Nepal’s capital Kathmandu is one of the most polluted cities in the world. But its also one of the fastest-growing markets for EVs: Nepals electric cars now outsell new fossil-fueled vehicles. In the U.S., around 9% of new cars sold last year were electric. In Nepal, that number was around 65%.
Theres been a really remarkable transformation in the uptake of electric vehicles, says David Sislen, the World Bank country director for Nepal, Maldives, and Sri Lanka. Only five years ago, EVs made up a tiny fraction of new car sales in Nepal. Three-wheeled mini-buses, a popular vehicle in the country, were also mostly gas. For those vehicles now, the adoption rate went from less than 1% to 83%, Sislen says.
There was one main reason for the change. So many public policy challenges are complicated and nuanced and hard to understand, but this one is the opposite, he says. Its incredibly simple. In July of 2021, the government radically dropped the import duties and excise taxes on electric vehicles. You make it cheaper, and suddenly people will adopt them. (The country has recently slightly increased taxes on EVs, likely because it was missing the revenue. But electric vehicles are still a better bargain.)
After someone owns an EV, its also cheaper to operate than a gas or diesel vehicle. Thats true anywhere, but especially in Nepal, where fuel is imported and expensive. Charging an EV could be a tenth of the cost of refueling another vehicle, or even less. The models that are availablefrom companies like Chinas BYD and Indias Tataare also desirable. (Tesla also recently started selling cars in Nepal, though Chinese alternatives are more affordable and arguably even better-performing.)
“You see electric vehicles every day, all day long,” says Sislen. “It feels like it’s half of what’s on the road. And the number of [electric] dealerships is amazing.”
Nepal was an early adopter of electric three-wheeled vehicles, known locally as tempos. The first wave of hundreds of electric tempos, funded by USAID and manufactured locally, rolled out in the Kathmandu Valley in the 1990s. But by the turn of the century, government policy helped kill the early industry by cutting import taxes on gas microbuses. Now, modern electric tempos are quickly growing again.
Charging can still be a challenge, though charging infrastructure is also quickly growing, along with alternatives like battery swapping. We want to deploy technology to make the entire journey seamless, says Deepak Raunier, an entrepreneur who is working on a network of battery-swapping stations for two-wheeler and three-wheeler EVs throughout the region.
Kathmandu is also beginning to roll out a fleet of larger electric buses. Last year, Satja Yayatat, a coop bus service that serves the city, added 40 new electric buses and a large new charging station, and it now plans to add another 100. The buses cost around 33 times less to charge than fueling a bus with diesel, although the upfront cost is higher.
The charging essentially runs on clean electricity, since most of the country’s energy comes from hydropower. “That makes this even more impactfulyou’re not charging your vehicles with coal-fired power,” says Sislen. “You’re charging them with green energy.”
Nepal’s climate goals under the Paris agreement include getting to 90% adoption of EVs for private four-wheeled vehicles by 2030. Though with just 0.027% of global emissions, climate isn’t the biggest reason for the country to actinstead, it’s air pollution.
Kathmandu’s geography, surrounded by mountains, traps pollutants. Climate change is leading to more drought in the winter, meaning less rain to help clear the air. Pollution comes from a variety of sources, including wildfires (also increasing because of climate change), and outdated boilers at factories, which the World Bank is pushing to help replace. But transportation is another key factor. And with fewer vehicles belching black exhaust on roads in Kathmandu, the city will be a healthier place to live.
For decades, the one-on-one meeting has been a sacred ritual of managerial life. Its the office equivalent of a treadmill session: repetitive, well-intentioned, and mostly endured out of guilt.
Conventional wisdom says every manager should have regular 1:1s with their direct reports to build trust, boost engagement, and drive performance. However, as work evolveswith a faster pace, flatter structures, hybrid and asynchronous communication, AI tools that manage tasks more efficiently than most humans ever willits worth asking: Do we still need all these 1:1s?
A Brief History
In the early 20th century, Frederick Taylor’s influential Scientific Management (1911) introduced the idea of optimizing work through detailed observation and individual instruction. While strictly not 1:1 meetings in a modern sense, this era laid the groundwork for formal manager-employee check-ins, focused almost exclusively on productivity and control.
Similarly, military hierarchies institutionalized briefings and debriefingsstructured one-on-one conversations that inspired corporate management systems, especially during and after WWII. Think of it as command-and-control performance reviews, with little space for career development or psychological safety.
After WWII, workplace psychology gained prominence. The famous Hawthorne Studies showed that individual attention improved morale and productivity. This era birthed the “manager as coach” concept, which has recently reemerged in the form of Herminia Ibarras leader as coach.
In 1960, Douglas McGregor’s Theory Y reframed employees as intrinsically motivated individuals rather than passive workers. In this context, 1:1 meetings began to evolve into opportunities for feedback, mentorship, and development, especially in management training programs pioneered by companies like GE, IBM, and Procter & Gamble.
With the decline of manufacturing and the rise of the knowledge economy, especially in tech and consulting, the nature of workand therefore managementchanged. As workers were paid more for thinking than doing, interpersonal communication became a management imperative.
By the early 1980s, books like Andy Groves High Output Management popularized 1:1s as tools for alignment, coaching, and decision-making. Grove, the legendary Intel CEO, explicitly advocated for weekly 1:1s as a way to catch small issues before they became large ones, and to ensure both parties shared the same context. His model influenced Silicon Valley and remains widely cited in tech.
Meetings Without Meaning
Steven G. Rogelberg, an organizational psychologist and author of Glad We Met: The Art and Science of 1:1 Meetings, compellingly illustrates that while 1:1s can be powerful tools for enhancing employee engagement and satisfaction, they often become counterproductive and misused.
Rogelberg identifies several common pitfalls that can render 1:1 meetings ineffective:
Manager-Dominated Conversations: When managers monopolize the discussion, speaking more than they listen, or focus solely on task lists, it undermines the meeting’s purpose. Rogelberg notes that such practices serve the manager’s needs rather than supporting the employee’s development.
Lack of Personal Engagement: Effective 1:1s should address both tactical and personal aspects of an employee’s role. Neglecting the personal dimension can lead to missed opportunities for deeper connection and support.
Over-Frequency Leading to Micromanagement: Holding these meetings too often can make employees feel micromanaged. Rogelberg suggests a biweekly cadence of 25 to 50 minutes to balance oversight with autonomy
Productivity Tax
Too often, 1:1s are where status updates are mumbled, calendars are synced, and passive-aggressive comments are politely ignored. They are, in short, a productivity tax, one which alas is often not properly quantified or accounted for. Harvard Business Schools Ashley Whillans reckons the typical knowledge worker spends over 20 hours a week on meetings.
The problem is not the 1:1 itself. Its how, why, and how often its done. Managers cling to weekly 1:1s out of habit or guilt, not strategy. In some orgs, these meetings are confused with therapy; in others, with micromanagement. And worse still, many managers show up to 1:1s with no agenda, no questions, and no curiositya surefire way to destroy psychological safety.
As a matter of fact, most 1:1s are ineffective. Recent research suggests that 70% of meetings hinder employees from completing their tasks, leading to decreased productivity. Despite a 20% reduction in average meeting length during the pandemic, the number of meetings attended by workers increased by 13.5%, exacerbating the issue.
To be sure, not all 1:1s are created equal. In fact, one of the biggest mistakes leaders make is treating all 1:1s the same. Effective managers treat 1:1s like tools in a leadership tool kitused with intention, tailored to the task. Importantly, good management is not about treating everyone the same, but as they deserve and would like be treated. In that sense, it would be foolish to assume that everyone is equally interested in 1:1 meetings, or benefits from the same kind or type of meetings.
Why AI Makes 1:1s Redundant
In an age where Slack pings, shared docs, performance dashboards, and real-time feedback tools bombard us with continuous signals, the weekly or biweekly 1:1 starts to feel like a nostalgic ritualless essential leadership practice, more management cosplay.
The workplace has become asynchronous, distributed, and data-rich. Managers can monitor performance in real-time through productivity aalytics. Employee sentiment can be gauged with pulse surveys and engagement tools. Peer feedback, 360 reviews, personality assessments, and even mood indicators from collaboration software give you more insight than a 30-minute Zoom ever could. And unlike human memory, these systems dont forget, distort, or sugarcoat.
Even the emotional dimension of 1:1sthe human check-inis being digitized. AI tools like Microsoft Copilot or Reclaim.ai can summarize conversations, flag coaching opportunities, and recommend follow-ups before youve even had your morning coffee. Platforms can infer burnout risk from calendar density or written tone. Want to know who feels neglected or disengaged? Ask the algorithm, not your gut.
The very technologies designed to enhance 1:1s are replacing the need for them. Just as calculators made mental math optional, AI makes manual managerial check-ins look like horse-drawn meetings in an era of hyperloops.
Less ritual, more relevance
That doesnt mean we dont need feedback, coaching, or empathy. But it does mean the format of the traditional 1:1calendarized, synchronous, performativemay be overdue for rethinking. In a world of always-on data and generative simulations, the manager who insists on a standing weekly check-in may look less diligent and more . . . analog. So, what replaces them? Perhaps a mosaic of micro-interactions, data-driven nudges, and intentional (not habitual) human moments. In other words, less ritual, more relevance.
As generative AI matures and avatars become indistinguishable from their human counterparts, we may not need to show up to 1:1s at all. Instead, well delegate them to our digital twinshyperrealistic, fine-tuned, emotion-simulating versions of ourselves, trained on our past performance reviews, Slack tone, and leadership competencies. Imagine logging into Zoom and seeing your bosss AI twin nodding empathetically at your AI twin, while both exchange perfectly polite updates and preapproved feedback. The meeting ends, the logs are summarized, and the human versions skim the transcripts over lunch, ideally while doing something more usefullike actual work.
This isnt as far-fetched as it sounds. Companies like Synthesia and Soul Machines are already building digital avatars that can hold unscripted conversations. Microsoft and Meta are investing in personal AI agents that will schedule, negotiate, and even attend meetings on your behalf. In a world of 60% scheduling excess and skyrocketing manager-to-report ratios, letting your digital clone handle routine 1:1s might feel less dystopian and more like time management. The only question is: when both participants are AI, will the meeting be more productiveor just faster at getting nowhere?
Requiem for the 1:1
The one-on-one meeting, once a cornerstone of modern management, now teeters on the edge of obsolescencea charming relic from an analog era, repurposed but rarely rethought. What began as a well-intended vehicle for alignment, coaching, and connection has too often devolved into a managerial placebo: comforting, habitual, and questionably effective. The demands of todays workplacefaster, flatter, and far more fluidsimply dont align with the lumbering cadence of standing check-ins.
In a world where performance is visible in real-time, where emotional states are algorithmically inferred, and where digital twins can carry out conversations better than most middle managers, the weekly 1:1 risks becoming the corporate equivalent of sending a faxquaint, unnecessary, and performed mostly by those resistant to better alternatives.
This doesnt mean we should abandon human connection or stop developing talent. It means rethinking how and when its best delivered. Great managers will still check inbut with intention, not obligation. Theyll coach, not calendar. And the smartest ones will know when to step aside and let technology take the busywork out of empathy.
The future of leadership may still (hopefully) be personalbut it wont always be synchronous, sentimental, or stuck in a recurring Zoom slot.
When Spencer Rascoff took over as CEO at the struggling dating app giant Match Group in February, one of his first orders of business was to acquaint himself with all the services under his purview. Match, which owns and operates more that 45 dating apps, including Tinder, Hinge, OKCupid, and Match.com, has seen its stock price drop more than 80% from its 2021 high amid growing fatigue with online dating and a generation shift away from apps. After explosive growth during the pandemic, Matchs annual revenue has been flattening, in large part because growth at Tinder, its once-reliable cash cow, has stalled. Rascoff, the cofounder and former CEO of Zillow Group, is tasked with turning things around.
Rascoff asked the leadership of Tinder and Hinge to each take three hours and present their apps to him. The Tinder team began by walking him through the apps financial results and business metrics. They then got to the product road map, and finally to the people and culture. The team behind Hingewhich grew revenue by 39% last year, providing a rare bright spot in the Match Group portfoliotook an entirely different approach.
They started with consumer insights. This is where Gen Z is at. This is where Millennials are at. This is the zeitgeist of the world. This is what they want. This is how they date. This is how they think. This is how they connect, Rascoff recalled in May, as he told the story to the audience at the JPMorgan Global Technology, Media, and Communications Conference. Only at the very end, did they actually share, briefly, revenue and financial metrics.
Rascoffs conclusion: If you want to understand why Hinge is winning and Tinder was losing, thats it. Thats why. A little more than a week later, Tinder CEO Faye Iosotaluno announced that she would step down in July, after less than two years in the role. Rascoff is taking the reins himself. Match shares rose 1.3% following the announcement.
Tinder, which accounts for more than half of Match Groups revenue, has had a difficult run. It grew revenue only 1% last year and has been shedding users: Its lost more than 1.2 million paying subscribers since the start of 2024. (When Match Group reported its Q1 earnings in May, it also announced it was laying off 13% of its workforce.)
Tinders not alone: In January, rival dating app Bumble announced that founder Whitney Wolfe Herd would return as CEO, replacing Lidiane Jones, who had been in the role for all of a year. In 2024, Bumble app grew its paying users by 11% to 2.8 million. But in the first quarter of this year, its revenue decreased 6.5% year over year, to $201.8 million, and it shed nearly 100,000 paying users since the end of 2024. Meanwhile, the average revenue per user has dropped 15% since 2021. Bumble has signaled in earnings that it has had difficulty retaining younger users, particularly Gen Z. Its stock is down more than 40%, year over year, and off 90% from its post-IPO high in 2021. (Match and Bumble both declined to make executives available for interviews for this story.)
Rascoff and Wolfe Herd are now embarking on ambitious turnaround plans that have them rethinking what users want from Tinder and Bumbleand how the dating apps underlying user experiences can deliver it. This generation doesnt want more matches. They want better ones, Rascoff said in a recent Instagram post.
And though their target audiences may be different, its a lesson both can learn from Match Groups emerging darling, Hinge.
Hinging on connection
Led by CEO and founder Justin McLeod, Hinge launched in 2012the same year as Tinder and two years ahead of Bumble. But while Tinder became a pop-culture staple, thanks to its addictive swipe-right UX, Hinge remained fairly under-the-radar. Its motto is designed to be deleted, and McLeod has focused on creating a user experience that optimizes for lasting connections. Customers logging off the app for good rather than swiping forever is considered a success.
That ethos is paying off. In 2024, Hinge took in $550 million in revenue, driven by a 23% rise in paying users. In October, it leap-frogged over Bumble to become the second most downloaded dating app in the U.S. for the first time ever (Tinder retained its no. 1 status).
To guide this kind of user behavior, Hinge has deployed a counterintuitive product strategy. Most apps try to reduce friction to make the user experience easy and addictive: Think of the simplicity and elegance of swiping through unlimited options on Tinder, without any pressure to message potential matches.
In September, Hinge bucked that trend and deliberately inserted a stumbling block for users with a feature called Your Turn Limits. The feature solves one of the biggest challenges users face when trying to secure a date: unanswered messages from people who ghost their matches. Now, Hinge users with too many unanswered messages are required to send a reply or end the conversation before being allowed to connect with other users.
Our north star metric is whether users are getting out on great dates or not, McLeod told Fast Company in an interview in February. After Your Turn Limits was released, the app saw fewer matches and likes, but more people going on dates. There are all of these kinds of techniques that can be really engaging and keep people sending lots of likes, but don’t necessarily lead to more dates, McLeod explained. So we do things differently.
Hinge has a longer sign-up process than Tinder and Bumble. It asks users to submit at least six photos and answer a minimum of three prompts. On Tinder, users simply fill out basic information like their name, birthday, and sexual orientation, and add at least one photo; Bumbles sign-up process is similar.
Hinge also takes a different approach to its premium offerings than Tinder. Tinders premium tiers focus on giving users access to more swipes or a profile boost to put them in front of more people, which helps with engagement but doesnt necessarily lead to quality matches. Hinges premium subscriptions have similar features but they also prioritize optimizing for better matches. Premium subscribers are able to filter profiles for characteristics like political affiliation, education level, family plans, or whether someone smokes. Subscribers can also get enhanced recommendations, where the apps algorithm surfaces profiles based on users recent activity. Perhaps taking inspiration from Hinges playbook, Tinder recently started letting users filter profiles by height.
The new rules of dating
Rascoff and Wolfe Herd diagnose the problems with Tinder and Bumble differently, but the result is the same: a decline in quality of matches.
In interviews and earnings calls, Rascoff has said that Tinder suffers, first and foremost, from a perception problem as a hookup appa message that doesnt resonate with Gen Z users. Instead, he wants to help Gen Z users create casual, spontaneous connections without the pressure of hooking up. Were aiming to introduce new ways to meet new people in lower-pressure environments. Thats really what Gen Z wants. Rascoff said at the Wall Street Journals Future of Everything conference in late May. He signaled that even the apps core usr experiencethe profile swipecan be problematic. The high-pressure kind of product offering of looking at a photo and judging it, that is cringey for a lot of Gen Z people, he said. It makes them feel bad about themselves to look at photo and say thumbs up, thumbs down. (Rascoff went even further, writing on Instagram last week that The next era of dating wont be built on swipes alone, but he has since edited that line out of his post.)
To create more casual dating experiences, Tinder is testing a new Double Date feature that allows users to pair up with a friend and swipe on other pairs of friendsand ultimately go on group dates. Currently available in Europe and rolling out in the U.S. later this year, the feature appeals to younger users: On Matchs Q1 earnings call, Rascoff reported that nearly 90% of Double Date users are under 29 years old. The feature is also helping the company grow its user base, as users invite friends to join (or reactivate) the app to take part in Double Date.
Just as Hinge incorporates speed bumps in its user experience, forcing users to send messages to prospects before getting more swipes, Tinder also seems to be experimenting with adding a bit more friction into its own UX. To encourage good behavior on the app, the company recently introduced Are You Sure?, a feature that asks users to reconsider sending a message if it contains anything that could be considered distasteful.
Rascoff has also announced plans to attract younger users by focusing less on making money from them through premium subscriptions. He told the crowd at the J.P. Morgan conference in May to think about Tinder as a bar for singles to meet. We’ve had two or three years of declining attendance at our bar. And the solution, to date, has been to increase the price of the drinks at the bar, and then occasionally come up with slightly different drinks or maybe sell food to an ever decreasing number of people at the bar. We must increase the number of people at the bar.
According to Wolfe Herd, Bumbles problem isnt a lack of people at the barin some ways, its the opposite. During Bumbles Q1 earnings call, she noted that the company pulled in a lot of new users during the pandemic, but we now know they werent always the right fit, which led to fewer and lower-quality matches on the platform. As match quality dropped, some members got discouraged, found fewer successful matches and dates, and fewer people recommended the app to others, she said. The solution for Bumble is simple: Showing members people they want to see, getting them quality matches, quality chats, and closer to love.
She has said that the company is pausing its efforts around monetization and growth marketing to instead focus on improving its matching algorithm and driving user engagement ahead of an app update this summer. And although she hasnt revealed too many specifics around how the app will change, she used her Q1 earnings call to highlight the importance of helping users create better profiles, giving them dating coaches to assist them through the process, and refining the apps ability to anticipate quality matches.
She also signaled that its less about what new products Bumble will launch. We want you to see great people in great simple ways, efficient ways, but this is not about more features. Instead, the metrics that matter here are the quality of the engagement that people have on our product. In other words, shes orienting the app towards a north star that sounds very similar to Hinges.
Incorporating AI
Hinges recommendations algorithm has been a big draw for users. While Tinder relies heavily on a users location, age preferences, and swiping behavior to surface a users profile, Hinge generates matches primarily based on how a user answers prompts. Once it detects a pattern in the profiles a user is drawn to, it shows them more of that type of user towards you.
In March, Hinge tweaked its algorithm to give users more targeted AI-powered recommendations. That update led to a 15% increase in matches and contact exchanges according to Match Groups Q1 earnings. We really have an understanding of your inclination to like someone and their inclination to like you back. We have more and more information about you and we have more information about your taste and your preferences, we can much more strongly predict that match, Mcleod told Fast Company, explaining that the more time a user spends on the app, the better the algorithm gets to know them. Now, Tinder and Bumble seem to be following its lead.
Introducing himself to investors on Match Groups Q4 earnings call, Rascoff stressed that AI can help with user engagement and retention on dating apps, just as it has for social media apps like TikTok and Snapchat. Tinder is currently rolling out a Hinge-like AI-powered matching, which generates more personalized connections based on user data and activity in select markets. Meanwhile, in a May interview with The New York Times, Wolfe Herd said that she wants to use AI to make Bumble the worlds smartest matchmaker over the next two years. The AI can now select the best people and start showing the best people the best people and start getting you to a match quicker, more efficiently, more thoughtfully, she said.
All three apps are also harnessing AI to help users optimize their profiles to get better matches. On Hinge and Tinder, if a user says they are afraid of snakes, for example, an AI prompt might counsel them to write a couple of sentences about why to make their profile more engaging. Wolfe Herd has said that the company plans on introducing a coaching hub, powered by humans and AI, that will help users improve their profiles and dating skills. In a somewhat bleak turn, Tinder is using AI to teach users how to behave on dates. Rascoff also mentioned a voice-based AI coach that Tinder rolled out for the month of April in Matchs Q1 earnings call. [It] let users practice flirting with an artificial intelligence date to learn to break the ice through humor, storytelling, and playful interaction.
Ultimately though, Bumble and Tinders success may hinge on whether or not theyre able to incorporate Hinges secret sauce into their apps: features that attract high quality, intentional users who engage with the app and find a great match. To a large extent, the companies need to go back to their original strategies, before monetization and a growth at all costs mindset ruined their user experiences.
As Wolfe Herd said in Bumbles latest earnings call, There has been this mindset that has been pervasive in the dating industry that more features equal better outcomes. And let’s just launch something new. But some of the greatest consumer products have not changed all that much in the last decade if you think about it.
Everyones always talking about new tools, but some of the best tools are the classic onesincredibly useful things that have been around for ages. These are the tools that have stood the test of time and are just as handy today as they were 20 years ago.
They’re also the kinds of things you wont hear about from most people or publications. And it’s easy to see why: Theyre not the hot new thing. Theyre just quietly helpful for anyone in the know.
So today, lets take a look at one of those web-wide classics. It’s the ideal way to tell, in an instant, whether a website is actually down or not. Ive used it for nearly two decades, and I still rely on it regularly.
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!
Is it down for everyoneor just for me?
Sometimes, no matter what you do, a website just won’t load. The question is obvious: Wait, is the website actually down for everyone? Or will it just not load for me for some reason?
Its an important question to ask. Sometimes, the problem may very well be with your computer, phone, or internet connection. Other times, the website may indeed be completely down for everyone. And these days? It can even be somewhere in between: A website might go down only for people in your region but be accessible elsewhere at the same time.
The way to get to the bottom of whatever’s going on is with a simple little site called Down for Everyone or Just Me. To use it, just pull up the site in your browser of choiceon your phone, computer, or any other web-connected contraption.
Then, plug in a website addressan address like fastcompany.com or theintelligence.com, a social media service, the name of an app, or anything else that doesnt appear to be working right.
Plug in any website’s address to answer the age-old question: Is it down for everyone, or just for me?
Youll learn whether the website appears to be down for everyoneor just for you. And its not only a one-way interaction, either: You can also report what youre seeing. And you can see what problems other people have reported recently, too.
It really is that simpleno accounts, no paid subscriptions, and nothing but a few ads on a single page. Itll help you troubleshoot website connection problems in a snap, exactly as it has since the internet’s early era.
You can access Down for Everyone or Just Me directly in your browser.
Its completely freethe website just has a few ads and accepts donations.
You dont have to provide any private information, and the privacy policy says the service wont sell your personal data.
Ready for more tech-enhancing treasures? Check out my free Cool Tools newsletter for an instant introduction to an incredible audio app thatll tune up your days in delightful waysand another off-the-beaten-path gem in your inbox every Wednesday!
Inside the historic Book Depository at Michigan Central, now home to Newlabs innovation campus, Brittanie Dabney is quietly building a different kind of startup. Her company, EcoSphere Organics, doesnt make apps or mobility tech. It makes biodegradable coasters out of banana peels.
Dabney and her team collect food scraps from local restaurants like Alchemy and Johnnys Speakeasycoffee grounds, citrus rinds, and eggshellsand process them into small-batch products like compostable packaging and plant-based leather alternatives.
Using dehydration and fermentation, Dabney aims to create materials that are both functional and regenerative. I want the vision of our process and manufacturing to be sustainable, Dabney says. No harsh chemicals, not water-intensive.
A coaster made from grapefruit peels at Ecosphere Organics in their NewLab workspace. [Photo: Nick Hagen/Planet Detroit/courtesy Next City]
EcoSphere is still in early development, operating with grant funding and limited access to production space. Once were able to get warehouse space, then well be able to take on more, she says.
The company is part of a growing movement in Michigan to look beyond composting. With 745,000 tons of food waste landfilled in Michigan every year, theyre exploring alternatives: upcycling, food rescue, apps, and decentralized infrastructure that can transform waste into something more useful.
EPA data identifies more than 10,000 food service establishments across Michigan generating significant amounts of food waste, with an estimated total of over 167,000 tons per day. These range from school cafeterias and restaurants to correctional facilities and healthcare institutions, each with unique waste patterns and constraints.
The most frequently listed facility type is full-service restaurants, which account for more than 5,000 sites in the data set. Other common sources include cafeterias, limited-service restaurants, and food service contractors.
Wayne County alone accounts for the most food waste, with more than 177,0000 pounds of average daily waste across facilities, followed by Genesee, Kent, Macomb, and Oakland counties.
This diversity underscores the need for flexible, localized strategiestechnologies and programs that can intervene at grocery stores, restaurants, institutions, and beyond. The innovations emerging in Michigan represent promising steps, but broader adoption and investment will be necessary to meaningfully reduce food waste statewide.
Flashfood app: Where retail tech meets waste reduction
While startups like EcoSphere are experimenting with banana peels and coffee grounds, larger players are tackling food waste at the point of sale. In Michigan, one of the most visible interventions comes from Flashfood, a mobile app that lets shoppers buy groceries nearing their sell-by date at a discountand from Meijer, the first U.S. retailer to partner with the platform.
Meijer was actually our first U.S. customer, says Esther Cohn, a spokesperson for Canada-based Flashfood. Michigan was a natural next step because we already had a strong user base and Meijers scale gave us a way to grow quickly.
The model is straightforward: store staff scan soon-to-expire itemsmeat, dairy, produceinto the app, offering them at steep discounts. Customers place orders on their phones and pick them up from coolers near the store entrance. The goal is to keep food out of landfills and into shopping carts.
From a grocers perspective, youre making money back on items you used to throw away, Cohn says. Youre reducing shrink and avoiding disposal costs. Shrink refers to inventory loss from damage and spoilage.
As of late 2023, Meijer customers had diverted more than 10 million pounds of food waste from landfills using the app, according to the companys corporate impact report. The program began in 2021. Meijer also became the first U.S. retailer to accept SNAP/EBT payments through Flashfood, expanding access to lower-cost groceries.
Flashfood users purchase items through the app and pick them up in the store. [Photo: Nick Hagen/Planet Detroit/courtesy Next City]
But the program requires infrastructure that many smaller grocers dont have: digital inventory systems, trained staff, and coordinated logistics. Even at Meijer, implementation takes planning.
Were looking at multiple tools to address food waste, says Erik Petrovskis, Meijers director of environmental compliance and sustainability. That includes reducing waste at the source, diverting what we can, and making sure as little as possible ends up in a landfill.
Volunteer-powered logistics: Food Rescue US in Michigan
In a parking lot outside a Whole Foods store in Midtown Detroit, Janet Damian loads trays of bread, cut-up sweet potatoes, some pies, and pineapple into the back of her Ford Flex. This isnt a city-run program. Its one of more than 500 monthly rescues coordinated by Food Rescue US-Detroit, a tech-enabled nonprofit that redirects surplus food from stores and restaurants to food pantries, shelters, and fridges across Southeast Michigan.
Elli Chivari, 22, and Jessica Awan, 19, bring carts with donated food from Food Rescue US to the WSU Food Pantry. [Photo: Nick Hagen/Planet Detroit/courtesy Next City]
We rescue any type of foodfresh, frozen, prepared, nonperishable, says Darraugh Collins, who runs the organizations Michigan operations. Sometimes its a whole carload. Sometimes its just a few bags.
The model relies on a lightweight infrastructure: a mobile app, a flexible network of 80 to 100 active volunteers, and over 144 food donor partners, including Target, Whole Foods, Plum Market, and LinkedIn. In 2024, the Detroit program alone rescued about 700,000 pounds of food, delivering it to more than 147 recipient agenciesmany of them in the city, even though most food comes from outside its limits.
One of those volunteers is Janet Damian, a retired medical administrator who lives in Dearborn and picks up food weekly from Whole Foods and other locations. Were reducing food waste by distributing it to people who need it, she says. Its satisfying because the need is realand the appreciation is real.
Her favorite moment? Delivering 30 birthday cakes from Whole Foods to the Wayne State student pantry. Their eyes lit up, she says. It was like a party. It doesnt matter what you bring, theyre just happy someones thinking about them.
That joy is familiar to Kenya Maxey, who oversees the Wayne State pantry, which also includes a thrift shop. Weve seen over 6,700 students in the last 12 weeks, she says. The numbers started climbing in January.
Maxey said the donations from Food Rescue US make their limited budget stretch further, and offer students a moment of normalcy. They get to shop like theyre in a grocery store, she says. And that helps them feel like themselves.
Despite its reach, the model has limits. Were at capacity with the volunteers we have, Collins says. We need more funding, more drivers and ideally some paid positions to help us coordinate. The need is only growing.
This story was originally published by nonprofit news organizations Planet Detroit and Next City through the MIT Environmental Solutions Journalism Fellowship, as part of a series investigating how Michigans food waste system contributes to climate change through landfill methane emissions.
About 33 miles south of Phoenix, Interstate 10 bisects a line of solar panels traversing the desert like an iridescent snake. The solar farms shape follows the path of a canal, with panels serving as awnings to shade the gently flowing water from the unforgiving heat and wind of the Sonoran Desert.
The panels began generating power last November for the Akimel Ootham and Pee Posh tribesknown together as the Gila River Indian Community, or GRICon their reservation in south-central Arizona, and they are the first of their kind in the U.S. The community is studying the effects of these panels on the water in the canal, hopeful that they will protect a precious resource from the deserts unflinching sun and wind.
In September, GRIC is planning to break ground on another experimental effort to conserve water while generating electricity: floating solar. Between its canal canopies and the new project that would float photovoltaic panels on a reservoir it is building, GRIC hopes to one day power all of its canal and irrigation operations with solar electricity, transforming itself into one of the most innovative and closely-watched water users in the West in the process.
The Gila River Indian Community in Arizona lined 3,000 feet of canals with solar panels. [Photo: Jake Bolster/Inside Climate News]
The communitys investments come at a critical time for the Colorado River, which supplies water to about 40 million people across seven Western states, Mexico, and 30 tribes, including GRIC. Annual consumption from the river regularly exceeds its supply, and a decades-long drought, fueled in part by climate change, continues to leave water levels at Lake Powell and Lake Mead dangerously low.
Covering water with solar panels is not a new idea. But for some it represents an elegant mitigation of water shortages in the West. Doing so could reduce evaporation, generate more carbon-free electricity, and require dams to run less frequently to produce power.
But so far the technology has not been included in the ongoing Colorado River negotiations between the Upper Basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, the Lower Basin states of Arizona, California, and Nevada, tribes, and Mexico. All are expected to eventually agree on cuts to the systems water allocations to maintain the rivers ability to provide water and electricity for residents and farms, and keep its ecosystem alive.
People in the U.S. dont know about [floating solar] yet, said Scott Young, a former policy analyst in the Nevada state legislatures counsel bureau. Theyre not willing to look at it and try and factor it into the negotiations.
Several Western water managers Inside Climate News contacted for this story said they were open to learning more about floating solarColorado has even studied the technology through pilot projects. But, outside of GRICs project, none knew of any plans to deploy floating solar anywhere in the basin. Some listed costly and unusual construction methods and potentially modest water savings as the primary obstacles to floating solar maturing in the U.S.
A Tantalizing Technology With Tradeoffs
A winery in Napa County, California, deployed the first floating solar panels in the U.S. on an irrigation pond in 2007. The country was still years away from passing federal legislation to combat the climate crisis, and the technology matured here haltingly. As recently as 2022, according to a Bloomberg analysis, most of the worlds 13 gigawatts of floating solar capacity had been built in Asia.
Unlike many Asian countries, the U.S. has an abundance of undeveloped land where solar could be constructed, said Prateek Joshi, a research engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) who has studied floating solar, among other forms of energy. Even though [floating solar] may play a smaller role, I think its a critical role in just diversifying our energy mix and also reducing the burden of land use, he said.
[Image: Paul Horn/Inside Climate News]
This February, NREL published a study that found floating solar on the reservoirs behind federally owned dams could provide enough electricity to power 100 million U.S. homes annually, but only if all the developable space on each reservoir were used.
Lake Powell could host almost 15 gigawatts of floating solar using about 23% of its surface area, and Lake Mead could generate over 17 gigawatts of power on 28% of its surface. Such large-scale development is probably not going to be the case, Joshi said, but even if a project used only a fraction of the developable area, theres a lot of power you could get from a relatively small percentage of these Colorado Basin reservoirs.
The study did not measure how much water evaporation floating solar would prevent, but previous NREL research has shown that photovoltaic panelssometimes called floatovoltaics when they are deployed on reservoirscould also save water by changing the way hydropower is deployed.
Some of a dams energy could come from solar panels floating on its reservoir to prevent water from being released solely to generate electricity. As late as December, when a typical Western dam would be running low, lakes with floating solar could still have enough water to produce hydropower, reducing reliance on more expensive backup energy from gas-fired power plants.
Joshi has spoken with developers and water managers about floating solar before, and said there is an eagerness to get this [technology] going. The technology, however, is not flawless.
Solar arras can be around 20% more expensive to install on water than land, largely because of the added cost of buoys that keep the panels afloat, according to a 2021 NREL report. The waters cooling effect can boost panel efficiency, but floating solar panels may produce slightly less energy than a similarly sized array on land because they cant be tilted as directly toward the sun as land-based panels.
And while the panels likely reduce water loss from reservoirs, they may also increase a water bodys emissions of greenhouse gases, which in turn warm the climate and increase evaporation. This January, researchers at Cornell University found that floating solar covering more than 70% of a ponds surface area increased the waters CO2 and methane emissions. These kinds of impacts should be considered not only for the waterbody in which [floating solar] is deployed but also in the broader context of trade-offs of shifting energy production from land to water, the studys authors wrote.
Any energy technology has its trade-offs, Joshi said, and in the case of floating solar, some of its benefitsreduced evaporation and land usemay not be easy to express in dollars and cents.
Silver Buckshot
There is perhaps no bigger champion for floating solar in the West than Scott Young. Before he retired in 2016, he spent much of his 18 years working for the Nevada Legislature researching the effects of proposed legislation, especially in the energy sector.
On an overcast, blustery May day in southwest Wyoming near his home, Young said that in the past two years he has promoted the technology to Colorado River negotiators, members of Congress, environmental groups, and other water managers from the seven basin states, all of whom he has implored to consider the virtues of floating solar arrays on Lake Powell and Lake Mead.
Young grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, about 40 miles, he estimated, from the pioneering floating solar panels in Napa. He stressed that he does not have any ties to industry; he is just a concerned Westerner who wants to diversify the regions energy mix and save as much water as possible.
But so far, when he has been able to get someones attention, Young said his pitch has been met with tepid interest. Usually the response is: Eh, thats kind of interesting, said Young, dressed in a black jacket, a maroon button-down shirt and a matching ball cap that framed his round, open face. But theres no follow-up.
The Bureau of Reclamation has not received any formal proposals for floating solar on its reservoirs, said an agency spokesperson, who added that the bureau has been monitoring the technology.
In a 2021 paper published with NREL, Reclamation estimated that floating solar on its reservoirs could generate approximately 1.5 terawatts of electricity, enough to power about 100 million homes. But, in addition to potentially interfering with recreation, aquatic life, and water safety, floating solars effect on evaporation proved difficult to model broadly.
So many environmental factors determine how water is lost or consumed in a reservoirsolar intensity, wind, humidity, lake circulation, water depth, and temperaturethat the studys authors concluded Reclamation should be wary of contractors claims of evaporation savings without site-specific studies. Those same factors affect the panels efficiency, and in turn, how much hydropower would need to be generated from the reservoir they cover.
The report also showed the Colorado River was ripe with floating solar potentialmore than any other basin in the West. Thats particularly true in the Upper Basin, where Young has been heartened by Colorados approach to the technology.
In 2023, the state passed a law requiring several agencies to study the use of floating solar. Last December, the Colorado Water Conservation Board published its findings, and estimated that the state could save up to 407,000 acre-feet of water by deploying floating solar on certain reservoirs. An acre-foot covers one acre with a foot of water, or 325,851 gallons, just about three years worth of water for a family of four.
When Young saw the Colorado study quantifying savings from floating solar, he felt hopeful. 407,000 acre-feet from one state, he said. I was hoping that would catch peoples attention.
Saving that much water would require using more than 100,000 acres of surface water, said Cole Bedford, the Colorado Water Conservation Boards chief operating officer, in an email. On some of these reservoirs a [floating solar] system would diminish the recreational value such that it would not be appropriate, he said. On others, recreation, power generation, and water savings could be balanced.
Colorado is not planning to develop another project in the wake of this study, and Bedford said that the technology is not a silver bullet solution for Colorado River negotiations.
While floating solar is one tool in the tool kit for water conservation, the only true solution to the challenges facing the Colorado River Basin is a shift to supply-driven, sustainable uses and operations, he said.
Some of the Wests largest and driest cities, like Phoenix and Denver, ferry Colorado River water to residents hundreds of miles away from the basin using a web of infrastructure that must reliably operate in unforgiving terrain. Like their counterparts at the state level, water managers in these cities have heard floatovoltaics floated before, but they say the technology is currently too immature and costly to be deployed in the U.S.
Lake Pleasant, which holds some of the Central Arizona Projects Colorado River water, is also a popular recreation space, complicating its floating solar potential. [Photo: Jake Bolster/Inside Climate News]
In Arizona, the Central Arizona Project (CAP) delivers much of the Colorado River water used by Phoenix, Tucson, tribes, and other southern Arizona communities with a 336-mile canal running through the desert, and Lake Pleasant, the companys 811,784-acre-foot reservoir.
Though CAP is following GRICs deployment of solar over canals, it has no immediate plans to build solar over its canal, or Lake Pleasant, according to Darrin Francom, CAPs assistant general manager for operations, power, engineering, and maintenance, in part because the city of Peoria technically owns the surface water.
Covering the whole canal with solar to save the 4,000 acre-feet that evaporates from it cold be prohibitively expensive for CAP. The dollar cost per that acre-foot [saved] is going to be in the tens of, you know, maybe even hundreds of thousands of dollars, Francom said, mainly due to working with novel equipment and construction methods. Ultimately, he continued, those costs are going to be borne by our ratepayers, which gives CAP reason to pursue other lower-cost ways to save water, like conservation programs, or to seek new sources.
An intake tower moves water into and out of the dam at Lake Pleasant. [Photo: Jake Bolster/Inside Climate News]
The increased costs associated with building solar panels on water instead of on land has made such projects unpalatable to Denver Water, Colorados largest water utility, which moves water out of the Colorado River Basin and through the Rocky Mountains to customers on the Front Range. Floating solar doesnt pencil out for us for many reasons, said Todd Hartman, a company spokesperson. Were we to add more solar resourceswhich we are consideringwe have abundant land-based options.
GRIC spent about $5.6 million, financed with Inflation Reduction Act grants, to construct 3,000 feet of solar over a canal, according to David DeJong, project director for the communitys irrigation district.
Young is aware there is no single solution to the problems plaguing the Colorado River Basin, and he knows floating solar is not a perfect technology. Instead, he thinks of it as a silver buckshot, he said, borrowing a term from John Entsminger, general manager for the Southern Nevada Water Authoritya technology that can be deployed alongside a constellation of behavioral changes to help keep the Colorado River alive.
Given the duration and intensity of the drought in the West and the growing demand for water and clean energy, Young believes the U.S. needs to act now to embed this technology into the fabric of Western water management going forward.
As drought in the West intensifies, I think more lawmakers are going to look at this, he said. If you can save water in two wayswhy not?
Were Not Going to Know Until We Try
If all goes according to plan, GRICs West Side Reservoir will be finished and ready to store Colorado River water by the end of July. The community wants to cover just under 60% of the lakes surface area with floating solar.
Do we know for a fact that this is going to be 100% effective and foolproof? No, said DeJong, GRICs project director for its irrigation district. But were not going to know until we try.
GRICs panels will have a few things going for them that projects on lakes Mead or Powell probably wouldnt. West Side Reservoir will not be open to recreation, limiting the panels impacts on people. And the community already has the fundsInflation Reduction Act grants and some of its own moneyto pay for the project.
But GRICs solar ambitions may be threatened by the hostile posture toward solar and wind energy from the White House and congressional Republicans, and the project is vulnerable to an increasingly volatile economy. Since retaking office, President Donald Trump, aided by billionaire Elon Musk, has made deep cuts in renewable energy grants at the Environmental Protection Agency. It is unclear whether or to what extent the Bureau of Reclamation has slashed its grant programs.
Under President Donald J. Trumps leadership, the department is working to cut bureaucratic waste and ensure taxpayer dollars are spent efficiently, said a spokesperson for the Department of the Interior, which oversees Reclamation. This includes ensuring Bureau of Reclamation projects that use funds from the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act align with administration priorities. Projects are being individually assessed by period of performance, criticality, and other criteria. Projects have been approved for obligation under this process so that critical work can continue.
And Trumps tariffs could cause costs to balloon beyond the communitys budget, which could either reduce the size of the array or cause delays in soliciting proposals, DeJong said.
While the community will study the panels over canals to understand the waters effects on solar panel efficiency, it wont do similar research on the panels on West Side Reservoir, though DeJong said they have been in touch with NREL about studying them. The enterprise will be part of the system that may one day offset all the electrical demand and carbon footprint of GRICs irrigation system.
The community, they love these types of innovative projects. I love these innovative projects, said GRIC Governor Stephen Roe Lewis, standing in front of the canals in April. Lewis had his dark hair pulled back in a long ponytail and wore a blue button down that matched the color of the sky.
I know for a fact this is inspiring a whole new generation of water protectorsthose that want to come back and they want to go into this cutting-edge technology, he said. I couldnt be more proud of our team for getting this done.
DeJong feels plenty of other water managers across the West could learn from what is happening at GRIC. In fact, the West Side Reservoir was intentionally constructed near Interstate 10 so that people driving by on the highway could one day see the floating solar the community intends to build there, DeJong said.
It could be a paradigm shift in the Western United States, he said. We recognize all of the projects were doing are pilot projects. None of them are large scale. But its the beginning.
By Jake Bolster, Inside Climate News
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News. It is republished with permission. Sign up for the ICN newsletter here.
After nearly a decade of planning and consultation, the San Francisco Unified School District has made its first venture into the unexpectedand increasingly relevantbusiness of affordable housing development. The district just opened Shirley Chisholm Village, a 135-unit housing complex in San Francisco’s oceanside Sunset District. Built on district-owned land, with affordable rents and preference given to SFUSD educators, it’s a model for the ways urban school districts can use their extensive land holdings to address the housing-affordability challenges faced by their own employees.
The $105 million project was developed by the nonprofit MidPen Housing with a design by San Francisco-based BAR Architects & Interiors, in coordination with the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development. The units, set aside for residents who earn between 30% and 100% of the area’s median income, range from studios up to three-bedroom apartments. Other school districts have taken similar approaches, including the Los Angeles Unified School District, which began developing underutilized district-owned sites into housing back in 2009. SFUSD’s first foray into housing development stands out for both its design and the process behind it.
[Photo: Bruce Damonte/courtesy BAR Architects & Interiors]
The design of the building and its range of amenities were influenced directly by the preferences of the district’s teachers. A panel of educators helped guide the decade-long planning process to bring about the project, participating in workshops to shape its amenities and social spaces.
“One of the main things that came out of those workshops was the desire to have a space to work when they came home, but not to work from their apartment,” says architect Patricia Centeno, a principal at BAR Architects & Interiors. The architects carved out a space on the five-story building’s top floor, facing the ocean, for a work-from-home lounge and gathering space.
[Photo: Bruce Damonte/courtesy BAR Architects & Interiors]
Other input from educators guided the way the project interfaces with the surrounding community, which is primarily made up of modest single-family homes. Dropping a 135-unit building in the middle of the neighborhood could have been a shock, but the designers worked to ensure the building and its site were not an imposition.
[Photo: Bruce Damonte/courtesy BAR Architects & Interiors]
It was a tricky balance to strike, because not long ago the site was a wide-open asphalt parking lot with a small, underutilized storage building, and the community had turned the parking lot into a makeshift neighborhood park. Nearly an acre and a half, it was used for basketball, skateboarding, and a range of other recreational activities. Replacing that with housingespecially housing that was at least a story or two taller than everything around itcould have been grounds for a vocal opposition campaign.
The architects focused on making sure the project’s footprint was as small as possible. “One of our goals was to try to find a way to incorporate a portion of [the community park],” says Centeno. “We knew we were never going to be able to create something as extensive as what they had, but we worked with our client to see if we could meet the goal for the total number of units, and also create some sort of common public space.”
[Photo: Bruce Damonte/courtesy BAR Architects & Interiors]
What they came up with is a publicly accessible plaza, playground, and seating area placed in a carve-out along one of the project’s street-facing edges. “It’s a little bit of a return to the neighborhood,” says Chris Haegglund, president and CEO of BAR Architects & Interiors. A small one-story annex building that sits nearby is intended to be leased out to a local nonprofit.
These spaces, and several residents-only common areas, were made possible by creatively shaping the building into an elongate H as seen from above, filling in the voids with courtyards and green space.
[Photo: Bruce Damonte/courtesy BAR Architects & Interiors]
From the street level, the building was designed to blend into the low-slung neighborhood as much as possible, despite rising to four and five stories in various places. Haegglund says the structure was stepped down at its edges to make a smoother transition to the smaller homes on either side. This nod to the context is also a geographical reference, evoking the sand dunes that once made up this section of San Francisco before development.
“We’re trying to create a building that feels contemporary,” says Centeno. “But we’re trying to fit into a neighborhood of homes that were largely built in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, which is kind of newer by San Francisco standards.”
[Photo: Bruce Damonte/courtesy BAR Architects & Interiors]
To give the building that contemporary feel, the architects put an undulation into the roofline, having it mimic rolling dunes and referencing the roofs of the nearby houses. This undulation was also added to the facade of the building in a nod to the bay windows common in the region.
Though the project was not required to include parking under the city’s zoning code, the developers chose to include some underground spaces, partly to assuage neighborhood concerns about street parking and partly at the request of the educators who helped guide the design process. Despite ample public transportation in much of San Francisco, this neighborhood is on the fringes, and some were concerned about potentially long commutes to schools in other parts of town.
As a district-owned site, it does have the benefit of being embedded in its neighborhood, which makes its conversion to housingand the conversion of other district-owned sitesvery logical. And Shirley Chisholm Village is just the start. SFUSD has three other housing projects in the works.
2012. I walk out of a gastroenterologists office with a brochure titled Your Life With Ulcerative Colitis.
What the brochure doesnt say: A month later, I will wake up on the day of a critical midyear design presentation feeling too nauseous to leave my apartment, and will have to spend several weeks at my parents house, where I will miss several more midterms. A year later, Ill stand at a boarding gate and feel too sick to take a five-hour flight and meet with potential graduate school advisers. Ill soon learn that, for me, these wont be one-offs. Instead, Ill live a life of constant flux, impossible to plan for.
Desperate for some control as I push through academia, I turn to tech products. But technology cant help me. Digital tools excel at routines, but falter at exceptions. I can schedule weeks of meetings in a few clicks, but when Im unwell, Im copy-pasting the same cancellation message a dozen times. My personal-finance app keeps me on track, but only until an urgent-care bill throws things off. When my fitness tracker chastises me for not closing my rings during a particularly brutal flare-up, I shove it into my junk drawer. Technology is failing me when I need it the most.
Happy paths
2016. I join Big Tech, working as a user researcher in early-stage and AI technology. Two things become immediately clear.
First, my story is far from unique. Anecdotes from many hundreds of user interviews reflect lives riddled with chaos and disruption. Changeunplanned and plannedis the norm.
Second, consumer products are largely designed for happy paths. A clear-cut problem is solved by a superhero technology, resulting in a favorable outcome that is tied off with a neat bow. For the sake of clarity, efficiency, and technical ease, the zigzag realities of lives are often sanitized into an idealized arc. We trot out these squeaky clean stories as hero use cases for a product ideafirst to convince ourselves, then our executives, and, finally, our users.
Todays explosion of consumer-facing GenAI products are built with the same recipe. We get heartstring-tugging stories with just enough complexity to feel real, without any of the mess. A dad uses AI to prepare for a job interview while reminiscing on parenthood. A parent brings a childs imaginary creature to life in a custom picture book. Some brands try to incorporate more chaotic realities (a storm hits restaurant patio seating) only to portray absurd overdependence on AI (waiters leave their customers drenched because an AI agent doesnt reseat them indoors).
If youre like me, these ads make you want to scream: Youre standing in the middle of the kitchen. How are your kids not interrupting your conversation with AI 27 times? But in contrast to the hero use case, taking kid snack breaks and asking AI to repeat itself over the noise of toddler screams are often cordoned off as edge cases in product development. The implication: These occurrences are rare.
But they arent. Human journeys are not straight lines. They are dynamic, defined by change, interruptions, and curveballs. Some 60% of Americans reported experiencing an unexpected expense in the past year, though 42% dont have an emergency fund greater than $1,000. Households with two or more children have a viral infection in the household more than 50% of the time. And an estimated 28% of work time each year is lost to distractions.
When technology isnt resilient to this reality, it breakssometimes catastrophically. Like when a Florida teen dies by suicide after his lengthy conversations with a Character.ai chatbot turn darkly romantic. When AI-powered cameras mounted on public buses mistakenly ticket thousands of legally parked vehicles in New York because they fail to recognize alternate side zones. Or when AI weather models fail to predict the worst storms because extreme weather data doesnt exist in the training data.
These outcomes are extreme, but the pathways leading there are deeply ordinary, broken by nascent technology that isnt resilient to the gritty reality of human behavior. Sometimes, the catalyst stems from the tech itself, like security vulnerabilities. Other times, its agnostic of the technology, like mental health. But in all cases, the technology was not resilient to changes in context.
AI’s broken promise
Years ago, you could blame technology as the limiting factor. But AI should, ideally, thrive on this sort of complexityusing its superpowers of pattern recognition, synthesis, and triangulation of thousands of data points about users and their environment. GenAI has introduced a new frontier around deep reasoning and human interaction that should make the technology more tractable and transparent.
AI is uniquely positioned to help people anticipate and recover from change, the kind that they may not have seen coming. Yet the Character.ai system didnt raise the alarm when a conversation overtly turned dangerous, much less recognize patterns that may suggest that it was headed that way. On issuing its 7,000th ticket in one day, the MTAs system didnt flag that this is an unusually large number of violations on a route.
Its never easy to deal with the complex behavior of humans and societies. But when we keep designing to make already great lives 1% better, we are perpetuating a specific type of harmone that happens when the people designing the technology arent considering the real ways it might be used.
As UX practitioners, we are uniquely positioned to start the conversation about how to change this. To move toward an AI UX rooted in resilience, well need to shepherd at least three main shifts in the way our products are designed.
1. Shift the user stories we tellwhich directly map to the problems we choose to solve. UX must choose to foreground the hard, complex story. We all have one: a multigenerational household with life-stage changes, moves across the country, divorce, job loss, a chronic illness. Right now, a key barrier to centering these stories is that they extend ideation cycles, which is uncomfortable in an increasingly launch-first-or-perish climate. As a result, cleaner stories, like the product narratives described earlier, win out.
To break this cycle, UX can introduce complex user stories to product teams starting with ideation, through prototype and concept testingespecially ones that cut horizontally across product ecosystems. This requires creating a new canon: an accessible taxonomy of types of complexity, curveballs, and changes that we can easily pull from. Such a taxonomy might take the form of brainstorming prompts, user journey templates, or a card deck or visualization used in sprints. This cracking open will take time, but the more we tell these stories, the easier thy will roll off the tongue, and the more they can become normalized.
2. Shift how we leverage user data in AI-powered products. Today, user data collected by companieswhile wide-rangingisnt always curated or connected well. Most users, particularly younger generations, have resigned themselves to data collection and dont mind it, but also dont understand how the data is used or whether it benefits them. This is not an argument to collect more data. Rather, its a call to connect existing data for more meaningful, tangible user benefits, like helping navigate blind spots and complexity.
Consider a simple example: Anns AI agent has access to a calendar app where she has blocked off time for a post-work run, a weather app that shows unexpected evening rain showers, and a maps app that she frequently uses to navigate to a yoga studio. This agent can now surface a timely suggestion: help Ann move meetings to shift the run to earlier in the day, or help her find a class at the yoga studio at that time. In reflecting how people really use their technology, this sort of cross-product dialogue and synthesis has the opportunity to leverage AI and user data to unlock resilience in the face of change.
3. Shift away from traditional definitions of seamlessness and magic moments toward ones that gracefully embrace failure, meaningful friction, and deep, explicit user feedback. AI advancements tend to tempt product teams to remove all friction and present users with auto-magical solutions to needs they werent even aware of, from hyper-personalized AI-driven ads to smart nudges on food and shopping apps. Common success metrics used today reflect the value we place on frictionless experiences: fewer clicks, greater session length, engagement with automation features, fewer user-submitted comments. This can cause a misleading overreliance on implicit behavioral signals that dont always reflect real intent.
Take the example of an in-app pop-up: A user might spend a long time viewing it, even clicking on a linknot because they find it useful but because they cant find the exit. Even when users do provide explicit feedback, its often not in a form that can be interpreted meaningfully, leading to undesired outcomes. Think, for example, of how OpenAIs models grew sycophantic after a thumbs-up on a response was used as a signal to make the chatbot behave more in that direction.
Instead, how might we offer users more ways to provide granular feedback that can shed light not only on the what but also the why? This can be meaningful friction that can empower users to have their unique human context be better understood while harnessing the beyond-human capabilities of AI. One could argue that this, in fact, is the more magical experience.
Finally, the pursuit of seamless perfection risks underplaying the shortcomings of AI itselfmisunderstood accents, factual inaccuracies, biased imagery. These are a function of the technology, and are bound to happen. UX needs to treat these as predictable breaking points in the technology, build frameworks to classify them, and design intentionally with them as part of the user narrative.
Of course, its far simpler to sketch these solutions than implement them, but if AI is to work well for real-world problems, we need to tackle real-world complexity head-on. UX is in a powerful position to shift these mindsets. As it has done for domains like accessibility and product inclusion, UX can redefine the problems and narratives that emerging technology is built for, and reshape the UX to accommodate product and user realities to support resilience.
Are we brave enough to get into the messy weeds and do it?
Mining isnt known for innovation. For more than a century, weve extracted copper using the same process: dig, crush, grind, leach, repeat. Meanwhile, demand has exploded, fueled by EVs, AI infrastructure, and the energy transition. That mismatch has created a bottleneck. Were using yesterdays tools to power tomorrows economy.
The conductive highway
Copper is the metal that moves energy. Literally, electrons dont travel from solar panels to batteriesor from your laptop charger to the cloudwithout it. Copper is the conductive highway that keeps the worlds electrons flowing. Its in every EV, every wind turbine, and every data center.
Its also in short supply. Weve mined the easy stuff. Now were left with lower-quality ores, deeper deposits, and rising costsjust as demand hits historic highs. And when the global economy is built on electrons, copper is no longer just a commodity. Its a strategic resource, central to national security, electrification, and economic stability.
Global copper demand is projected to reach 50 million metric tonnes annually by 2035double todays levels. According to BloombergNEF, the world needs over $2 trillion in mining investment by 2050 to meet electrification targets. Meanwhile, ore grades have declined more than 40% since 1990. Investors are watching this gap, and innovation must step in.
Innovative microbes
But something big is happening underground. And I mean that literallywhere the cool rocks are and things get interesting.
As a scientist, I spent years working on astrobiology, cloud platforms, and energy systems. Ive seen how cross-disciplinary thinking can unlock entire industries. Today, I lead a team using engineered microbes to recover copper from ore that conventional mining leaves behind. It sounds unusual, and it is. But thats the point. Innovation in mining doesn’t come from fitting init comes from standing out.
Mining is a deeply conservative industry, and for good reason. Even small changes carry massive financial and operational risks when your tools move millions of tons of earth. But thats also what makes this moment so powerful: When something new works, it really matters, especially when it can be plugged into existing infrastructure without requiring entirely new capital build-outs.
Juice from a rock
At Endolith, we recently completed testing with BHP, one of the worlds largest mining companies, through their Think & Act Differently (TAD) BioMetals innovation program. Our microbes were tested under simulated field conditions on a low-grade primary sulfide orea material so complex most operators consider it uneconomic to process. In one study, microbes shaped through adaptive laboratory evolution and guided by AI recovered up to 80% more copper from this material. Thats like squeezing juice from a rockand getting nearly twice as much.
And this wasnt just a lab trick. These microbes work in real mining environments. They dont need clean rooms or perfect conditions. They need oxygen, acidity, and timeconditions already present in heap leach operations worldwide. We didnt reimagine the entire mine. We made the part most people had written off valuable again, making it cheaper, cleaner, and easier to operate.
By using microbes that require no expensive reagents or intensive energy inputs, were cutting both capital expenditures and operating expenses, making recovery from low-grade ore economically viable again.
Leapfrog technologies
Heres why that matters.
Ore grades are falling. Permitting timelines stretch for decades. Investors and regulators demand lower impact, higher performance, and real ESG outcomes. Mining companies know the status quo is unsustainable, but risk makes experimentation difficult. Most “sustainable mining” efforts rely on incremental gains: better water management, slightly lower emissions, and somewhat faster recovery. Important? Yes. Transformative? Not even close.
We need leapfrog technologiesnew tools that unlock value, speed, and sustainability together. Biology is one of those tools, and right now, its underused. Biology belongs in the core toolkit of modern extraction.
CRISPR for rocks
Industrial biotechnology has already transformed medicine and agriculture, unlocking precision, efficiency, and resilience at scale. Its time for mining to catch up. Think of this as CRISPR for rocks. Instead of blasting ore with chemicals, we let microbes do the work. They break down rock, extract metals, and leave far less waste behind. With help from cloud-based systems, we can tune that process in real time, adjusting to changes in temperature, pH, or ore composition.
Similar biological platforms could be applied to rare earths, lithium, and other minerals critical to the clean energy economy. The opportunity here is massivenot just for Endolith but for a new generation of industrial innovators focused on extraction rather than consumption. As governments prioritize mineral independence and ESG compliance, scalable bio-based solutions are becoming essential to securing the future of energy, technology, and defense.
Scaling this kind of innovation takes more than strong results. It takes strong partnerships between startups and majors, scientists and operators, and regulators and entrepreneurs. We found that with BHP and the TAD team. They gave us a shot. We delivered. And now were working with others to bring this to production.
But scaling also requires trust in the science, in the process, and in the promise of doing things differently.
It means rethinking how we define innovation in mining and giving ourselves permission to imagine something beyond the current constraints.
A systems problem
People tend to talk about clean tech and hard tech as if theyre separate. EVs go in one box, mining goes in another. But thats a false split. There is no clean energy without minerals, no electrification without copper, and no scalable, sustainable supply without reimagining how we recover it.
This is a systems problem, and it requires systems thinking.
That reimagining wont come from status quo thinking. Itll come from radical collaborationand from being brave enough to try something different underground. Itll come from leaders willing to back bold science and turn pilot results into platform change.
Heres the thing: I used to study how life evolved on Earth billions of years ago. The most extraordinary life forms Ive worked with? Theyre here on Earth today. Deep in the rocks, quietly solving problems we’ve struggled with for decades.
So, if you want to power the future, start by listening to the ground and the weird, wonderful microbes doing the heavy lifting. In a world racing toward electrification, these tiny organisms just might be our biggest asset.
Three years after its launch, Perplexity is still struggling to break through. A major hardware deal could change that.
On Sunday, Bloomberg reported that Samsung is in talks to integrate Perplexitys search technology into its devices. The deal would not only preload the Perplexity app onto Samsung phones, but also embed its search features directly into Samsungs web browser and virtual assistant, Bixby.
Back in 2023, Perplexity looked like a frontrunner in AI searchbeating OpenAI and Google to the punch in crawling the live web. But the tech giants have since caught up, with ChatGPT and Gemini now offering similar capabilities. Could a high-profile partnership with Samsung be the boost Perplexity needs to reclaim its edge?
Can Perplexity find a home?
In its current form, Perplexity exists in a functional silo. The answer engine is primarily accessed through its stand-alone website or app, with no natural integration into users daily workflows. In other words, people have to seek it out. Now that its web-crawling technology is being replicated across competing chatbots, some users may no longer see a reason to choose Perplexity on its own. Its main value proposition under the Pro subscription is access to other companies LLMs, like GPT-4o and Claude 3.5. (Perplexity declined to comment for this story.)
Integrating a chatbot into the users workflow is key to driving engagement. Google has embedded Gemini across nearly all of its products, from search to email. As a result, the Gemini app now boasts 400 million-plus monthly active users. Meta has taken an even more aggressive approach, integrating its AI into social apps and placing Meta AI above search. According to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Meta AI now has more than 1 billion monthly active users.
Other AI companies are embedding their models more subtly. While Apples Siri can now access ChatGPT, OpenAIs greatest reach comes from LLM licensing. Users dont just interact with GPT through ChatGPT, theyre engaging with it across dozens of third-party apps built on its technology. The same is true for Anthropic, which also licenses its models.
Perplexity, by contrast, has limited back-end integrations via its API, and for the average user, encounters with its tech are still rare. Thats why a deal with Samsung would be a major step forward. A hardware integration would give Perplexity a critical new point of access.
Meanwhile, Samsung has invested heavily in its Galaxy AI suite. Gemini is currently the default AI assistant for Samsung’s 1 billion-plus smartphone usersraising questions of whether Perplexity will displace or work alongside Google’s chatbot. (Samsung did not respond to Fast Companys request for comment.)
Perplexitys position in the AI race
Perplexity is still growing. While the company doesnt disclose revenue or user numbers, it claims users now generate more than 650 million queries per monthup from 400 million less than a year ago. Although some reports suggest that Perplexitys growth has come at a high cost, the company disputes those figures.
Still, Perplexity has a lot to prove. It reached unicorn status in 2024 after raising $62.7 million at a $1.04 billion valuation. That valuation has reportedly ballooned to $14 billion in its current fundraising round. Meanwhile, the company is said to be generating less than $100 million in annual recurring revenue, according to CNBC.
To stay competitive against imitators, Perplexity needs a more direct path to users. A deal with Samsung could provide exactly that.
