The notion of instant on-the-go translation is nothing new for most of us, thanks to the now-ubiquitous Google Translate service.
But a scrappy Google competitor thinks it can do better.
This month, a company called Kagi is officially launching its Kagi Translate app for both Android and iOS.
The app mirrors most of the same features Google Translate offers, with a few interesting new touches and one key point of distinction: It is all about protecting your privacywith no ads, no trackers, and no data being monetized or repurposed in any way.
Ohand its free, too.
Youll need all of two minutes to take it out for a test-drive.
Psst: If you love these types of tools as much as I do, check out my free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. You’ll be the first to find all sorts of simple tech treasures!
Instant translationsplus privacy
Once you’ve got the Kagi Translate app on your device, it’s really quite intuitive to use. At its core:
You can type or paste any text into its main translation box to have the text translated from and to any language you like.
You can tap the camera icon in that same box to take a photo of text in the real worldon a document, a menu, a whiteboard, you name itand then have the language auto-detected and translated into your native tongue from there.
A document icon in that same area lets you upload a file from your phone (or any connected cloud storage) for speedy on-the-fly translation.
And a microphone icon lets you speak aloudor have someone else speak aloudfor real-time translations of the words as theyre uttered.
Kagi Translate’s main screen is one simple promptwith plenty of power around it.
Beyond that, Kagi Translate offers some interesting extrasfor instance:
If you tap the three-line settings icon within the main translation box, you can change between a natural and literal translation style, a formal or informal voice (for languages where thats relevant), and also any available gender preference (again, where relevant for a dialect).
In that same area, you can also add your own custom context to help guide the translationtelling the app, in your own words, what type of conversation youre having, and with whom, so it can adjust its approach accordingly.
Poke around, and you’ll find all sorts of ways to customize and control your translation output.
In the apps bottom-of-screen Dictionary tab, you can simply get an on-demand, instantly translated definition of a word or phrase in another language.
The apps Proofread tab will review any text you type or paste into it and offer suggestions to make it work better in your chosen language.
And with any translation the app provides you, you have the ability to play the text out loud or copy it onto your system clipboardas well as request alternate translations for different ways to say the same basic thing.
Kagi Translate can give you different ways to say the same thing, if you aren’t entirely thrilled with its initial translation.
Again, though: Its Kagis commitment to privacy that really sets this app apart. You dont have to sign in or create an account to use it, and nothing you do or say within the app is ever shared or used for any type of ad targeting.
If that sounds familiar, it should: Ive written about Kagi and its similarly privacy-centric approach to regular ol search before, and that same mindset applies to pretty much everything else the company has offeredincluding, too, the excellent Android summarizing app I mentioned in these same quarters a few months ago. Kagi makes its money entirely from user subscriptions, which are required for its core search service but not for the assorted stand-alone apps like Translate and Summarize.
Whether youre using Kagi for any other purposes or not, though, this new tool is an interesting option to keep around and a welcome alternative to Google’s de facto defaultand maybe, just maybe, its exactly the je ne sais quoi youve been waiting for.
Kagi Translate is available for both Android and iOS. There’s also a web version for desktop computer access.
The app is completely free to use, though a paid Kagi membership will allow you to access some additional options.
The app doesn&8217;t have any ads or trackers and doesn’t require any sort of sign-inand even if you do opt to create an account, Kagi’s core promise is that it never shares any of your data with anyone, in any way, or uses it for any profitable purposes.
Treat yourself to all sorts of experience-enhancing treasures like this with my free Cool Tools newsletterstarting with an instant introduction to an incredible audio app thatll tune up your days in delightful ways.
Weve all opened our mailboxes to discover an unsolicited credit card offer (or three) inside. Although there must be people out there who take advantage of these offers, most of us simply throw the unopened envelopes in the trash. Yet simply tossing these pieces of snail mail can leave you and your finances vulnerable. Heres why, and how you can get those unsolicited offers to stop for good.
Why am I getting unsolicited credit card offers?
While not as incessant as all the spam emails and text messages we get every day, unsolicited credit card offers are definitely one of the annoyances of modern life. The offers are sent by credit card companies via the U.S. Postal Service and arrive in our physical mailboxes without request. Yet unlike many types of digital spam, these unsolicited credit card offers arent illegal to send.
The offers are permissible under the decades old Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), and other subsequent laws, which allow credit card companies to approach the major credit reporting agencies (Experian, Equifax, Innovis, and TransUnion) with a wishlist of the type of customers they are looking for (ones in a certain ZIP code or with a certain credit score, for example).
The credit card companies then pre-approve these individuals and send the offer in an unsolicited letter. Provided that the recipient still meets the credit requirements when they reply, they are legally entitled to that offer. Pre-approved offers differ from pre-qualified offers in that, with pre-approved offers, the credit card company is essentially scouting you as a customer. With pre-qualified offers, you have to take the initiative to contact the credit card company, telling them that you are interested in applying for a card.
But regardless of whether the letter waiting in your mailbox is for a pre-approved card or pre-qualified one, that piece of physical mail can leave you and your finances vulnerable.
How do they leave you vulnerable?
Credit card offers are tempting by nature: they seduce you into racking up debt at incredibly high interest rates. But unsolicited pre-approved and other credit card offers are risky for an entirely different reason, as well: They leave you vulnerable to identity theft.
The letters already contain your name and address. Pre-approved offers reveal that you will likely have no problem securing a new line of credit. Many of these letters also include a unique code that lets you easily reply to the offer online without having to manually re-enter your identifying information.
All of this information is mouthwatering to an identity thief as it means they have to take little actionbesides snatching the offer letter you tossed into the trashto accept a card issued in your name. And often during the acceptance process, they can reroute the card to their address or PO Box with minimal effort, and begin using it to rack up debt at your expense.
How to stop pre-approved credit card offers from hurting your finances
To protect yourself from having a stolen credit card offer open up a black hole in your financial life, you can do two things.
First, under no circumstances should you simply toss an unsolicited credit card letter into the trash or recycling bin. Anyone can fish it from the garbage and use the information it contains to apply for a card in your name. Instead, you should securely destroy the letter’s contents by shredding it.
Second, and better yet, stop unsolicited credit card offers from landing in your mailbox in the first place. You can do this by informing the credit bureaus that you do not want to receive any such offers. You can opt out of receiving offers for two timeframes: five years or forever. Once you inform the credit bureaus of this, they are legally required to comply with your request.
To opt out, youll need to have your name, address, date of birth, and Social Security or tax identification number. Once you have this, youll go to OptOutPrescreen.com, which is run by the four major credit reporting agencies.
To opt out of getting unsolicited credit card offers in the mail for five years:
Go to OptOutPrescreen.com.
Tap the Click here to opt-in or opt-out button.
Select Electronic Opt-Out for 5 years.
Click Continue and follow the opt-out instructions.
If you are opting out for only five years, you can submit your entire request online. However, if you want to permanently opt out of receiving credit card offers, you must physically mail a form to the credit reporting agencies.
To permanently opt out of unsolicited credit card offers:
Go to OptOutPrescreen.com.
Tap the Click here to opt-in or opt-out button.
Select Permanent Opt-Out by Mail.
Click Continue and follow the opt-out instructions. Youll be asked to download a Permanent Opt-Out Election Form and then print, sign, and date it. You must then mail this form to the address provided on it.
And not to worry. If you change your mind in the future and decide you want to be eligible to receive unsolicited credit card offers again, you can opt back into them at any time. But if you do, just keep an eye on your mailbox before an identity thief does.
Inc.com columnist Alison Green answers questions about workplace and management issueseverything from how to deal with a micromanaging boss to how to talk to someone on your team about body odor.
A reader asks:
I manage a team of four. One of my staff members, Jeff, asked to go to a conference that was about a five-hour drive away. I approved the request as the conference would be good for his professional development. Three other staff members from our closely connected teams were also going.
Jeff registered for the conference. A couple of weeks later, he asked me about booking a flight to it. I was surprised by this, as the conference was a reasonable driving distance. I explained that the department would rent a van and the attendees would drive there together. (Our department wants to minimize expenses when reasonable, so this is normal unless it doesnt make sense logistically or financially.)
He pushed back with a couple of reasons that he wanted to fly, such as it would save time and he didnt feel comfortable driving. I said that flying wouldnt save time since the airport is at least an hour away, you need a time buffer to go through security, etc., and the flight is two hours. I also knew the others going were comfortable being the drivers.
He then said that he didnt want to be in a car for long periods of time since he sometimes has digestive issues. I empathized but suggested he make up a reason he might need more rest stops than usual and give the others a heads-up at the start of the trip. Something like, Sometimes I get woozy when Im in the car for a while, so I need to take more rest stops than usual. This was not acceptable to Jeff, and he ultimately decided not to attend the conference. It wasnt a huge issue, but he was salty about it for a while and complained to a few other people.
Is it reasonable to expect employees to drive to conferences? Are there situations other than distance and cost where we should make an exception to our norm?
Green responds:
I think a five-hour drive one-way is a really long drive, and Im not surprised he expected to fly.
Some businesses, especially those with more limited resources, do use a five-hour rule on business tripswhere if the drive is less than five hours, people drive instead of fly. Personally, it strikes me as too long. Yes, flying can take nearly as long when you account for security, delays, etc., but you can work on planes and in airports; its much harder to work in a car.
But this also varies by field and, in some cases, by professional level. I did five-hour drives without blinking as a 20-something working at a nonprofit. I would not do it now.
But even if this is the norm in your field, Id still make an exception for Jeff because of his digestive issues. Telling him to make up a story about why hed need frequent stops wasnt reasonable. Bathroom issues are private ones, and asking him to come up with a cover story while inconveniencing and possibly annoying his colleaguesand thus making that trip a lot longer than five hourswasnt fair to him. Plus, digestive issues can be urgent in a way that doesnt always leave time to wait for a highway exit, pull off the interstate, find a place with a bathroom, park, etc. Its very possible Jeff can only travel confidently if he stays within a few minutes of a bathroom.
Personally, Id be pretty unhappy if I told a manager I had a medical condition that made long car trips prohibitive and was told, essentially, too bad.
Im wondering if, at some level, you didnt fully believe Jeff and thought he was exaggerating to avoid having to do the drive. As a manager, you really need to default to believing people about their own health unless you have a specific reason not to. Otherwise, you can end up doing things that are really, really problematiclike denying people accommodations they actually need, or making them feel they need to disclose details that they should be able to keep private, or making them feel discriminated against. Thats not to say you cant ever ask for more info or propose a different accommodation (you can, and there are ways to do that legally), but in general, your default should be to believe and try to accommodate a good employee with a health issue.
Want to submit a question of your own? Send it to alison@askamanager.org.By Alison Green
This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister site, Inc.com.
Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
If I had a dollar for every time a Forbes 30 Under 30 alum has been charged with fraud, Id have $5. Which isnt a lot, but its weird that it has happened five times.
By now, the Forbes curse has been well documented, from Charlie Javices JPMorgan fiasco (who was on the Under 30 list in 2019) to crypto poster boy Sam Bankman-Fried perpetrating one of the biggest financial frauds in history (he appeared on the list in 2021). This week, another honoree has been hit with federal charges.
Gökçe Güven, the 26-year-old founder and CEO of fintech startup Kalder, faces 52 years in prison after being charged with fraud, accused of cheating investors out of millions. Güven was also featured in last years Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the Marketing and Advertising category.
The U.S. Department of Justice alleges that, during Kalders seed round in April of 2024, Güven raised $7 million from more than a dozen investors, presenting a pitch deck that misrepresented the number of brands working with the startup and inflated revenues.
The 30 Under 30 to prison pipeline has not gone unnoticed online.
Getting on the Forbes 30 Under 30 is weird: 2% likelihood you become a billionaire, 35% likelihood your company fails, 63% likelihood you end up in white collar prison because you stole money trying to become a billionaire, and then your company fails tech entrepreneur Chris Bakke noted on X on Monday.
Someone needs to write about what it says about contemporary capitalism that SO MANY of the Forbes 30 under 30 list are frauds! another X user wrote. They should make a 30 under 30 where the people are doing legal stuff, another suggested.
Güven joins the ranks of other infamous alleged fraudsters, many of which Forbes featured themselves on their inaugural Hall of Shame for Under 30 picks we wish we could take back in November 2023.
Regrets, weve had a few, the publication wrote at the time.
Among them is Bankman-Fried, founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX and trading firm Alameda Research, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison and ordered to pay $11 billion in forfeiture after defrauding his customers out of more than $8 billion.
Caroline Ellison, Bankman-Frieds sometimes girlfriend, who ran his Alameda Research crypto trading operation also followed in his footsteps, making the 30 Under 30 list the next year. In December 2022, Ellison pleaded guilty to seven criminal charges, including wire fraud and money laundering.
In September 2025, Charlie Javice was sentenced to more than seven years for defrauding JPMorgan Chase out of $175 million to push through the sale of her student financial aid app, Frank.
In 2023, real estate investor and 2016 30 Under 30 honoree Nate Paul was charged with various counts of wire fraud. Five years after making the list, Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli was sentenced to 7 years in prison for fraud in 2018, after hiking the price of a life-saving HIV drug by 4,000%.
Many more 30 Under 30 alumni, while avoiding felony charges, have faced accusations ranging from sexual harassment to fostering toxic workplace culture.
While its easy to dunk on Forbes for jinxing these bright young things by inviting them into an exclusive club with a not unremarkable number of grifters and fraudsters, the real culprit here, as Arwa Mahdawi wrote for The Guardian in 2023, is the fetishizing of youth.
30 Under 30 isnt just a list, its a mentality: a pressure to achieve great things before youth slips away from you, she wrote. The pressure can lead certain ambitious people to take shortcuts.
For those hoping to make the class of 2026, just know the Securities Exchange Commission is watching.
Kristin Cabot, the HR exec at the center of last years Coldplay kiss cam scandal, is headlining a crisis communications conference happening later this year.
Cabot will be seated on the panel “Taking back the narrative” at the PRWeek Crisis Comms Conference in Washington, D.C., on April 16, where individual tickets start at $875 per person.
“While attending a Coldplay concert in July and unwittingly appearing on the kiss-cam for a few seconds, Kristin Cabots life blew up in an instant,” the description of the keynote presentation reads. “From the outside, it was an amusing, if unflattering meme; but for her, everything changed that day.
It continues: Cabot experienced firsthand the extremity of public shaming that women have long experienced when in the negative spotlight of the media, one their male counterparts often seem to avoid.”
In July last year, Cabot told The New York Times that following the scandal the meme had left her unemployable. She described being called every sexist tropea homewrecker, a slutby keyboard warriors, having her number doxxed and flooded 500 times a day, and her physical appearance scrutinized and torn apart by strangers online. While the other party in the scandal was also dragged online, much of the worst criticism has fallen on Cabot.
Cabot will be joined on the 35-minute panel by journalist and communications professional Dini von Mueffling, who Cabot employed as her PR representative in the aftermath of the scandal alongside PRWeek Senior Reporter Jess Ruderman. The panel will unpack “the strategy both immediate and long-term that has helped Cabot take control of her narrative and rewrite her story.”
Thrust into the national spotlight last summer (for those who spent those months living under a rock), Cabot is the former head of human relations at the tech company Astronomer. While attending a Coldplay concert in Foxborough, Massachusetts last in July, Cabot was caught in a 16second viral clip embracing the company’s CEO Andy Byron.
Either they’re having an affair, or they’re just very shy, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin said as the jumbotron panned on to the pair. At the time Byron was married, while Cabot was separated.
Before those details were able to come to light, however, Cabot and Byron had made headlines worldwide, inspiring countless memes and mocked even by their own company. Both Cabot and Byron resigned from Astronomer not long after.Cabot said in the Times interview: “I want my kids to know that you can make mistakes, and you can really screw up. But you dont have to be threatened to be killed for them.”
Why does uncertainty make us less rational with money? And who should we trust for financial advice online? Vivian Tu, financial educator and CEO of Your Rich BFF, breaks down todays personal finance risks and opportunities, from lifestyle inflation and the most common money mistakes smart people make to how Gen Z is navigating 2026 volatility and a shifting job market.
This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company Bob 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.
Today there’s so much uncertaintyin prices, jobs, politics. Do you see that shaping how people behave with their money? Are they less rational in financial decision-making?
It’s like, well, if you don’t think you’re going to be able to afford a home or you don’t think you’re going to be able to go on that actual vacation you want, it becomes like the Estée Lauder lipstick index of, “Oh, well, I can’t afford a new TV, so I’m going to go to the drugstore and get myself a little lipstick.” Or, “I’m in a dollar dribble for a little coffee, I’m going to do this.” You’re spending on things that you will not ultimately derive true happiness out of, true pleasure, true joy, just to get a dopamine hit. When you are in a position of uncertainty, it is more important than ever to have a plan, because if you just leave it up to hope, it’s not going to get you there.
Lots of folks are using AI tools these days for financial decisions, budgeting, investing, even taxes. But a lot of surveys say that for a lot of these folks, it’s led them to some bad decisions sometimes. Where do you think AI can genuinely help with money? Where should we be more wary?
Well, I want to be very clear that none of the AI LLMs, like the ChatGPTs of the world, none of them are financially licensed. Not to be so self-serving, but that is in part why I built out my venture called Ask Dolly. Askdolly.com, check it out. We are actually an SEC-registered RIA, and if you ask Ask Dolly too complex of a question that is not knowledge-based, but rather personal-based, we transfer you to one of our CFPs.
I just want to say RIA is registered investment advisor. CFP is certified financial planner, right?
Oh, sorry, guys. Yeah.
We saw that AI is the next iteration of financial exploration and it really does help people on their financial journeys. They get to ask the embarrassing questions that they’re too ashamed to ask. But I don’t think that AI can operate independently of a little bit of human touch, and frankly, someone who is licensed to provide you financial advice, because it is so personal and there are so many factors to take into account.
There are a lot of people online, creators like yourself who offer financial advice. Not all of them are licensed.
Reputable.
Or registered. How do you know if something you come across on a social platform or online, that it’s reputable, that it’s worthwhile? We get this with health advice, we get with money advice.
What I say is, even with my content, if you see something and you’re like, “I wonder if this is true,” you need to be doing your own research. Watch my video and then go online and check, “Can I find three reputable sources that back up what she’s saying?” You’ll always be able to because I actually research my topics. But go look at articles from The Wall Street Journal, from the Financial Times, from Barron’s, from law firms or banks. Compare them. We have unfettered access now, so there is no excuse for falling for a trap. You actually have to do your own research.
And you have to understand how the people who you’re engaging with, how they make their money, right?
Exactly. Exactly.
Are there things you’ve learned as a creator yourself that you think people don’t really understand about how creators make money?
Yeah, 100%. You wonder why all of those lifestyle influencers were pushing Stanley Cups and all of the little charms that then go on the Stanley Cup and then all of thethey make an affiliate commission on the backend. She doesn’t love her Stanley Cup, she wants you to buy one so she gets money.
I always am very, very honest. When I do brand partnerships, I’m like, “These keep my content free. This is why you don’t have to pay a subscription fee for this. This is why I can do all of this editorial work unpaid: Because I make money.” But at the end of the day, whether or not you get the high-yield savings account I recommend, you should just get one anyway.
Are you saying that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck don’t love Dunkin’ Donuts? Is that what you’re saying?
I’m saying that I have tasted Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. It’s good, but it’s not the only coffee out there.
I’d love to ask you a few rapid fire questions if I can, get your advice on things.
Let’s do it.
All right. So what’s the biggest money mistake that smart people make?
I think it’s just lifestyle inflation, especially for people who start to make more money. You make a little bit more money, you spend a little bit more money, you make a little bit more money, you spend a little bit more money, and at the end of the year you’re like, “How come I don’t have any additional money saved?” All of us fall victim to the comparison trap where we compare our lives with everybody we see on social media, and suddenly you think that if you don’t have X, Y, and Z, you have a bad life. You don’t need to be spending on stuff just to impress other people.
All right. Next question. If I could focus on just one thing financially this year, what should it be?
Trying to increase your income, because my mentor told me this one line and it’s stuck in my brain forever, she said, “You can only save as much as you earn, but you can always earn more money.” We talk so much like, “Cut out the avocado toast, don’t buy the latte, don’t get the little treat.” Imagine how many little joys in your life you would have to cut out to save $5,000. Now imagine how easy it is to ask for a $5,000 raise. Frankly, people get much larger raises than that. It is so much easier for you to make more money than to try and cut every little thing out.
Home ownership. Rent or buy in 2026? How do we decide?
This is an insane question because real estate is so geographically focused. I cannot sit here and be like, “You should rent or buy.” I don’t know where you live. And in some cases, the answer is different based on were you live. What I do know is that it is currently cheaper to rent than buy in 70% of all major metros. And frankly, we should all be looking at our own lifestyles and asking ourselves a couple questions.
One, do we plan on being here for longer than five to seven years at a minimum? If not, you’re not buying. Are you in a position in your career to potentially have the opportunity to make massive leaps and bounds for a little bit of flexibility? So is there a chance you might be transferred to the Tokyo office? You being able to be flexible might be the reason why you get that position versus somebody else, and having that flex might help you. So renters win.
But there is something to be said about building equity. Ask yourself this question. Do you want to build that equity in your primary residence or would it be smarter to maybe just buy an investment property somewhere that is a little cheaper and then continuing to rent your primary residence? If you are planning on building out a family and you really want to paint the walls and you want to have the nursery and you want to do all of these things, maybe renting is not the right move. Maybe you want to buy.
Again, we go back to that five to seven years at a minimum, because the fixed costs of buying a home are very expensive. You have mortgage origination fees and youve got to pay some broker fees. Youve got to pay fee-fi-fo-fum. If you’re going to pay all that, youve got to be staying there for at least a little bit.
As a consultancy owner, I’ve been experimenting heavily with the headline AI applications for the better part of two years now. Our teams have tested it across dozens of products and use cases. Some experiments worked immediately. Others failed at first but succeeded six months later when the models improved. Some we’re still figuring out.
The results keep evolving.
A lot of leaders are obsessing over AI strategies right now. Detailed roadmaps, implementation plans, and resource allocation. I get it. Leadership wants clarity, stakeholders want commitments, and everyone wants to know the plan.
But here’s the issue. Technology is moving way faster than traditional planning cycles can handle. What seemed impossible in January becomes a commodity by June. GPT-4 launched in March 2023. By year-end, teams were already building multimodal AI and voice interfaces that didn’t exist when they started planning.
So, we’ve developed a posture instead of just a strategy.
WHAT DOES POSTURE MEAN?
A posture is a consistent way of thinking about when, why, and how to experiment as things evolve. It’s the framework you use to make decisions in real-time when conditions keep changing.
For us, that starts with a simple filter. Before we experiment with AI on any problem, we ask: Does this fit our criteria?
We built a framework called SPARK to help us decide:
Scale: High volume or time-intensive tasks
Pattern: Repeatable structures or behaviors
Ambiguity: Needs perspective or ideation
Redundancy: Been done before, will be done again
Knots: Bottlenecks that slow people down
If a potential concept hits at least two of these markers, we move forward with an experiment. If not, we wait. Screening helps us focus on high-value opportunities instead of throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.
WHY THIS COMPOUNDS OVER TIME
Here’s what happens when you develop a clear posture: You get faster at recognizing valuable opportunities. You build institutional knowledge about what works in your specific context. You learn when to push forward and when to wait for technology to mature.
One team we work with started experimenting with AI for customer support triage in early 2023. The initial results were mixed. AI frequently misrouted tickets and gave generic responses.
Six months later, we came back to it. Better models, better prompting techniques, and a better understanding of what the AI could handle. This time it worked. They now process 60% of tier-one support interactions with AI, freeing their human team to focus on complex customer issues.
The difference wasn’t a better strategy. It was having a posture that included “when to come back to something we already tested.”
DEFINE YOUR OWN POSTURES
You don’t need to copy our framework. Build something that fits your business context, risk tolerance, and team’s capabilities. But it may be helpful to think through these questions:
What types of problems are we willing to experiment with?
What results would make an experiment worth scaling?
How do we balance speed with responsibility?
What triggers a decision to invest more deeply or move on?
How do we capture and share learnings across experiments?
Having clear answers matters more than having perfect answers.
THE LONG VIEW
AI capabilities will only continue to evolve, and new use cases will emerge. Some of today’s cutting-edge applications will become commodities. Others will reach dead ends.
I believe that the companies who will thrive will be the ones who can consistently evaluate new opportunities, learn from results, and adjust as conditions change. They’ll have trusted experts who know where to experiment and when to scale. That’s what I mean when I say our AI point of view isn’t a snapshot. It’s a posture.
TL;DR The technology keeps moving. Our posture helps us move with it.
George Brooks is the CEO and founder of Crema.
Big Tech is on a spending spree, forecast to drop a staggering $650 billion on artificial intelligence (AI) in 2026 aloneand that’s just for Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon. The companies are ramping up their investment in an increasingly competitive, high-stakes arms race, pouring hundreds of billions into massive data centers and semiconductors, in hopes of establishing a long-term strategic advantage in their quest to dominate the future of technology.
With all four reporting earnings within the last week, Wall Street’s reaction may be an indication that investors are increasingly worried about the large spend, and relative payoffs, from the AI investments.
The spending also coincides with mass layoffs across the tech industry. Those layoffs, which were originally attributed to AI being able to do the jobs of human workers, are now being seen by critics as an excuse for companies to reduce headcounts, so companies can divert spending from workers to building and powering AI data centers, among other things.
Here is a look at some at the numbers as we break down Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Alphabet’s AI spend for 2026.
Amazon 2026 AI spend
Reporting fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday, Amazon said it was pouring $200 billion in capital expenditures into AI this year. News of that, plus the fact it missed first-quarter operating income due to the massive spend, sent shares of the stock down 10% in early morning trading on Friday. At the time of this writing, shares of the cloud giant (AMZN) were down over 6% in afternoon trading.
“With such strong demand for our existing offerings and seminal opportunities like AI, chips, robotics, and low earth orbit satellites . . . we anticipate strong long-term return on invested capital,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in the earnings release.
Alphabet 2026 AI spend
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, said in Wednesday’s earnings report that it estimated AI spending would hit $175 billion to $185 billion this year.
Despite its recent performance and positive earnings report, Wall Street reacted with caution, sending shares of Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL, GOOG) down nearly 2% at the time of this writing on Friday afternoon.
Meta 2026 AI spend
By comparison, Meta‘s capital expenditure for AI lags behind, but is significantly higher and more aggressive than just one year ago.
The companywhich owns and operates Facebook and Instagram, as well as Threads, Messenger, and WhatsAppsaid it was hiking capital investment for AI development by 73% in 2026, to between $115 billion and $135 billion.
For some context, at the beginning of 2025, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had said the social technology company planned to invest between $60 billion and $65 billion, showing just how quickly this AI arms race has ramped up.
Shares of Meta (META) were trading down less than 2% at the time of this writing on Friday afternoon.
Microsoft 2026 AI spend
Finally, Microsoft (MSFT)whose shares were up 1% Friday afternoon, bucking the trend of the three other Big Tech stocksis on course for AI capital expenditures of $145 billion by the end of its fiscal year in July, according to Yahoo Finance.
The stock is down 41% from its October high.The company recently reported second-quarter 2026 earnings, including $81.3 billion in revenue (up 17% year-over-year), and diluted earnings per share (EPS) of $4.14 (up 24% year-over-year).
We are only at the beginning phases of AI diffusion and already Microsoft has built an AI business that is larger than some of our biggest franchises,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement. We are pushing the frontier across our entire AI stack to drive new value for our customers and partners.
On Thursday, OpenAI released GPT-5.3-Codex, a new model that extends its Codex coding agent beyond writing and reviewing code to performing a much wider range of work tasks. The release comes as competition continues to heat up among AI companies vying for market share in the AI-powered coding tools space.
OpenAI says GPT-5.3 combines the coding performance of GPT-5.2-Codex with the reasoning and professional-knowledge capabilities of GPT-5.2, while running 25% faster. This allows GPT-5.3-Codex to handle long-running tasks that involve research, tool use such as web search or database calls, and complex execution and planning across both general work tasks and software development.
Codex has reached over 1 million developers, OpenAI claims. And while Anthropics Claude Code has also seen rapid adoption, head-to-head data comparing the two tools remains scarce. SemiAnalysis reports that 4% of GitHub public commits, or new code uploaded to repositories, are currently being authored by Claude Code, and projects that figure could reach 20% or more by the end of 2026.
Benchmark one-upsmanship
OpenAI says GPT-5.3-Codex now has the best score of any model on SWE-Bench Pro, which evaluates real-world software engineering across four programming languages. Same goes for Terminal-Bench 2.0, which measures the terminal skills coding agents need.
Anthropic says its new Claude Opus 4.6 model, also announced Thursday, achieved top scores on several industry benchmarks including Humanity’s Last Exam (complex multidisciplinary reasoning), GDPval-AA (economically valuable knowledge work), and BrowseComp (hard-to-find information search).
OpenAI says its new model is capable of taking into account larger bodies of information while working on a task, as well as thinking about those tasks for longer periods without human intervention. In testing, OpenAI says it saw GPT-5.3-Codex autonomously iterate on game development over millions of tokens using generic prompts like “fix the bug” or “improve the game.”
Similarly, Anthropic says its new Opus 4.6 model can comprehend larger code bases and make more thoughtful decisions about how to add new code.
OpenAI says GPT-5.3-Codex is built to support the full software lifecycle, including debugging, deploying, and monitoring code, as well as writing product requirement documents and conducting research.
Beyond coding to knowledge work
The same agentic capabilities that expand Codexs coding skill can apply to tasks well outside the realm of software development, OpenAI says, extending to things like creating slide decks, analyzing data in spreadsheets.
On GDPval, an OpenAI evaluation measuring performance on well-specified knowledge-work tasks across 44 occupations, GPT-5.3-Codex matches GPT-5.2 while adding stronger coding capabilities. On OSWorld-Verified, which tests computer use in a visual desktop environment, GPT-5.3-Codex achieved 64.7% accuracy compared to 38.2% for its predecessor.
Anthropic has taken its Claude Code tool in the same directionto help a wider pool of information workers with a far broader set of business tasks.
GPT-5.3-Codex is the first model OpenAI classifies as “High capability” for cybersecurity-related tasks under its Preparedness Framework, and the first the company has directly trained to identify software vulnerabilities. OpenAI is committing $10 million in API credits to accelerate cyber defense, particularly for open source software and critical infrastructure systems.
GPT-5.3-Codex is now available to paid ChatGPT subscribers in the Codex app, command line interface, IDE extension, and web. OpenAI says it is working to enable API access (used by enterprise and independent developers) to the model soon.
HBO Max’s Heated Rivalry, a gay hockey romance TV series based on the Game Changers book series by Rachel Reid, is the breakout hit no one saw coming. With almost no promotion, it quickly became one of the most talked-about streaming TV shows in the U.S. after HBO Max purchased the rights from Canada’s Crave network this November, turning its two costars, Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, into overnight celebrities.
What’s unique about Heated Rivalry is just how fast its popularity has spread, and how devoted its massive fan base is. From the week it debuted to its season finale six episodes later, its viewership grew from 30 million to 324 million streaming minutes, according to the data and research firm Luminate, per The New York Times.
The story is about two rival hockey players who fall in love: Canadian Shane Hollander and Russian Ilya Rozanov. It is a slow-burn romance spanning a decade, and includes explicit sexual sceneswhich some attribute to the great success of the series. Writer-director-producer Jacob Tierney has described the show as pure queer joy.
Now, those die-hard romance fansmostly women and gay menhave an unlikely new interest: ice hockey. It sets the stage for what looks like the newest audience crossover from entertainment to sports, after Taylor Swift fans found football a few years ago when the singer began dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce (now her fiancé). Swift is estimated to have generated over $1 billion in publicity and revenue for the NFL, according to a MarketWatch report.
The Heated Rivalry effect
Turning to ice hockey, ticket reseller SeatGeek says interest in hockey has surged, thanks to Heated Rivalry. And that could translate into increased viewing for the Olympics.
The Winter Olympics always cause interest to spike for hockey, and this time demand is already at a fever pitch following the breakout success of Heated Rivalry, Chris Leyden, SeatGeeks director of growth marketing, tells Fast Company.
After the shows first episodes aired, we saw weekly hockey ticket sales on SeatGeek jump more than 20%, with revenue up over 30%, Leyden adds. Its certainly great for the NHL that hockey is top of mind for the broader American public for such an extended period.
Building on that momentum, less than two weeks ago, Heated Rivalry costars Williams and Storrie carried the Olympic torch in Feltre, Italy, in the run-up to the 2026 Milan-Cortina Games, wearing matching Olympic tracksuits as they made their way through the crowded streets on the 49th leg of the torch relay. (The Games begin Friday, February 6, broadcasting on NBC and streaming on Peacock.)
Meanwhile, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) tells Fast Company there is “strong anticipation for the Olympic ice hockey tournaments, particularly with the return of NHL players,” adding that ice hockey “is traditionally among the most popular and followed sports at the Olympic Winter Games.
And in Bostonwhere Heated Rivalry‘s Russian character Ilya Rozanov plays for the fictional Boston Raiders teamsome fans are getting ready to watch the Olympics.
“I read the books, watched the series, and went from Heated Rivalry to actually learning about ice hockey, and watching YouTube videos about the history of the game,” Rodrigo Pérez Ortega, a science journalism fellow at MIT, tells Fast Company. I looked at the schedule and the teams for the Olympics hockey . . . I will watch them, especially womens hockey,” he says, adding that “I think in general, a lot of womens sports are under appreciated.”
