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2025-09-18 13:11:13| Fast Company

Over the past few years, celebrity-backed liquor brands have enjoyed an undeniable cultural momentand tequila is currently the hottest drink in the game. Just ask Hailee Steinfeld. This February, the Academy Award-nominated actress partnered with Premium Beers Group, a leader within the alcohol industry in Mexico, to launch her own tequila cocktail brand called Angel Margarita. At the Fast Company Innovation Festival on September 16, Steinfeld told audiences that the brand is all about creating something that feels real and authentic in a beverage industry full of other players.  From left: Jeff Beer, Hailee Steinfeld, and Jordi Zindel speak onstage during the Fast Company Innovation Festival 2025 on September 16, 2025, in New York City. [Photo: Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Fast Company] Steinfeld is the latest in a series of celebrities to debut her own tequila brand, joining George Clooneys Casamigos (which sold for $1 billion in 2017), Dwayne The Rock Johnsons Teremana, Matthew and Camila McConaugheys Pantalones Tequila, and Kendall Jenners 818 Tequila.  Unlike those brands, though, Angel Margarita is not a pure spirit, but rather a premixed cocktail that comes in lime, grapefruit, ranch water, and wild berry flavors. It signals that, as ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktails hit the mainstream, theyre poised to become the next trend in celebrity beverage collaborations. [Photo: Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Fast Company] Why RTD cocktails will be the next celebrity alcohol fad According to Jordi Zindel, the CEO of Angel Margarita, the brand was inspired by Steinfelds own margarita recipe, which she perfected after moving into a new home with a bar.  I was, like, I can’t have a great bar and not be able to be behind it and make a house cocktail, Steinfeld said. The go-to was a margarita, because I felt I could nail a classic margarita. With a lot of trial and a lot of error, Angel Margarita was born, and I now have the perfect cocktail that I can pour over ice. After everybody loves it and enjoys it, I tell them its from a can. [Photo: Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Fast Company] Theres a reason why Steinfeld might have opted for a ready-to-drink beverage over a plain tequila: According to the spirits trade association Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, RTD sales were up 27% in 2023, making them the fastest-growing spirits category by revenue.  Building on the earlier success of hard seltzer companies like White Claw and Truly, brands like Captain Morgan, Jack Daniel’s, and Bacardi have all jumped onto the RTD trend. Meanwhile, companies focusing exclusively on canned cocktailslike Cutwater and On the Rocksare taking off with Gen Zers and millennials.  Steinfeld announced at the Innovation Festival that Angel Margarita is set to launch in New York next week. As the brand begins to expand its reach, its only a matter of time before other public figures pick up on the growing RTD market as a new way to reach fans.


Category: E-Commerce

 

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2025-09-18 13:05:00| Fast Company

Dating app usage is falling, with more and more users viewing it as a chore rather than a chance to find love. Bumble, the app famous for having women make the first move, is far from immune to the dating downfall.  So it comes as no surprise that the company is leaning into one of its other pillars: friendship. Bumble has launched a new BFF app for what it describes as The Great Friennassance. According to researchnotably, commissioned by Bumble55% of 18- to 35-year-olds are looking for more local friends, while one in four want friends they can bring to events.  ‘Find your people’ The stand-alone app, which is available for U.S. users, includes a lot of similar features of the dating app, such as interest-based matching, photo prompts, and customizable profiles. It also includes a Groups area that uses technology from Geneva, a group and community app, to create spaces where people can discuss shared interests and find events in their area. Bumble purchased Geneva last year.  From the beginning, our mission has been to help people build relationships that matter. Seeing how members use BFF to create deep, lasting friendships reminds us that what people really crave is belonging, Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder and CEO of Bumble, said in a statement. With BFFs focus on communities, were making it possible not just to meet someonebut to truly find your people. Bumble BFF first launched in 2016 and the company created an app called Bumble for Friends in 2023. Its unclear how Bumble BFF will impact the original friendship app. Fast Company has reached out to Bumble for comment and will update this post if we hear back. Missteps, layoffs, and leadership shakeups Bumble had quite a tumultuous run recently. In January 2024, Herd stepped down as CEO and became executive chair. Under the leadership of her successor, former Slack CEO Lidiane Jones, the company swiftly cut about 350 roles and, that April, rolled out a redesign. It included an updated compatibility algorithm, allowed men to message first, and rolled out new ads.  The latter brought immense controversy in response to ads such as, You know full well a vow of celibacy is not the answer and thou shalt not give up on dating and become a nun. Social media users called out Bumble for trying to control womens bodily autonomy and get them to lower their standards. The company pulled the ads and admitted, We made a mistake.  Then, this March, Herd returned to the helm of Bumble and is prioritizing quality over quantity, stating that members with low-quality and incomplete profiles might be removed from the app. She also cut the companys headcount by 30% this summer, a move that could save Bumble $40 million annually.  Shares of Bumble Inc (Nasdaq: BMBL) are down around 13% year to date.


Category: E-Commerce

 

2025-09-18 13:00:00| Fast Company

The phrase Lets hop on a Zoom call has become part of everyday language, shorthand for virtual meetings that defined an era, from remote classrooms to boardrooms. Zoom rose to household-name status by keeping the world connected during the pandemic, but being synonymous with meetings has always been both a triumph and a trap. For years, the company has worked to shake the perception that it begins and ends in the virtual conference room. At Zoomtopia 2025, its annual flagship conference, the company made its boldest move yet to redefine that identity. It announced the launch of AI Companion 3.0, a major upgrade aimed at positioning Zoom as a full-scale agentic AI workplace. Instead of merely summarizing discussions, AI Companion can interpret intent, decide on next steps, and execute them across a wide array of applications and workflows, all powered by an agentic AI architecture. Zoom describes the shift as a move away from passive assistants toward true collaboratorssystems designed not just to respond to requests but to anticipate needs, make decisions, and carry out tasks, much like a colleague would. Xuedong Huang, Zooms chief technology officer, tells Fast Company that the latest upgrade moves beyond simple assistance by giving AI the ability to reason, remember, and take action. The leap from a passive assistant to a proactive agent in AI Companion 3.0 is made possible through the integration of agentic skills, including reasoning, memory, task action, and orchestration, he says. Under the hood, Zoom relies on a federated system that can pull from its own models as well as those from OpenAI and Anthropic, ensuring conversations reach resolution. Zoom describes AI Companion 3.0 as a horizontal intelligence layer, capable of connecting to third-party apps so users can rely on one single source of truth across the applications they already use. The system can even extend into rival ecosystems such as Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and WebEx. Smita Hashim, Zooms chief product officer, says the goal is to change collaboration norms by allowing users to stay aligned and be more present in meetings without the distraction of manual note-taking. AI Companion 3.0 is directly addressing the fragmentation plaguing hybrid teams that use multiple platforms to meet and collaborate, as well as small-business owners and solopreneurs who attend meetings on other platforms, she says. The emphasis on interoperability is a strategic choice. Enterprises are increasingly wary of vendor lock-in, especially when it comes to AI. Microsoft often ties Copilot closely to Office 365, and Google keeps its AI inside Workspace. Zoom, meanwhile, is attempting to carve out a distinct identity in a crowded field of workplace assistants. Huang believes AI should work wherever employees already are, not force them to change where or how they work. Making our system platform-agnostic required developing the capability for AI Companion to work across Zoom Workplace and leveraging Agent2Agent capabilities with Custom AI Companion, Huang says. Building these features demands that we take a customer-centric approach to deliver both AI quality and ease of use simultaneously. [Image: Zoom] Integrating Agentic AI Into Workflows Zoom says AI Companion 3.0 can analyze a users calendar and suggest which meetings might be skipped, while still delivering AI-generated notes from the host. It can scan schedules across time zones and holidays to propose collaboration windows, taking over tedious coordination tasks that often slow teams down. In addition, the platforms new free up my time feature recommends meetings to skip based on daily tasks and past attendance patterns. Another new skill, enhanced meeting preparation, offers proactive prompts ahead of a meeting so participants arrive with the agenda and previous action items in hand. Harnessing the power of agentic AI is about bringing happiness back to work for the people,” Huang says. “Its about freeing people from the mundane work we have to do and giving people more time to work on what really matters.  Hashim says the company is expanding translation tools to make cross-border teamwork smoother and more inclusive. We are also availing live translations for meetings to help users collaborate more easily with global colleagues and partners with fewer language barriers, she says, pointing to an independent study showing Zooms captions outperformed those of rivals, with significantly higher accuracy in both French and Spanish. [Image: Zoom] For organizations seeking agentic AI tailored to their business, Zoom is rolling out Custom AI Companion. This low-code builder lets administrators design and deploy custom AI agents, supported by a tooling library and prebuilt templates for common workflows. According to Hashim, the goal is to make it simple for organizations to design and roll out their own AI agents with minimal friction. The custom agent builder empowers IT admins to configure knowledge bases and tools and test their AI agents’ capabilities before deployment, she explains. Zoom plans to provide starter templates so teams can quickly customize agents, which employees can then access directly within their existing workflows. Zoom is also embedding its AI deeper into customer support, sales, and collaboration through its Customer Experience (CX) and Zoom Virtual Agent (ZVA) suite. According to the company, the tools can detect patterns in customer interactions, flag issues before they escalate, prioritize sales leads, and recommend next best actions. They can even act as group assistats, answering project questions, providing status updates in natural conversation, or controlling smart meeting rooms by voice. While Microsoft and Google often reserve their AI features for premium tiers, Zoom is bundling AI Companion at no additional cost with paid Zoom Workplace accounts. Competing offerings can cost as much as $30 per user per month, making Zooms approach a direct challenge to competitors and a potential accelerator for adoption. But openness carries risk. Interoperability appeals to CIOs, but it leaves Zoom dependent on access to competitors ecosystems. If Microsoft or Google were to tighten permissions, Zooms openness could quickly shift from an advantage to a liability. Gartner analyst Adam Preset notes that major tech providers often create barriers to outside integrations, but that large organizations and regulators can push them toward more openness. Big vendors can, and do, restrict APIs or change terms to limit third-party integration, making true interoperability a challenge, he says. In that environment, Zooms stance on open standards could help it stand out as a defender of customer choice. Whats Next for Zoom? Embedding agentic AI directly into the flow of workplace dialogue gives Zoom a natural path for adoption. But whether it can deliver industry-specific depth to match rivals who have spent years refining their platforms is another question. Preset warns that companies shouldnt commit to a single vendor too quickly. The pace of change in workplace technology means enterprises need to stay flexible and avoid locking themselves into one path, he says. Zooms free AI tools may spark adoption, but lasting trust will require deeper enterprise-grade capabilities. Alongside its product announcements, Zoom also revealed a $10 million, three-year commitment to expand access to AI education and opportunity. That includes $5 million for K through 12 AI literacy, with large anchor grants to global organizations and smaller regional grants to local changemakers. First-round recipients include Code.org and Data.org, which help equip students, workers, and nonprofits with AI skills. Huang says Zoom will keep refining its AI by blending its own models with those from partners and by strengthening integrations with widely used workplace apps. Our ultimate goal, he says, is to leverage AI to transform every interaction into an opportunity for increased productivity, better outcomes, and stronger relationships.


Category: E-Commerce

 

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