Being a freelance designer has its perks, but pay transparency is not one of them. Designers are constantly forced to second-guess themselves:
Should you charge a day rate or a project fee?
Are you earning as much as your peers?
Is AI taking work/jobs away from you?
Today were launching a new, data-driven effort in partnership with the American Institute of Graphic Arts to help you answer those questions and more with confidence. Its called the Design Pricing Transparency Project, and its dedicated to helping freelance designers understand how much they should be charging for their work.
Were asking designers across the industrygraphic designers, UX professionals, art directors, and othersto help us gather information by taking a short survey. We want to know what kind of projects youre working on, how you price that work, and how youre feeling about the general state of freelancing in 2026. If youre a full-time or part-time freelance designer (yes, even if you have a full-time job!) we want to hear from you.
And we know that getting paid is not a one-way street. Thats why were also asking companies that hire freelance designers to tell us what they pay, what theyre projecting for the coming year, and how AI factors into all of it.
Our goal is to create a detailed snapshot of the freelance financial landscape. Well share the results later this year in a special report.
You can take the survey here.
Phoebe Gates, the youngest daughter of billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates and philanthropist Melinda French Gates, has a low-key terrifying question she throws at those interviewing for a role at her startup.
The 23-year-old recently raised a $35 million Series A for Phia, the AI shopping agent she cofounded in April 2025 with her Stanford University roommate Sophia Kianni. The startup, which has since garnered more than 1 million users and grown revenue elevenfold, is currently valued at around $185 million.
Gates recently joined Brian Sozzi, Yahoo Finance executive editor, on the Opening Bid Unfiltered podcast and revealed her go-to interview question for prospective candidates.
I stole this from another founder, she said. How much do you think California state spends on healthcare? And do a bottoms-up approach for how you would build that out.
She told Sozzi, Ill ask that for every single role. Ill ask that for sales, Ill ask that for marketing, Ill ask that for engineering.
Its not because she expects candidates to know the answer off the top of their head. Instead, she said it highlights how someone goes through a logical approach to solving that question.
Curveball interview questions, designed to surprise candidates and test problem-solving ability or performance under pressure, are famously beloved by founders. Microsoft apparently posed the question “Why are manhole covers round?” to interviewees.
Elon Musk asked, “You’re standing on the surface of the Earth. You walk 1 mile south, 1 mile west, and 1 mile north. You end up exactly where you started. Where are you?”
Many will relate to the panicked feeling that arises upon being asked to sell a pen or divulge their greatest weakness. As entry-level roles become scarcer and the competition for top talent grows fiercer, hiring managers are increasingly getting creative to single out the cream of the crop.
Still, researchers have questioned the usefulness of trick questions against other evidence-based assessments.
As Phia continues to grow, its not the only question Gates has up her sleeve. When it comes to hiring salespeople, she asks candidates the craziest thing theyve done to close a deal. That teaches you a lot about how far theyll go, how dedicated they are to do something, she said.
While Phia has accepted no money from Gatess parentsI have a chip on my shoulder, she admitted on the podcastshe did share one of the most important lessons shes learned from her parents about entrepreneurship.
“From my dad, I’ve really learned that your team is the core of what you’re building, she said. You can’t do anything without an incredible team.”
The impact of GLP-1 medications on weight loss is undeniable, but emerging research suggests the results may only be temporary. A growing body of evidence shows that when patients stop taking GLP-1 drugs, much of the weight they lost returnsand so do the medical complications that may have prompted treatment in the first place.
The only way that they work is if you keep taking them, Scott Isaacs, an endocrinologist at the Grady Health System in Atlanta, told Market Watch. And when people stop taking them, they have a lot of weight regain, and the medical problems that went away tend to come back.
New research from the University of Oxford found that weight is projected to return to pretreatment levels within about 1.7 years after stopping medications. Improvements in cardio-metabolic markersincluding blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes-related indicatorsalso trend back toward baseline within about 1.4 years after cessation.
The recognition that long-term benefits depend on a patients willingness to remain on the medication has become increasingly widespread, both as patients experience these changes firsthand and as more research emerges. Oprah Winfrey has spoken publicly about regaining weight after stopping treatment, later saying that using a GLP-1 is going to be a lifetime thing, according to an interview with People.
However, not everyone is willingor ableto indefinitely commit to GLP-1s.
In a study published last year, researchers analyzed the health records from 77,310 adults in Denmarkwhere Novo Nordisk, a major developer of GLP-1 drugs, is basedwho used Wegovy for the first time. The researchers found that 52% of people stopped taking the drug within a year, pointing to cost and side effects, which have become growing concerns for users worldwide.
Patients can expect to pay at least $4,200 out of pocket annually for drugs like Zepbound and Wegovy, an unsustainable expense for many. As it becomes clearer that GLP-1s may represent a lifelong financial and medical commitment, researchers and clinicians are increasingly evaluating more permanent weight-loss interventions, like bariatric surgery and endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty (ESG), according to Market Watch.
ESG typically costs around $12,000, while bariatric surgery can cost roughly $17,000. Though still expensive, the one-time nature of these procedures may make them a more appealing option for patients seeking lasting results, according to Bariendo, a network of weight-loss surgery clinics.
As evidence continues to surface, patients pursuing weight-loss solutions are facing a central question: whether they are prepared not just to lose weight but to commit to using a medication for life, too.
By Leila Sheridan
This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister website, 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.
In a time when hiring has slowed dramatically, layoffs have become the norm, and AI has flattened early differentiation, even job titles have blurred. The problem is that capable, experienced people increasingly describe feeling stalled, unseen, or interchangeable in todays workforce.
Consider the current landscape of advice to understand the dilemma. People are encouraged to stand out, but without guidance on how to do so. Theyre told to pick a lane and niche down, while careers are becoming more nonlinear. Whats missing is a true strategy that reflects how work actually functions today.
Thats where optimal distinctiveness becomes an advantage. Social psychologist Marilynn Brewer introduced optimal distinctiveness theory to explain a fundamental human need: to belong and be ourselves at the same time. People do their best when they feel included, safe, and distinctly valuable. When either side of that equation is neglected, performance and well-being suffer, along with employability.
Excessive sameness leads to conformity, disengagement, and muted creativity. Excessive difference leads to isolation, friction, or marginalization. In the middle is optimal distinctiveness: where individuality strengthens the group, rather than competing with it. And its a career strategy that meets this moment.
Why the Old Career Playbook No Longer Fits the Market
The labor market has shifted, but traditional career strategies havent. Job growth is uneven and cautious. Early-career workers are being hit hardest, while senior leaders face roles that are broader, less defined, and more fluid than before. In a 2025 Chief x Harris Poll of women leaders, 83% reported that the career success playbook they were handed early in their careers no longer applies to them. Nearly all described making career moves that defied traditional ideas of safety and linear progression.
Across levels, the same concern keeps surfacing in different forms. Early-career professionals wonder how to break through. Mid-career professionals worry about staying relevant. Senior leaders ask how to evolve without losing themselves in the process.
Beneath these questions is a shared dilemma: People either generalize themselves so much that they become forgettable, or they describe their work in ways so complex that others cant place them. Neither approach helps in a job market that increasingly rewards clarity and recognizability.
Lin-Manuel Miranda, Virgil Abloh, and Staying Distinctive
A widely recognized example of optimal distinctiveness in action is Lin-Manuel Miranda. He didnt succeed by blending into Broadway norms or rejecting them outright. Instead, he fused hip-hop, history, and musical theater in a way that was legible to the industry yet unmistakably his own. His work was distinct without being alienatingand that balance is what made it resonate so widely.
A less obvious but equally instructive example is Virgil Abloh. Trained as an architect, Abloh moved fluidly between streetwear, luxury fashion, art, and design. Rather than positioning himself as a traditional designeror an outsider disrupting fashion from the marginshe articulated a clear intersectional identity. His work was understandable within established systems yet distinguished by his integration of disciplines that rarely spoke to one another. That clarity made him not only recognizable but also referable. People knew when to call him in, and why his perspective mattered.
Together, these examples point to the same lesson: Career advantage today doesnt come from fitting neatly into existing boxes or standing so far outside them that others dont know what to do with you. It comes from being distinct in a way others can recognize, remember, and place.
Optimal Distinctiveness as a Career Strategy
At work, optimal distinctiveness means being recognizable enough to be relatable and differentiated enough to be memorable. And it matters more as AI accelerates sameness.
Human decisionswhether someone is hired, referred, trusted, or rememberedstill hinge on whether someone is easy to understand and clearly valuable. Optimal distinctiveness means using language that’s clear and specific, and often at the intersection of multiple roles or domains.
Sarabeth describes herself as a creative disruptor. The phrase is familiar enough to feel accessible, yet specific enough to signal how she works. It gives people an intuitive sense of when and why to engage with her. She sees similar shifts with clients who initially describe themselves through job titles and role-based summaries.
One of Sarabeths clients was a senior professional with experience spanning strategy, operations, and organizational development. On paper, her profile looked impressive but interchangeable. But when she reframed her work around the intersection of those domains, her positioning became clearer and more distinct.
Instead of being experienced in many things, she became known as an opportunity-spotter who creates sustainable human systems. Once that intersection was articulated, conversations changed, referrals became easier, and the work itself felt more energizing because the language finally reflected how she experienced her contribution.
Connecting Identity to Impact
This is where optimal distinctiveness aligns closely with my illumination process. Across leadership development and career transitions, the same pattern shows up repeatedly. People create more impact when they reclaim what makes them distinct, clarify which aspects of that distinctiveness matter now, and express it in service of the collective rather than at odds with it.
One of my clients, a senior leader at a global life sciences company, approached me about feeling invisible despite a strong track record. She had been rewarded for reliability and execution, but over time had muted the part of herself that excelled at talent development. Through our work, she reframed her role around that strength and intentionally redesigned how she showed up in meetings and strategic conversations. She didnt change jobs, but she changed how she was understood, and her influence expanded almost immediately.
Innovation doesnt come from blending in completely, nor from separating yourself entirely. It emerges when people feel secure enough to belong and confident enough to contribute something uniquely their own.
Finding Your Optimal Distinctiveness
Optimal distinctiveness rarely arises from credential stacking or clever titles. It tends to surface at the intersection of a few core professional identities that you consistently draw on. When people map those identities and ask who they are at the overlap, a form of hybrid expertise often becomes visiblesomething that doesnt fit neatly into a single category but feels accurate and grounding.
Naming that expertise usually starts with a core noun that reflects how you operate at workarchitect, builder, connector, translator, catalystfollowed by language that adds precision rather than complexity. The strngest signals narrow understanding instead of expanding it. Pressure-testing that language in conversation is essential. When it fits, people lean in with curiosity rather than confusion. When it doesnt, the awkwardness is usually immediate.
In a labor market defined by uncertainty, clarity becomes a form of agency. Optimal distinctiveness gives people a way to shape how theyre understood without contorting themselves to meet outdated expectations. The future of work is unlikely to reward those who conform most smoothly or perform uniqueness most loudly. It will favor those who can articulate who they are, how they create value, and why that combination matters now. If multidimensionality is the reality of modern careers, optimal distinctiveness is a practical way to navigate itstaying visible, relevant, and human in systems that increasingly struggle to see people clearly.
After a fairly significant hardware upgrade in 2025, its sounding like things will be quieter for the iPhone this year. Bloombergs Mark Gurman reported in his newsletter this week that the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max will represent minor tweaks from their predecessors and wont be a big update. Much of the attention in fall 2026 is expected to be on Apples first folding phone.
Gurman did, however, note that the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max will have a new camera system with a variable aperture, which caught my eye as a phone camera obsessive. There have been rumors about this for years, but I wasnt expecting it to be perhaps the key feature of what are likely to be this years most popular iPhone models.
Thats because variable aperture is an idea thats come and gone in smartphones several times in the past. Does Apple have a truly new take on the concept, or is it just late to the party?
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Aperture 101
Aperture refers to the size of the opening that a lens allows to hit a sensor, or film back in the day. The setting is expressed in whats called f-stops, for example f/1.4 or f/2.0; smaller numbers represent bigger apertures. The larger the aperture, the greater the amount of light, which means the photographer can use a faster shutter speed for a given amount of brightness. Larger apertures also produce a shallower depth of field, allowing the photographer to isolate their subject by blurring the background.
Thats not to say that a larger aperture is always desirable. On a manually controlled camera, sometimes its necessary to stop down the lens to a smaller aperture to avoid overexposing the photo in bright conditions. Lenses also generally perform better at medium apertures in terms of sharpness, so its not advisable to shoot wide open at all times unless you know what youre doing.
Aperture is an essential parameter for enthusiast photography on dedicated cameras, but it tends to be less of an issue on smartphones. The smaller sensors in use mean that its difficult to get significantly shallow depth of field, while the fully electronic shutters are capable of far faster speeds than any mechanical camera, which virtually eliminates the risk of overexposure. As a result, the vast majority of smartphones have their apertures fixed as wide as possible, since the light-gathering benefits usually outweigh all else.
Prior efforts
That hasnt stopped smartphone makers trying to make variable aperture a selling point. The Nokia N86 in 2009 was among the firstthough somewhat cropped by todays standards, its 28mm-equivalent f/2.4 lens was considered unusually wide-angle for the time, and automatically stopped down to f/3.2 or f/4.8 depending on the ambient lighting. The N86 also had a mechanical shutter, so the variable aperture did have something of a raison detre.
In the era of modern smartphones, Samsung was first to try something similar with the Galaxy S9 in 2018. The aperture was an unusually bright f/1.5 wide-open, while it could also stop down to f/2.4. In practice there was very little difference between the two settings, and the feature was jettisoned two years later for the Galaxy S10.
Chinese phone makers soon took the idea to the next level. Huaweis 2022 Mate 50 Pro went all the way from f/1.4 to f/4, letting you dial in ten steps across the range. Xiaomi, meanwhile, had a two-step f/1.4 and f/4 system in the 13 Ultra in 2023, and the following years 14 Ultra featured a stepless f/1.63-f/4 lens that could be set to any aperture you liked.
Xiaomis last two flagship phones, howeverthe 15 Ultra and the particularly excellent 17 Ultra by Leicahave abandoned this kind of lens design. If I had to guess, I imagine that the decision was linked to those phones huge telephoto modules; at smartphone scale, variable aperture lenses are a mechanically complicated design that take up a lot of space.
But I dont think it will have been a particularly difficult call for Xiaomi to make. In practice, the feature just wasnt that useful. I shot a lot with the 13 Ultra and 14 Ultra, and even though they had biggest-in-class 1 sensors, they would almost always default to larger aperture settings. It would occasionally be useful to be able to stop down to f/4 when taking close-up pictures of food, for example, to render more of the dish in sharper focus, but even then the difference wasnt dramatic.
Why Apple?
So why might Apple be targeting its own version of a feature that many rivals have attempted and abandoned? Honestly, Im not sure. Perhaps Apple will use a bigger sensor or larger maximum aperture and wants to mitigate the impact on depth of field in edge cases. Maybe it plans to go softer on its heavy-handed image sharpening and lean into traditional optical quality. Or the plan might just be to market the iPhone 18 Pro as the ultimate foodie camera.
Im unconvinced itll be the right tradeoff, but Im intrigued to learn more about the implementation. Apple is often known for putting a compelling new spin on existing technology. Just remember, if youre watching the iPhone launch event in September and a section on variable aperture comes up, that this is an idea that much of the industry has already tried and decided wasnt worth pursuing.
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Generative AI may be both the most useful and the most mystifying tool of our modern-tech era.
The problemaside from all the endlessly documented issues around accuracyis that generative AI generally seems to function in a DOS-like blank prompt form. The onus is squarely on you to figure out what to ask and how to put these saucy systems to use.
That black-box feeling is especially apparent when you look at NotebookLM, an “AI-first notebook” launched by Google nearly two years ago. The idea behind NotebookLM is that you upload your own source materials within carefully confined notebooks, and you can then lean on Google’s Gemini AI to interact with that material in all sorts of illuminating ways.
Since each notebook is limited only to whatever source materials you supply, the prevalence of those pesky hallucinations seems to be less of an issue. And since everything within your NotebookLM notebooks is kept completely privatenot even used for any manner of AI model training, according to Googleyou can connect it to all sorts of subjects and use it to gain a level of deep insight that was never before so easily accessible.
But again, theres the black box challenge. When you first pull up NotebookLM, it’s tough to know where to begin and how to interact with the thing in practical, approachable ways. Even as someone who writes about technology for a living and has spent more time than most mortals thinking about this service, I realized I hadn’t entirely figured out how to use it in a way that would genuinely be helpful in my day-to-day life.
So I challenged myself to dig deep, get beyond all the conceptual excitement, and come up with a series of real-world use cases for NotebookLM that any regular human could both appreciate and emulate. I’ve got 15 super-specific scenarios, all tried and tested, in which the artificial intelligence answer machine could be useful for you.
Follow this road map and see which path holds the most promise from your perspective.
1. Your on-demand product answer machine
Up first is a possibility that’s supremely simple yet packed with productivity potential: Create a new NotebookLM notebook called “Product Manuals.” Then, every time you purchase a new appliance or device of some sort, search the web for a PDF version of its manual and add it into the notebook.
If you really want to get wild, include an image of any warranty cards, too.
Then, anytime you need to know anything about those productshow some part of them works, how to fix something that’s gone awry, or if and how you’re eligible for a warranty-related repairjust fire up that same NotebookLM notebook and ask, ask, ask away.
2. Your instant car support system
Next, try using NotebookLM to help wrangle the most expensive gadget you own. Do a similar web search for your current vehicle’s owner manual, then drop it into its own NotebookLM notebook with the vehicle’s name as the title. Repeat for any additional vehicles you own and any new ones you purchase down the road.
After recently trading in our old minivan for a hybrid Honda CR-V, my wife and I wasted far too much time flipping through the vehicle’s paper manual to try to figure out what some random button on the dashboard did.
Later, after downloading a PDF of the manual from Honda’s website and then uploading it into NotebookLM, it took me all of 10 seconds to reach the same answersimply by asking.Lesson learned.
With your car manual in NotebookLM, you can simply ask questions and get instant answers.
3. An interactive car maintenance journal
While we’re thinking about cars, every time you go to the mechanic, snap a photo of the service receipt and upload it into a NotebookLM notebook created specifically for that one vehicle.
You can make it even more useful by uploading the same owner’s manual you found a moment ago into that notebook, too.
Doing so will give you two very practical benefits:
First, anytime a question comes up about what work you’ve had done on the vehicle or when a certain repair took place, you can just pull up that notebook and ask.
Second, with the manual and its instructions there alongside all of your history, you can bring the two sources of info together to ask NotebookLM targeted questions that take the manufacturer’s guidance and your past services into considerationlike, for instance, when you should rotate your tires next or what other possibilities you should be thinking about at your next oil change appointment.
And on a related note . . .
4. An interactive home maintenance journal
Start a NotebookLM notebook for your house, then upload every invoice and estimate you get for a home repair as well as every receipt from a new appliance purchase.
Whenever you next need to know when, exactly, your roof was replaced or in what year you got your current furnaceor even what brand and model it isyou’ll have a single simple place to ask and get answers.
And that’s a heck of a lot easier than having an overflowing folder of assorted old papers to sift through in every such scenario.
5. Your personal company wiki
Does the company you run, or maybe just work for, have more handbook-type info than any reasonably sane human could possibly ingest and remember? If so, use a dedicated NotebookLM notebook to store all of itguides, documents, operating procedures, even lists of contacts for different departments and purposes.
From that moment forward, when a question comes up about how smething is supposed to work or whom you’re supposed to contact for some particular purpose, your answer will never be more than a single quick question away.
6. Your instruction-expert wizard
Why limit yourself to work, maintenance, and appliances? With anything that has an instruction manual involved, dump a digital version of the document into its own NotebookLM notebookeven for board games. The next time any kind of question comes up related to those instructions, you’ve got a fast and effective way to get answers.
7. A contract deposit box
Whether you’re a freelancer juggling new contracts every month, an employee signing a new agreement each year, or an employer asking dozens of workers to sign your ever-evolving documents, creating a centralized repository for all your contracts can be a real time-saver in the future.
Need to remember when you last signed something with a specific person or provider? Not sure what the terms of some agreement requiredor when a particular document expires?
Whatever the case may be, once the info’s all in NotebookLM, you’ve always got an easy place to askand let the system find the answer for you.
NotebookLM is perfect for parsing complex contract terms or analyzing multiple contracts together.
8. Your meeting memory
Provided you’re using something to record important meetingsbe it a general-purpose AI-powered note-taker, a video-call-specific summarizer, or an app designed to take notes during regular audio callsthat history will be much more useful if you bring it over to a NotebookLM notebook.
With such a system in place, you can simply go to NotebookLM and ask targeted questions about any of your past meetings instead of having to dig through the transcripts individually.
9. An interview inquiry station
While we’re thinking about transcripts, if you conduct any kind of interviewswith job candidates, as a journalist, or for any other purposetake each transcript and create a NotebookLM specifically for it. (Or, if you have a group of related interviews, put them all in one notebook.)
Upload either the audio or the text, depending on what’s available, and then take the opportunity to ask NotebookLM questions about your conversationbe they specific (like what the person said about some particular topic) or broad (like asking NotebookLM what interesting quotes came up during the interview that you might have missed).
Upload an interview to NotebookLM and let it act as your guide to the conversation.
You’ll obviously still want to refer to the full transcript at timesand to double-check the accuracy of any quote you’re actually citing anywherebut it can be a helpful way to find something fast when you can’t remember the exact words involved or to stumble onto something you might have otherwise glossed over.
10. An intelligent feedback interpreter
If your business relies on any manner of feedback to guide its operations, do yourself a favor and create a NotebookLM notebook where you can upload those resultsas spreadsheets or in whatever form they take. From reviews to survey responses, you’ll then be able to ask NotebookLM to help summarize the key themes and trends, pick out recurring positive or critical responses, and even find particularly memorable quotes for potential testimonial use.
11. Your performance review reviewer
For anyone managing employee performance, NotebookLM can be a major asset. Create an individual notebook for each employee and place all their performance reviews therethen, when the time comes for the next assessment, you’ll have an easy way to revisit past highlights to identify trends and provide context for comparison.
12. A financial reality checker
Provided you’re comfortable with the notion, NotebookLM can turn up some really interesting insights by analyzing things like your tax returns, bank statements, and credit card statements over the years. (For what it’s worth, Google is explicit about the fact that it doesn’t in any way access, share, or use any data uploaded into NotebookLMeven for AI model training.)
With that type of info in its own dedicated notebook, you can ask NotebookLM to give you an overview of your spending habits, to identify areas where you could cut back or potentially be eligible for additional tax benefits, and to surface other such pointers that you can then investigate more thoroughly on your own or with an accounting professional.
NotebookLM can be incredibly effective at analyzing financial summaries and helping you both find specific answers and spot broader trends.
13. An audio-video reading resource
Ever find yourself running into interesting-looking videos or podcasts and just not having the time or inclination to sit through them in their entirety?
Make yourself a NotebookLM notebook called “Audio-Video,” then drop a link to any YouTube video or audio clip you encounter into that area. You can then ask NotebookLM for the high pointsor for any specific info you’re looking to findfrom any of the clips individually or even collectively.
14. An elevated reading list
NotebookLM can be a fantastic way to collect links you want to read for later revisiting. With a notebook called “Reading List,” you can see the entire text of any article whose URL you add in, right then and there and in a stripped-down and simplified formatand you can ask NotebookLM for information about, or even summaries of, any or all of your saved links, too:
What was that article I saved from New York a while back?
Give me the most important takeaways from that Fast Company piece I saved on privacy the other day.
I’m never going to catch up with everything I saved this week. Show me a summary of all the articles I added over the past seven days.
You get the idea.
And finally . . .
15. Your calendar companion
Get a whole new level of insight into how you’re spending your time and what’s actually gone down on your calendar by exporting your complete calendar history, and then importing it into NotebookLMwhere you can create a custom notebook to interact with it.
In Google Calendar, this is as easy as clicking the gear-shaped icon in the desktop website’s upper-right corner, selecting “Settings,” then clicking “Import & export” in the left-of-screen side menu and clicking the “Export” option.
You’ll then need to take the resulting .ics file and convert it into plain textwhich you can do in a matter of seconds with a free conversion website like this one.
Finally, with the resulting .txt file in a NotebookLM note, try asking questions about anything from how many meetings you attended over a given time period to how many hours you spent at the doctor’s office last year. You can also ask for specific info such as how often, on average, you get haircuts or how long it’s been since you last had a job interview.
~google-notebooklm-calendar.jpgYou might be surprised at the types of insights you uncover with your calendar data in NotebookLM’s metaphorical hands.~
The possibilities are practically endlessand all you’ve gotta do is ask.
For even more practical productivity discoveries, check out my free Cool Tools newslettera single new tech treasure in your inbox every Wednesday.
What are the hallmarks of a luxury brand? Exclusivity, artisan craftsmanship, and a high price tag to match. But iconic fashion house Gucci may have just learned the hard way that advertising can undermine all those qualitiesespecially if its made with AI.
On February 23, Gucci started posting promotional images for its upcoming Primavera Fashion Show, its first show under new creative director Demna. The first few photos were inoffensiveMichelangelos David statue, a pair of leather loafersbut then, things took a turn. The next four pictures Gucci posted came with a disclaimer in their captions: Created with AI.
The AI-generated ads included renderings of a woman in a fur coat in the middle of a restaurant, a pair of legs emerging from a cars backseat, two models framed against the night sky, and a sports car. They were all images that could easily have been created traditionally with models and photography, leaving fashion fans online scratching their heads as to why Gucci would turn to AI.
PRIMAVERAFebruary 272 p.m. CETCreated with AI pic.twitter.com/sNbcFrpTX9— gucci (@gucci) February 23, 2026
PRIMAVERAFebruary 272 p.m. CETCreated with AI pic.twitter.com/tcmmFRJBFo— gucci (@gucci) February 23, 2026
PRIMAVERAFebruary 272 p.m. CET#GucciPrimaveraCreated with AI pic.twitter.com/lNyLEMysp3— gucci (@gucci) February 23, 2026
PRIMAVERAFebruary 272 p.m. CETCreated with AI pic.twitter.com/l7XnsfVGsD— gucci (@gucci) February 23, 2026
AI-generated content often falls flat in advertising. Take Svedka Vodkas now infamous Super Bowl ad, which featured a robotic duo straight from the uncanny valley. Social media users decried the ad as nightmare fuel, with one self-described Svedka fan rationalizing that with how cheap it is they can’t afford a real budget for an ad.
Gucci, of course, doesnt have that same excuse. Its no doubt much less expensive to generate an image with AI than to hire a full crew and book a location for a photo shootbut for a brand whose cheapest handbag sells for $850 (and whose most expensive retails for $10,000), disgruntled consumers are making it clear that cutting corners isnt a good look.
Fashion lovers werent shy to critique Guccis move. Any luxury brands that used AI slop should not be [considered] luxury anymore, one X user wrote in a viral post.
Fastest way for a luxury brand to lose its value, said another.
Any luxury brands that used AI slop should not be consider luxury anymore https://t.co/GfwVPlrOhM— (@musesarchive) February 23, 2026
A "luxury" brand using AI…this is a new low https://t.co/eOSK9uVQPc— honeyariedits seeing ari (@honeyariedits) February 23, 2026
a billion dollar company couldn't shoot this? https://t.co/hGLN2xCVl9— (@mugIerette) February 23, 2026
> billion dollar luxury brand> ai photoshoot You cant call yourself luxury anymore. https://t.co/GZlPh0FRha— kira (@kirawontmiss) February 24, 2026
Is Gucci ok with people stealing clothes from their stores, or is it just artists work it is ok to steal? https://t.co/mYuH7WUDks— Ed Newton-Rex (@ednewtonrex) February 24, 2026
fastest way for a luxury brand to lose its value. https://t.co/4ahkNyInz2— The Notorious J.O.V. (@whotfisjovana) February 24, 2026
Whether Gucci can make up any social ground with its actual products remains to be seen: Its Primavera Fashion Show will stream live on X on February 27 at 8 a.m. But Guccis experiment with AI advertising suggests that if brands ask consumers to spare no expense for luxury products, theyll need to shell out too where it counts.
Gucci did not respond to Fast Companys request for comment.
One week ago, a Savannah, Georgia, woman was killed during an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) pursuit.
It’s not the first time in recent weeks that a bystander has been killed by ICE. However, this storyone involving a Black bystanderhasn’t taken off with the same ferocity as others that have flooded our feeds and torn at our collective heartstrings. In fact, many haven’t even heard about the recent incident.
Dr. Linda Davis, a beloved 52-year-old mother of five, was struck by a truck driven by a man who was fleeing immigration officers. Davis taught kindergarten and first grade at Herman W. Hesse K-8 School in Savannah’s south-side suburbs, less than a half mile from where she was killed.
The school’s principal, Alonna McMullen, mourned her death in a statement to PBS. “It was extremely difficult to tell 5 and 6 year olds that the teacher they loved and cherished will not be returning to see them,” McMullen said. “To see the looks on their faces, it broke my heart.”
Davis’s family also released a statement mourning her tragic and untimely passing, but noting that they would not yet “speculate about the circumstances” that led to it.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), was quick to blame Oscar Vasquez Lopez, the suspect who was fleeing ICE when his car collided with Davis’s.
In a statement, DHS described Lopez as “a criminal illegal alien from Guatemala who was issued a final order of removal by a federal judge in 2024.”
Different circumstances, and a very different public response
Davis’s death is far from the only news story we’ve seen recently involving ICE-related deaths.
In January, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse for the VA, was shot and killed by an ICE agent. That shooting came just weeks after Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother, was also killed by ICE.
In both cases, there was instant outrage across the country, as many Americans took to protesting to voice their concerns around ICE’s protocols. As the national reaction swept the country, the number of stories just seemed to multiply accordingly.
For weeks, these stories dominated the news cycle and social media, as protests erupted nationwide. More than a month later, demonstrations honoring the two slain civilians have continued in some parts of the country.
Importantly, Davis’s death happened under a different set of circumstances than both Pretti’s and Good’s. For starters, the incident did not involve ICE gunfire.
However, the death did occur as a result of an ICE pursuit. And it comes at a time when many violent altercations with ICE are being documented, raising serious questions about the agency’s impact on public safety.
While Chatham County Police have a “no-chase” policy for non-violent felonies, the ICE agents seemed to fail to abide by it. In video footage from school zone cameras, three vehicles can be seen chasing Lopez through the school zone. Local police agencies have denied any involvement with the chase.
Chester Ellis, Chatham County’s board chairman, spoke to WTOC shortly after the incident, noting that local law enforcement agencies in the area have restrictive policies in place that are specifically meant to guard against incidents like this one. [Our] no-chase policy is to help protect our citizens more than it is anything else, Ellis said.
Fast Company reached out to DHS for a comment on the footage but did not hear back by the time of publication.
Different circumstances aside, all of the recent ICE-involved civilian deaths have been troubling. Still, while there have been vigils, a GoFundMe campaign, and some major news stories on Linda Davis, the incident is far from being as visible as that of Pretti’s or Good’s.
That can be observed in the lack of coverage on major broadcasts, like ABC World News.
Likewise, traction gained on the GoFundMe pages for each of the families is notably different according to race. Campaigns for Good and Pretti quickly raised well over $1 million in donations. (At present they have $1.4 million and $1.8 million, respectively.) In the week since Davis’s passing, the GoFundMe for her family has raised just over $16,000 as of Tuesday.
Davis isn’t the first Black person to be killed recently in relation to ICE. Keith Porter Jr., a 43-year-old father of two, was killed by an off-duty ICE officer in Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve after he reportedly fired a gun in the air.
According to an autopsy report, Porter was shot by the officer three times. The local community rallied for accountability from ICE while DHS denied any wrongdoing, echoing the organization’s persistent statements that blame the individuals killed by ICE for their own deaths.
The fundraiser has amassed about $300,000 in donations since the incident took place two months ago.
Ingrained racial bias
It’s tough to miss that there has been far less coverage and, subsequently, less moral outrage involving the most recent ICE-related death. Some experts say that’s not due just to the different set of circumstances, but instead reflects racial biases that allow some stories to get less circulation.
Brian C. Stewart is a trial attorney at Parker & McConkie who worked for the family of Gabby Petito, the young traveler who was killed by her fiancé in 2021. That story, which captured global attention, was the subject of countless headlines, dominating the news cycle for months. Eventually, it led to a three-part docuseries, along with other TV movies.
Stewart understads how racial bias impacts how stories travel well. He tells Fast Company there’s even a name for it. It’s called “missing white woman syndrome,” and it “refers to the fact that when a white woman goes missing, her case is much more likely to receive widespread media coverage than when a woman of color goes missing,” Stewart says.
He continues, “The issue isnt that those cases shouldnt get attention; its that many others dont.”
The attorney says that cases involving women of color often don’t get the same kind of attention. However, Stewart adds that it’s not just one system that allows for that bias to continueit’s all of them.
“Media outlets, law enforcement, social media platforms, and even the public all play a role,” the attorney explains. “What gets shared, clicked on, and prioritized shapes which cases receive attention.”
Not only does the lack of attention lead to cases stalling, Stewart says, but it “leaves families feeling forgotten,” too.
Media studies research underscores coverage disparities
Surely, there are always arguments to be made about how different circumstances may lead to different reactions or even detract from widespread national moral outrage.
However, given how many more Black Americans are killed by law enforcement than white Americans (about three times as many fatal shootings), equality in terms of uproar feels extraordinarily far off.
In part, that may be because Americans don’t see as many news stories on Black tragedies. According to a 2020 data analysis published in the journal Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, when victims are killed in “predominantly Black neighborhoods,” the stories aren’t covered as often as those that occur in non-Hispanic white neighborhoods.
Likewise, the way those stories are covered is often different. “Those killed in predominantly Black or Hispanic neighborhoods are also less likely to be discussed as multifaceted, complex people,” the report explains.
A 2021 report from the Equal Justice Initiative and Global Strategy Group on disparities in media coverage also found racial bias, with the bias showing up in 20 different areas of media coverage.
For example, mugshots were used in coverage of cases involving Black defendants 45% of the time, compared to just 8% of the time for white defendants. White defendants were called by their names 50% more than Black defendants.
Meanwhile, white victims were shown in photos with friends and familyaimed at drawing sympathetic responsesfour times more than Black victims.
So far, it’s unclear as to whether ICE will be held accountable for any of the deaths that have occurred as a result of the organization’s pursuits. But as a bare minimum, the public deserves to know about each and every one, regardless of circumstance or of skin color.
Spirit Airlines is hanging on by a thread but it is hanging on.
The budget airline announced a plan Tuesday that would put it on track to exit its second bankruptcy in less than two years and stay in operation. The arrangement will keep the company alive while shrinking its expenses and operations down to an even smaller size than what it aimed for during its first bankruptcy, which it filed for in November 2024.
With financial support from its creditors, Spirit says it plans to emerge from bankruptcy in late spring or early summer. The company plans to keep its core identity as a value carrier that can still offer fliers the lowest fares in the sky while bolstering its loyalty program a tough task in the fiercely competitive field of rewards programs.
Spirit reassured customers that its flights and loyalty program will remain operational through the process. “This agreement in principle is the result of months of hard work and allows Spirit to move toward completing its transformation,” Spirit CEO Dave Davis said in a press release. “Spirit will emerge as a strong, leaner competitor that is positioned to profitably deliver the value American consumers expect at a price they want to pay.”
For Spirit, reducing costs is the name of the game. The airline plans to shrink its debt and lease obligations down from $7.4 billion to $2.1 billion as it navigates its second bankruptcy in less than two years.
Coming out of the pandemic, Spirit struggled more than most airlines to stay aloft. The company has been buffeted by rising labor costs and supply chain snarls like its peers, but also found its business threatened by changing preferences among fliers who once opted for cheap seats in the sky and now prefer more perks.
Spirit shrink and shrinks again
In August, Spirit filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for a second time. Spirit first filed for bankruptcy in November 2024 in the face of a mountain of debt, and aborted merger negotiations.
Following its second bankruptcy, the airline reduced service to a dozen U.S. cities and furloughed a third of its flight attendants in order to stay in the air. We need to shift our focus to a complete rightsizing of the airline, which means volume-based adjustments to our flight attendant group, the airline said in an internal email reported by Reuters.
At the time, the drastic measures werent a surprise. Spirit previously warned in its August quarterly earnings report that the company was desperate for cash, with its business balanced on a razors edge. The dire message came six months after the airline emerged from its first bankruptcy with a plan to trim its business and seek profitability.
Spirit said then that it would pursue liquidity enhancing measures that could include selling some aircraft and offloading extra airport gate capacity. While it is the Companys goal to execute on these initiatives, there can be no assurance that such initiatives will be successful, the company wrote at the time.
In 2024, Spirit sold two dozen planes out of its all-Airbus fleet to generate some emergency cash. Then-Spirit CEO Ted Christie told staffers in an internal memo in early 2025 that the airline faced significant challenges with its business that necessitated further downsizing. The bottom line is, we need to run a smaller airline and get back on better financial footing, Christie wrote.
Spirit turned to a merger with fellow budget carrier JetBlue to give its business a lifeline, but that deal ran into a regulatory wall and Spirits path has been rocky ever since.The Justice Department sued to block the $3.8 billion deal citing antitrust concerns and a federal judge sided with the government, killing the merger.
In light of the airlines ongoing business woes, Spirit (FLYY) was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange late last year.
Unlocking the power of genetics to provide meaningful answers to patients when they matter most is at the crux of precision diagnostics. As technologies advance, costs fall, and evidence builds, genomic sequencing has great potential to transform the trajectory of patient care. It will do so by shortening the diagnostic odyssey. It will guide and speed up more personalized and effective treatment decisions. And it will improve patient outcomes more than ever before. For innovation to truly scale, it will require deep collaboration and seamless integration across the healthcare ecosystem.
BUILD A STRONGER PARTNERSHIP ECOSYSTEM
Making genomic sequencing a standard practice in patient care at scale is not something any organization can accomplish alone. It requires coordinated efforts from providers who identify the clinical need and offer it to patients, as well as health systems integrating testing into care pathways. It also depends on clinical societies broadening their guidelines to include these recommendations, payers expanding access through coverage decisions, and industry partners bringing innovative technologies to the table. These collaborations create the synergies necessary to advance genomics from a specialty tool to a standard-of-care approach. Working together, we can help ensure that patients across diverse populations benefit from advances in precision diagnostics.
This partnership-driven approach also accelerates the translation of genomic findings into clinical action. When clinicians, lab partners, and digital health platforms work together, the pathway from sample collection to diagnosis becomes more streamlined. Patients ultimately see faster, more actionable results. In a rapidly evolving field like genomics, this type of collaboration is key.
APPROACH CARE THROUGH A COMPREHENSIVE MULTIOMIC LENS
Genetic testing has traditionally involved assessing just the DNA for changes that might cause disease. More recently, a multiomic approach to care that involves looking at data from other omics has been pursued. These include transcriptomics, metabolomics, and methylomics. By layering these and other datasets, multiomics can provide a dynamic, functional view that can reveal disease mechanisms beyond a DNA test alone. Incorporating multiomic data can make all the difference in complex rare diseases and inherited conditions where a diagnosis is otherwise elusive.
The powerful impact of a multiomic approach is best illustrated using a real-world case.
Reed was just 18 months old when his parents, Kelly and Chris, began noticing differences in his development, including delays in speech and motor skills, as well as involuntary movements. What followed were years spent navigating waiting rooms, specialist appointments, and numerous tests that offered few clear answers, making it difficult to make informed decisions about his care.
It was not until the family pursued whole genome sequencing (WGS), followed by RNA-seq, that they gained meaningful insight into a possible underlying contributor. WGS identified a variant in the FOXP4 gene, which is known to play a role in regulating other genes involved in brain development, speech, and motor coordination. To better understand the functional impact of this variant, RNA-seq was performed and demonstrated abnormal splicing associated with the FOXP4 variant, supporting its classification as likely pathogenic.
While this finding did not explain all of Reeds medical and developmental challenges, it provided important biological context and helped clarify one significant factor contributing to his clinical picture. The combination of WGS and RNA-seq marked a turning point for the family, enabling more informed discussions with clinicians and supporting a more precise, individualized approach to Reeds ongoing care.
INNOVATION STARTS BEHIND THE SCENES
The true potential of precision diagnostics cant be unlocked without meticulously designed workflows that support each sample from order to result. These behind-the-scenes capabilities are what allow innovation to scale responsibly, and what ensures that patients and providers receive accurate, timely, and clinically actionable answers.
Flexible sample collection options give providers the ability to serve patients where they are, whether in clinics, hospitals, mobile settings, or at home. This flexibility reduces barriers to testing and helps broaden access for patients who may face logistical challenges.
Automated processing and high-throughput systems ensure that every sample moves through the lab with consistent quality and efficiency. This allows organizations to handle increasing test volumes without compromising accuracy or turnaround time. This is an essential capability as more health systems adopt genomic testing at scale.
Finally, seamless electronic health record integration ensures that results flow directly into clinical workflows, making it easier for providers to interpret genomic data and act on it quickly. When clinicians have access to clear, well-structured reports within their existing systems, genomic testing becomes a natural part of patient care.
Together, these operational strengths form the backbone of a world-class customer experience that will make precision diagnostics truly scalable.
Kengo Takishima is chairman and CEO of Baylor Genetics.
