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The United States has a well-developed digital economy, encompassing about 18% of its total economy, according to several sources and research from the International Data Center Authority (IDCA). This is above the world average of 15%. But the U.S. can always do better. The IDCA defines a digital economy as representing all economic activities that are reliant on or significantly enhanced by the use of digital technologies, including digital infrastructure, AI, and digital services. Having worked with hundreds of public data sources and its own surveys to create its Digital Readiness of Nations Index, the IDCAs Global Digital Economy Report (2025) is a unique deep dive into the current development of the world’s digital economies. Digging Into Digital Economy Data This Index places the digital economies of the nations of the world into four categories: Phase III (Advanced), Phase II (Significantly Developed), Phase I (Early-Stage), and a Pre-Phase. It examines all the data sets across four broad categorieseconomy, environment, social, and governanceto rank the nations on a scale of 0 to 100. The Index considers relative progress, that is, how well each nation has developed its digital economy with respect to its economic resources and social development. Doing this shows only six nations that are currently in an advanced, Phase III stage of development. Surprisingly enough, despite its economic size and potential, the United States is not one of them. In fact, none of the world’s G7 or even G20 nations have reached this advanced status, either. Today, Phase III has been accomplished only by the small nations of Scandinavia, Finland, and Switzerland. An aggressive commitment to the use of sustainable energy, relative income parity, and strong government institutions are all characteristics of this group. The U.S. Is Not the Exemplar So far the largest nations of the world, including the United States, have not been able to match these smaller countries. The U.S. and its G7 cohort are instead ensconced among a group of a few dozen nations within the Phase II group, all of which show significantly developed digital economies. Digging into the data finds that within this group, the U.S. lags Canada, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and the U.K. in its commitment to sustainable energy, income parity, and strong government institutions. Expanding the focus to the G20 group of nations finds more diffuse progress. Because membership in the G20 club is simply based on the size of a nation’s overall economy, not its relative development or wealth, there are several still-developing nations in the G20, including Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and South Africa. There are also the troubled economies of Argentina and Russia in this group. All the nations cited here are in Phase I, still at an early stage of their digital economies. It must be noted, though, that Brazil, China, and to some degree India, continue to make considerable progress toward fully developed economies and a higher stage of digital economy development. So despite leading the world in the size of its overall economy and digital economy, having reached its status on the back of compounded historic economic dominance, the U.S. is not truly an exemplar for the world. What can the nation do to improve its standing? Create a national strategy and policies American business and government leaders pride themselves on how the U.S. has long been the world’s capital of innovation and IT development without the help of national strategies or focused policies. But ad hoc development on the scale envisioned for the AI age will end up being more chaoticand less effectivethan necessary. The U.S. does not need to reach EU levels of regulation and enforcement, but its federal government can do more to meet today’s Sputnik challenge, or watch China and the EU run away with leadership of AI and digital economies. Build more sustainable energy Renewable energy delivers 20.3% of the electricity consumed within the United States, below the world average of 30%. Nuclear energy adds another 18.2% to the U.S. grid, which technically brings it close to the world average for sustainable energy. But this is not good enough. The U.S. remains the world’s second-largest producer of greenhouse gases and lacks a true commitment to sustainable energy progress. Focus on workforce development Even though the U.S. has the world’s largest IT-skilled workforce, it needs to upskill and retrain millions of people to prepare for the skills demanded by the continued growth of AI development and AI-driven data centers. The IDCAs own report recently found a workforce deficit of over 100 million IT workers globally. There are already several hundred billion dollars worth of large, advanced AI data centers being planned in the U.S., but without a workforce adequate to the challenge, these new facilities will be underused and mismanaged. Tapping into a holistic and dynamic set of professional training programs is key here. Ensure smart buildouts More than 40% of the world’s data centers are located in the U.S., and projections show that this dominance will continue. But it will be a grave mistake to build data centers along the same old, general purpose, inefficient lines. The new data centers, whether a small 10-megawatt building or sprawling gigawatt-sized campus, must all be built to suit, with the most efficient energy management and computational efficiency available. Developers must not only be smart about building them but also focus on smart environments that support more robotic manufacturing, autonomous transportation, sensor-driven energy management, and AI-driven services to businesses and consumers. A high bar In summary, it would be unfair to say that the U.S. significantly lags the G7, or any other group of nations, in the development of its digital economy. The situation is not dire, and the U.S. has not already given away the game. In fact, we see an influx of announcements for data centers and AI investments committing to the U.S. economy. However, due to its sheer size and potential, what might be great for some countries is considered poorly accomplished by our benchmark. The world’s largest economic power needs to judge itself solely by the standards of what it can accomplish, comparisons be damned. U.S. government and business leaders must work much harder to deliver on the nation’s potential.
Category:
E-Commerce
As the labor market tightens and job seekers leverage AI to apply for jobs en masse, recruiters are receiving hundreds or thousands of applicants for a single position. To deal with the deluge, many employers are adopting new tools, often powered by AI, to make recruiting more efficient, and, in some cases, replace human contact. A Resume Builder survey from last year suggested that nearly 70% of companies would use AI in their hiring process by the end of 2025. Talent acquisition leaders tout the effectiveness of new recruiting tech: virtual assessments, asynchronous and AI-powered interviewing, chatbots, and the like. But what do job seekers think? According to applicants, what new recruiting tech has going for it is speed. What it lacks, often, is clarity. IT WAS SHORTER AND MORE SUCCINCT One of the most common additions is the asynchronous video interview, in which applicants record answers that a recruiter reviews later. It often replaces screening calls, and sometimes, later-stage interviews. While recruiters dont have time to schedule and conduct calls with a hundred applicants, they can review prerecorded answers from as many. More than half a dozen job seekers told Fast Company they spend anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours getting their two- to five-minute videos just right, worrying over lighting and sound and their own appearance, tweaking their answers, and recording multiple takes. Yet overall, the reviews are positive. Many say its still more convenient than a screening call with a recruiter. Sarah, whos spent 20 years in HR, doesnt want her employer to know shes job shopping, so she asked that we withhold her last name. Following a recent asynchronous interview, she was notified that a recruiter had looked at her answers. Even though she didnt advance, the rejection was more palatable as I knew they had at least reviewed my information, Sarah says. Most of the time, shes been left to wonder whether anyone even bothered to set eyes on her résumé. Some employers ask applicants to participate in video interviews with AI-generated bots that look and sound human. Nola Johnson, who works in customer success, met a series of three AI interviewers for an early-stage screening. She feels positively about the experience, even if the AI interviewer was glitchy and unable to end the conversation when time expired. It was shorter and more succinct than talking to a real recruiter, she says. If some employers are betting that an AI-generated contact is better than no contact at all, they may be right. According to a recent survey of 1,000 U.S. adults, conducted by recruiting software firm iCIMS, 40% of workers say that never hearing from an organization after applying is their number-one frustration. Indeed, what video modules lack in humanity they make up for in speed. Nola, after comparing notes with other job seekers, learned she heard back from the AI interviewer faster than her friends heard back from human interviewers. But many of these tools are new, and stories of glitchy AI abound. Among the worst culprits are chatbots that employers embed in their career pages. Ostensibly, the purpose is to answer basic questions that would otherwise consume valuable recruiter time. Jessica is a legal analyst who works at a law firm in Louisiana. (She also doesnt want us to use her last name since she doesnt want her employer to know shes looking around.) Jessica uses chatbots regularly and likes that she gets immediate answers, but says they dont always work as advertised. Some are so tightly scripted that theyre unable to handle basic questions about the job description or the benefits the company offers. APPLICANTS ACCEPT THE TECH, BUT STILL QUESTION ITS INTENT While some HR tech improves efficiency, others confound. Among the most confusing elements of job seeking in the age of HR tech: personality assessments. Personality assessments in the workplace arent new, but they are becoming more common thanks to how easy it is to insert them into a digital hiring process. Its another screening tool hiring teams are using to vet applicants. Yet job seekers dont know why theyre being made to take them. Jessica was asked to take an assessment similar to the Myers-Briggs test. But she didnt understand what they were evaluating her for, or how it related to the job. She didnt even get to see the results. Sarah was also asked to take a personality test while interviewing, a request shes okay with as long as its relevant to the job, but Sarah worries that companies are relying on tired stereotypes to eliminate or advance applicantsthat only extroverts succeed in certain roles, for example. Lack of clarity can bruise the employer-applicant relationship. According to the same iCIMS report, the most frustrating parts of job searching are the ones that leave applicants wondering, why? Lack of transparency and relevant information leave 77% of job seekers frustrated. When applicants interact with interfaces more than humans, theres little room to ask why somethinglike a personality test, for exampleis being used. Nola has applied to jobs where she was given the option to opt out of having her résumé reviewed by an AI tool. Yet, she says, what I would be curious about is not when or if, its how. Is it ranking me? Do I get a flag? If I remove myself from it being reviewed by AI, will I automatically move to the bottom of the list? Its never been clear. What bothers her most is that she doesnt know how all of these new tools and evaluations are being used, tools that introduce a certain level of tedium to the process. And in some cases, her patience is exhausted. Now, if Nola is asked to submit an asynchronous video interview, she just moves onshe doesnt think its worth her time.
Category:
E-Commerce
I once worked for a client who hired our agency to help them solve what they considered to be their biggest brand-related challengepoor customer experience, which had them losing contracts. During our first meeting at the clients building, my direct contact gave me a tour of every corner of the office, explaining what each department was responsible for and introducing me to key players in the business. At a pause in the tour, she stopped in front of a large poster hanging from the wall, pointed at it dramatically, and said, This is the cause of all of our problems. The poster was bright and well-designed. In bold letters, it proclaimed: Around here, the customer always comes first! The poster was meant to be a motivational reminder about the importance of treating customers wellbut it clearly had some unintended consequences. The unintended consequences of putting customers first All of the employees working here feel like their opinions dont matter and that their needs will always be put last, even if the customer is wrong or being unreasonable in their demands, my contact told us. The poster, of course, was not the problem. The problem was how it made employees feellike second-class citizens in their own workplace. She went into detail about the culture of the company, the low morale among the team, and how employees had no real love for the organization or its customers. As it turns out, poor customer service was not the companys biggest brand-related challenge. It was a symptom of a much greater problemthat of poor employee engagement. Somewhat paradoxically, because the company had a culture of putting the needs of customers first, they actually made their customer experience worse. Why? Because the employees who were tasked with providing remarkable customer experience were themselves having a poor experience in their workplace. How your employees feel is how your customers will feel The way your employees feel is the way your customers will feel, writes workplace facilitator and author Sybil Stershic. And if your employees dont feel valued, neither will your customers. By promoting a culture where customers always come first, the company had worsened its level of customer experience. The companys employees didnt feel valued and, as a result, neither did its customers. Virgin Group founder Richard Branson puts it a different way: Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of your clients. Building a customer-centric business is an honorable and noble endeavor. After all, happy customers are the reason that the lights stay on in any business. But building a customer-centric business at the expense of employees happiness, mental health, work-life balance, and overall needs can only lead to mediocrity in the workplace. The benefits of putting employees first Theres clear evidence that putting customers first by prioritizing company culture, employee engagement, and the overall employee experience has a sweep of benefits, too. Research has shown that: Organizations that score in the top 25% on employee experience receive double the return on sales of organizations in the bottom 25%. More than 80% of workers at companies that perform well financially are either highly or moderately engagedcompared to just 68% at low-performing companies. Organizations with highly engaged employees also get a higher return on investment per employee, with highly engaged employees responsible for an increase of 26% of revenue per employee, along with 13% greater returns to shareholders. Clearly, the level of engagement in your organization has a real and meaningful impact on your bottom line. If you want to build a highly successful company, you cant sacrifice employee engagement in pursuit of customer satisfactionno matter how noble that pursuit may be. Yes, customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction are both critical to the success of your business, but the order in which you pursue these two important elements matters. The most effective path to having satisfied customers is to first have satisfied employees. When employees feel respected, trusted, and valued, they will pass on these sentiments to customers, leading to the type of remarkable customer experience that turns casual consumers into raving (and paying) fans of the brand. But when they feel disrespected, mistrusted, or undervalued because you put customers needs ahead of theirs, you can be pretty confident that your customer experience will worsen, not improve. If youre not satisfied with the level of customer experience that your employees are delivering, try rearranging your priorities by first focusing on happier employees. You may just find that the level of your customer experience will improve organically.
Category:
E-Commerce
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