it playfully echoes Trump’s slogan, the design is distinct, the hats online listing reads. The red and white colors reflect the Greenlandic flag, and the typeface, DS 737, is based on the official Danish signage typeface, originally released in 1954 by Dansk Standard as Danish Standard no. 737. Skibsted says the hat is made in partnership with the Greenlandic NGO Uagut, which is dedicated to promoting Greenlanders wellbeing in Denmark.
[Photos: Jens Martin Skibsted]
Since initially handing out his caps for free last spring in the Greenlandic city Sisimiut, Skibsted has created three more iterations of the hat, each honoring some aspect of Greenlandic heritage (including one white version of the cap, which he says was added after “MAGA media” digitally erased the original caps’ text to resemble actual MAGA hats). Like Tnnesen, he passed out 200 copies of his original cap at the Copenhagen protest. He says sales have recently spiked, as awareness of Trumps threats against the territory have reached a much larger audience.
It’s become very international, because obviously very few people in the international community agree that it’s okay just to take over a foreign territory, Skibsted says. A lot of people want to stand behind the Greenlanders, and also, by proxy, the Danes.
We have a growing problem making our institutions work for humans. Across society, and especially in business, humans are increasingly treated as resources to be squeezed rather than as individuals to be served. Employees become human capital to be optimized; customers become users to be converted or upsold. This tendency predates AI, but AI threatens to accelerate it dramaticallyautomating the depersonalization, scaling the indifference, and introducing another layer of abstraction that separates real human beings from real human beings.
Yet there is an alternative path. Human-centered design is often dismissed as a soft or unserious discipline, a distraction from the serious business of maximizing the commercial income to be extracted from every interaction. But it is actually the most practical route to value creation available to organizations today. When you design around real human needsthose of both customers and staffyou build the bridge between internal transformation and external results.
The Foundational Principle
In The Design of Everyday Things, design expert Donald Norman articulates a deceptively simple idea: pay close attention to the needs of human users when defining design goals. This principle applies far beyond product design. It is foundational to how organizations create value.
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Human-centered design acts as a critical bridge that taps into and connects two groups of humans. On one side, customer experience drives revenuepeople buy from, stay loyal to, and recommend organizations that understand and serve their actual needs. On the other side, the employee experience drives executionstaff who feel understood and supported deliver better work and stay in their roles for longer. Neglect either side and value leaks away, no matter how sophisticated your technology or how ambitious your strategy.
Crucially, human-centered design is not a one-time exercise conducted before systems are built. It is an ongoing discipline that begins with observation, continues through implementation, and persists as long as the system operates. Humans change. Their needs evolve. Their contexts shift. A design process that treats initial research as sufficient will produce systems that drift steadily away from the people they are meant to serve. The organizations that sustain value are those that build continuous feedback loops, returning again and again to observe, test, and refine.
Why AI Makes This Urgent
AI amplifies the consequences of getting human factors wrong. There are three reasons why human-centered design becomes especially critical in the age of AI.
First, speed and scale. When an AI system interacts with customers or processes employee workflows, its behavior can propagate across millions of touchpoints. A poorly designed interaction that might have affected dozens of people in a manual process now affects thousands or millions. The cost of inattention multiplies accordingly.
Second, the fallacy of confusing humans with machines. Management systems and technical architectures tend to assume that they are dealing with rational actors who process information logically and respond predictably. This is the same fallacy embedded in the economist’s concept of homo economicusthe fictional human who optimizes utility with perfect information and no emotion. Real humans bring biases and emotions to their decisions and interactions; they bring varied cultural contexts and needs that shift depending on circumstances. Different people come to AI from radically different angles, and a system designed for an idealized user will fail actual ones.
Third, the diversity of stakeholder interactions. Not everyone affected by an AI system interacts with it directly. Some draw on its outputs at second or third handa manager reviewing AI-generated reports, a supplier responding to AI-optimized orders. Other stakeholderssuch as government agencies, labor groups, of consumer rights advocateshave regulatory or social interests in how you implement AI. Miss out any of these groups in your design process and you create friction that erodes the value you are trying to build.
Building Human-Centric AI Systems
Translating these principles into practice requires deliberate choices at every stage of AI development and deployment.
Start with personas designed for context. A single AI system may need to present itself differently depending on who it is interacting with. A customer-facing interaction might require conversational warmth, natural pacing, and even deliberate pauses that make the exchange feel human. An internal communication feeding data to supply chain managers might prioritize speed, precision, and structured formatting. An AI agent participating in a multi-agent orchestration layer might need yet another modeone optimized for machine-readable clarity. These are not cosmetic differences. The persona an AI adopts shapes whether the humans on the other end can work with it effectively. Design these deliberately, not as afterthoughts.
Embrace the iterative spiral. Normans concept of human-centered design follows a cycle: observation, idea generation, prototyping, testing, and then back to observation. This is not a linear checklist to be completed once. Each round of testing reveals new information about user needs that the previous round of observation missed. For example, initial research might suggest that speed is the primary requirement for a customer service AI. But watching real users interact with a prototype might reveal that some customers prefer a chattier experience with more interaction, even if it takes longer. The spiral deepens understanding as experiments scale.
Recognize the limits of self-reporting. Users do not always know what they need, and they are often not well-placed to articulate their desired outcomes even when they do know. Customers might tell you they want human agents, but longer-term behavioral analysis may reveal a preference for AI solutions that eliminate waiting times. Subject matter experts and scholarly research are invaluable supplements to direct observation. The goal is to understand what actually serves people, not merely what they say they want. (This point is made particularly well with reference to the medical context in Joseph and Paganis Designing for Health: The Human Centered Approach.)
Build in human audit layers. The temptation with AI is to automate completelyto remove humans from the loop in pursuit of efficiency. Resist it. Introduce human checkpoints that look for systemic biases, catch edge cases, and intervene where required. This is not a failure of automation but a recognition that partnership between humans and AI produces better outcomes than either alone.
The Orchestration Challenge
As organizations deploy multiple AI agentshandling sales, compliance, operations, customer servicea new challenge emerges. These agents can conflict. Gartner predicts that 40% of enterprise applications will use multi-agent systems by year-end, and a common failure mode is already apparent: agent deadlock, where agents with different objectives provide contradictory instructions and freeze the workflow.
The solution is not purely technical. Orchestration layers can help resolve conflicts algorithmically, but they cannot substitute for human judgment in ambiguous cases. Human-centered design here means designing the human role in the system, not just the AI components. Someone must be empowered to adjudicate when the sales optimization agent and the regulatory compliance agent cannot agree. That role requires clarity about authority, access to relevant context, and the judgment to weigh competing priorities. Organizations that neglect this human layer will find their sophisticated multi-agent systems grinding to a halt.
Practical Steps
Five actions can move human-centered design from abstraction to operation:
1. Map your human touchpoints. Before any AI initiative, document every human who will interact with or be affected by the system. This includes direct users, indirect data consumers, and those with regulatory or reputational stakes. If you cannot name the humans involved, you are not ready to build.
2. Observe before you build. Spend time with actual users before defining requirements. Watch what they do, not just what they say. The gap between stated preferences and revealed behavior is where design insight lives.
3. Design your personas deliberately. For each AI system, specify how it should interact differently with different stakeholder types. Document these choices and revisit them as you learn more.
4. Build in human audit points. Identify where human judgment must remain in the loop and design those roles explicitly. Specify what authority they have, what information they need, and how their interventions feed back into system improvement.
5. Dont stopcycle. Treat testing as the beginning of observation, not the end of development. Build feedback mechanisms that allow continuous refinement as human needs evolve.
Conclusion
Human-centered design is not a constraint on AI ambition. It is what allows that ambition to create real value. Technology alone creates nothingfinancial value emerges only when capabilities provide value that is meaningful for humans. Human-centered design is the discipline that makes that meeting possible, the bridge between what your systems can do and what actually matters to the people you serve.
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The 42nd Sundance Film Festival kicks off this week in Park City, Utah. It will be the last edition in its longtime home and the first without its founder Robert Redford, who died in September at age 89.
But even in this time of transition and change, the festivals main focus the movies remains as vibrant and fresh as ever with 90 features premiering through Feb. 1. And three of them feature pop star Charli xcx.
Its a broad, eclectic and bold program, Sundance public programming director Eugene Hernandez told The Associated Press.
Hernandez said the lineup for the festivals final year in Park City has a mixture of new, exciting voices paired with some really, really great familiar faces from Sundances past that I think will create a great alchemy for this really unique edition in Utah.
When is Sundance?
The festival runs from Thursday, Jan. 22 through Sunday, Feb. 1. There are 90 features premiering throughout, with screenings starting early in the morning and running through midnight. Award winners will be announced on Jan. 30.
What celebrities are expected?
Some big names who may make an appearance in the mountains include Natalie Portman, Ethan Hawke, Russell Crowe, Brittney Griner, Seth Rogen, OShea Jackson Jr., David Duchovny, Olivia Wilde, Daveed Diggs, Channing Tatum, Courtney Love, Chris Pine, DaVine Joy Randolph, Salman Rushdie, Alexander Skarsgrd, Olivia Colman, John Turturro and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
How is Sundance honoring Robert Redford?
Redfords legacy will be a main spotlight at the festival, including at Friday nights annual fundraising gala where organizers will pay tribute to the Sundance founder. Later in the festival, there will also be a screening of his first truly independent film, the 1969 sports drama Downhill Racer, and a series of legacy screenings of restored Sundance gems from Little Miss Sunshine to Barbara Kopples documentary American Dream.
What are the buzzy movies?
Wilde directed her third feature, The Invite, in which she and Rogen play an unhappily married couple who host a dinner party for friends (Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton). Gregg Araki made a sex-positive love letter to Gen Z with I Want Your Sex, also starring Wilde as a provocative artist who takes an interest in a younger intern played by Cooper Hoffman. Portman, sporting platinum blond hair, leads the big ensemble cast of Cathy Yans art world satire The Gallerist, alongside Zach Galifianakis, Jenna Ortega and Zeta-Jones.
Both I Want Your Sex and The Gallerist feature supporting turns from Charli xcx, but the pop stars big showcase is The Moment, a self-referential mockumentary. Colman stars alongside Skarsgrd in Wicker, a whimsical tale of a fisherwoman who asks a basket weaver to weave her a husband. Crowe plays the warden of a work camp in 1930s Oregon where Hawke is toiling in The Weight. And Gemma Chan and Tatum play parents to a child who witnesses a crime in Josephine.
In the nonfiction space, Navalny director Daniel Roher co-directed a film about artificial intelligence. There are also documentaries about Love, the lead singer of Hole and widow of Kurt Cobain, and Griner, the WNBA star who was detained for nearly 10 months in Russia.
Can you stream Sundance movies?
Yes, but not until Jan. 29. Access to the movies premiering at Sundance doesnt necessarily require an expensive trip to Park City anymore. The festival has fully embraced an online component for many of their films.
What started as a necessary COVID-19 adjustment has become a vital part of the program. From Jan. 29 through Feb. 1, audiences can watch the films in competition online. Prices start at $35 for a single film ticket.
When will the Sundance movies be in theaters?
It depends. Some have distribution and will soon be in theaters, like The Moment, which A24 is releasing on Jan. 30. Others that might secure distribution deals out of the festival can take anywhere from a few weeks to over a year to hit theaters or streaming services.
Is the festival still moving to Colorado?
Yes, this is the final edition in Park City, Utah. Next January, the festival is relocating to a new home in Boulder, Colorado.
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For more coverage of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/sundance-film-festival
Lindsey Bahr, AP film writer
