Before you hit send on your next email, pause for a minute. If youre like the average employee, you draft 112 emails a week, spending about five and a half minutes writing each one, according to this survey by Slack. If your messages go ignored or if the recipient requests clarification, you might want to consider how youre showing up in their inbox.
Professionalism in email communication is important, says Dr. Laurie Cure, CEO of Innovative Connections, an executive coaching and HR consultant. Ultimately, we want our communication to reflect who we are, but more importantly, we want people to hear what we are saying, she says. When they are lost in poor text, grammar errors, emojis that they do not understand, or a confusing message, we are left with misunderstandings that damage our reputation and credibility. It also requires more time to unravel and clarify messages that were not received as intended.
Whether you realize it or not, youre going to be judged by how you communicateincluding your emails. Here are seven common mistakes that can make you look unprofessional.
1. You Get the Recipient’s Name Wrong
While it sounds basic, you start off on the wrong foot if you get the recipients name wrong. Unfortunately, it happens all the time, says Alexa Rome, director of PR and Communications at Omnus Technologies, provider of IT support.
I’ve lost count of how often someone calls me Alex, even though my email address and signature say Alexa, she says. It signals you didn’t take two seconds to double-check the name of the person you’re contacting. It feels impersonal, like you couldn’t be bothered to take the time to learn my name. Trust drops instantly.
Even if you enter someones name right, autocorrect might step in and change it, especially if the name is unique. Before hitting send, take a second to be sure the name is right.
2. You Use Unprofessional Language
If you regularly start business emails with Hey or end them with Thx, you could be inadvertently sending a signal that youre casual about work, says communication coach Judnefera Rasayon.
If youre seen as someone who doesnt take the job seriously, that could damage your reputation and hurt your prospects for advancement, she says. It could potentially cost you and your company clients and revenue.
Elise Powers, CEO of Eleview Consulting, a communications training firm, agrees. Don’t start with Hey, she says. It’s too informal for email and reads like a text message. Hi, Hello, or Good Morning are more professional.
Also, skip the emojis in email, even if you’re emailing a peer or work best friend, adds Powers. You never know if your email will be forwarded on down the line and a senior leader might see the emojis and think, This person is immature or too casual in their correspondence, she says.
3. You Ramble
Every email should be skimmable, synthesized, and concise, says Powers. She recommends using bullet points, bolding, and brief paragraphs to make it easy for the recipient to quickly read your message.
There shouldn’t be long blocks of text, she says. It takes more time to write a skimmable, concise email, and it’s a simple way to add value to someone else.
Rasayon suggests having a clear point in mind before you start writing your email instead of rambling off the top of your head. Unclear requests, deadlines, or instructions could result in people not reading or replying.
4. You Reply All
Before you hit reply all on an email that includes a lot of people, make sure everyone on the thread really needs to read what you have to say. Otherwise, youre adding to the dozens of emails filling up their inboxes.
I’m shocked by how many people don’t get this, says Rome. You should almost never ‘reply all,’ unless every person on the thread truly needs your response. (Spoiler: they usually don’t.) It makes you seem unaware and oblivious of how communication actually works.
5. You Over-Apologize
If you started your email by saying, Sorry for the delay” or “Sorry for the long email,” go back and delete those phrases. While saying sorry in and of itself is not unprofessional, its unnecessary, says Rome.
Not [saying sorry] does make you more professional, she says. Instead, say, Thanks for your patience, or say what you need to say. Period.
Apologizing is more common with women, adds Rome. If a man wouldn’t apologize for it, you probably don’t need to either, she says. You’re allowed to communicate without disclaimers.
6. You Take Too Long to Respond
No one likes to wait for days to get a response to an email, says Rasayon.
A response doesnt have to be a complete response, she says. It could be an interim reply that doesnt provide a complete answer, but acknowledges that youve seen their message, started the process of getting them an answer, and will follow up once you have one.
Not responding in a timely way can send a message that youre not on top of your work, that you ignored the email, or that you dont view the contents of the email as important, says Rasayon.
7. You Respond Too Quickly
On the flip side of responding too slowly is responding too quickly. Were all busy, and you likely work in a fast-paced environment. That isnt an excuse to fire off quick messages.
One of the challenges with the written word is its lack of nonverbal cues, says Cure. Ambiguous language and reader assumptions make email communicaton particularly challenging, she says.
Drafting an important email should take time, and Cure recommends creating a first draft, and then going back to reread them with fresh eyes to ensure they communicate what you desire.
Just today, I met with a leader who was voice texting and did not turn off the speaker, she says. They ended up sending an entire second conversation to the recipient.
While AI can help you tighten your message, it can make you sound like a robot, says Rome. We’re still humans emailing humans, she says. If your email doesn’t sound like something you’d say out loud, revise it.
Microsoft has been one of OpenAIs biggest backers over the past three years, as OpenAIs flagship product, ChatGPT, has steadily embedded itself into our lives. But the multibillion-dollar relationship now appears to be on shaky ground, with rumors that OpenAI might file an antitrust complaint against the Windows-maker in an attempt to wriggle out of a longstanding agreement between the two companies.
The relationship, which began with Microsofts $1 billion investment in OpenAI in 2019and has since grown to include more than $10 billion in total fundingis built on Microsofts entitlement to 49% of OpenAI Global LLCs profits, capped at roughly 10 times its investment.
For years, the partnership has remained stable. When Sam Altman was briefly ousted as OpenAI CEO in November 2023, Microsoft remained steadfast in its support of the company. But recent events appear to have strained the relationshipspecifically, a new deal OpenAI has made.
Whats happening?
OpenAIs pending acquisition of AI coding startup Windsurfvalued at $3 billionhas pushed its partnership with Microsoft to the brink. Reports suggest that OpenAI executives have threatened an antitrust complaint if Microsoft insists on full access to Windsurfs intellectual property after the deal closes. At the same time, Microsoft is reportedly uneasy about the prospect of OpenAI developing a competing Copilot product.
The two companies did issue a joint statement that conveyed a sense of harmony, though it acknowledged no agreement had been reached regarding Windsurf. We have a long-term, productive partnership that has delivered amazing AI tools for everyone, the companies said. Talks are ongoing and we are optimistic we will continue to build together for years to come.
Experts warn that OpenAI should think twice before following through on its reported threats. Siccing the antitrust cops on your rivals may feel very satisfying, but that strategy usually boomerangs back on the complaining company when they themselves get big and successful, says Adam Kovacevich, founder and CEO of the Chamber of Progress, a tech industry coalition.
Kovacevich argues that such internal disputes may grab headlines but ultimately distract from the broader goals. OpenAI and Microsoft are locked in a pretty intense AI competition with Google, Anthropic, and Meta, and these kind of governance disputes are ultimately a huge distraction from trying to win on the technology front, he says.
Which Side Has More Leverage?
An internal OpenAI strategy document, recently surfaced in a court case, reveals the companys bold plan to evolve ChatGPT from a popular chatbot into an all-encompassing AI super assistant, positioning it as both a crucial partner and a potential competitor to Microsoft. The document implicitly acknowledges OpenAIs reliance on partners to achieve massive scale, noting the infrastructure required to serve an enormous user base. Until January 2025, Microsoft was OpenAIs exclusive data center provider, in exchange for integrating OpenAIs models into Microsofts products, including Copilot.
Since then, the landscape has shifted. OpenAI has signed deals with CoreWeave and Oracle for additional computing capacity, and is reportedly close to an agreement with Googledespite Google offering a competing AI modelfor cloud hosting.
Meanwhile, Microsoft still holds a significant share in OpenAIs future profits. There are reports that OpenAI has proposed a deal to exchange Microsofts entitlement to future profits for a 33% stake in a restructured OpenAI. But Microsoft currently retains significant control over whether OpenAI can restructure and, under a 2023 agreement, is also believed to be entitled to access any OpenAI technology, including that acquired through acquisitionspotentially giving Microsoft access to Windsurfs technology for its Copilot coding tools.
Whats the best-case scenario for both companies?
For Microsoft, maintaining the status quo would likely be ideal. They would continue to access OpenAIs core technology, and benefit from Windsurfs specialist expertise to strengthen Copilots coding capabilities.
For OpenAI, the best-case outcome would involve restructuring into a for-profit entity with Microsofts consent, while establishing boundaries to prevent Microsoft from encroaching on areas where OpenAI might eventually compete. OpenAI would also like to diversify its infrastructure partnershaving admitted in legal documents that our current infrastructure isnt equipped to handle [redacted] users.
And, perhaps most importantly, OpenAI wants its product to stand on its ownrather than being buried within a Microsoft-branded ecosystem. Real choice drives competition and benefits everyone, the confidential strategy document states. Users should be able to pick their AI assistant. If youre on iOS, Android, or Windows, you should be able to set ChatGPT as your default. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Meta shouldnt push their own AIs without giving users fair alternatives.
Whether OpenAI will achieve that goal remains an open question.
An Illinois toy company challenged President Donald Trump’s tariffs in front of the Supreme Court on Tuesday in a long shot bid to press the justices to quickly decide whether they are legal.Learning Resources Inc. filed an appeal asking the Supreme Court to take up the case soon rather than let it continue to play out in lower courts. The company argues the Republican president illegally imposed tariffs under an emergency powers law rather than getting approval from Congress.While the company won an early victory in a lower court, the order is on hold as an appeals court considers a similar ruling putting a broader block on Trump’s tariffs. The appeals court has allowed Trump to continue collecting tariffs under the emergency powers law ahead of arguments set for late July.The company argued in court documents the case can’t wait that long, “in light of the tariffs’ massive impact on virtually every business and consumer across the Nation, and the unremitting whiplash caused by the unfettered tariffing power the President claims.”The Supreme Court is typically reluctant to take up cases before appeals courts have decided them, lowering the odds that the justices will agree to hear it as quickly as the company is asking.Still, Learning Resources CEO Rick Woldenberg said tariffs and uncertainty are taking a major toll now. He’s looking ahead to the back-to-school and holiday seasons, when the company usually makes most of its sales for the year.“All the people that are raising their prices are doing it with a sense of dread,” Woldenberg told The Associated Press. But, “we do not have a choice. We absolutely do not have a choice.”Attorneys for Learning Resources and sister company hand2mind, suggested the court could consider whether to take up the case before the end of the term in June and hear arguments when their next term begins in the fall, a relatively quick timetable.The Trump administration has defended the tariffs by arguing that the emergency powers law gives the president the authority to regulate imports during national emergencies and that the country’s longtime trade deficit qualifies as a national emergency.Trump has framed tariffs as a tool to lure factories back to America, raise money for the Treasury Department and strike more favorable trade agreements with other countries.“The Trump administration is legally using the powers granted to the executive branch by the Constitution and Congress to address our country’s national emergencies of persistent goods trade deficits and drug trafficking. If the Supreme Court decides to hear this unfounded legal challenge, we look forward to ultimately prevailing,” said White House spokesperson Kush Desai.Woldenberg said he’s putting “enormous resources” into shifting his company’s supply base but the process is time-consuming and uncertain.“I think that our case raises uniquely important questions that this administration won’t accept unless the Supreme Court rules on them,” he said.Based in Vernon Hills, Illinois, the family-owned company’s products include the Pretend & Play Calculator Cash Register for $43.99 and Botley the Coding Robot for $57.99.__Associated Press writer Mark Sherman contributed to this report.
Lindsay Whitehurst, Associated Press
The Backrooms started as internet folklore posted on 4Chan. Now its been greenlit by A24.
Last week, it was announced that 19-year-old YouTuber Kane Parsons will direct the sci-fi/horror concept The Backrooms for A24, with Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve set to star. This makes Parsons the youngest director the company has ever worked with.
Variety described the upcoming film as “based on the world of Parsons viral YouTube horror universe.” The rest of the plot remains under wraps, with production expected to start this summer.
Parsons posted the nine-minute short film The Backrooms (Found Footage) to his YouTube channel, Kane Pixels, in January 2022. The film was inspired by an internet storyor creepypasta (a term used to refer to short horror fiction posted anonymously on internet message boards)that first appeared on 4Chan.
Credited as the origin of the internets obsession with liminal spaces, the original post read: If you’re not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you’ll end up in the Backrooms, where it’s nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz. The image accompanying the post was later traced back to a former furniture store in Wisconsin, unoccupied during a renovation.
The creepypasta continues: approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in. God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you.
Drawing on this eerie concept, Parsons original short is set in 1996, when a filmmaker is suddenly transported to the carpeted room with no way out, pursued by something that only appears in his peripheral vision.
Following the shorts viral success, the filmmaker and VFX artist has posted further installments to his YouTube channel, which now boasts 2.69 million subscribers.
Fans have long called for Parsons Hollywood debut. “This man is actually insane, he manages to create horror that is scarier than 90% of Hollywood horror films,” one fan wrote under his original YouTube video. “I feel like there should be a complete film or series of The Backrooms, another commented. The fandom is gigantic and there’s everything you need for a movie.
A24 agrees.
Slide Insurance Holdings is set to debut on the Nasdaq today. The residential insurance company out of Florida will make its initial public offering for $17 per share. Heres everything you need to know about Slides IPO.
What is Slide?
Slide is a technology-enabled insurance company for homeowners. Bruce and Shannon Lucas launched Slide in 2022 with coverage options for home, condo, and commercial residential owners. The coastal company has over 5,000 agents across Florida and South Carolina.
When is Slides IPO?
Slide announced its share price on Tuesday and should list its stock today, Wednesday, June 18. The offer is expected to close two days later, on Friday, June 20.
What is Slides stock ticker?
Slides slock will have the ticker SLDE.
Which exchange will Slides shares trade on?
Slide will trade its shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.
What is the IPO share price of Slide?
Slides IPO price is $17 per share. That’s at the higher end of an estimated target range it announced earlier this month.
How many Slide shares are available in its IPO?
There will be 24 million shares of SLDE released as part of the IPO. Slide is providing 16,666,667 of these shares, while stockholders are selling the remaining 7,333,333 shares. These selling stockholders are also granting underwriters 30 days to purchase another 3.6 million shares.
How much will Slide raise in its IPO?
Slide should receive $283 million in its IPO.
Is Slide profitable?
According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Slides total revenue for 2024 increased to $846.8 million, from $468.5 million in 2023. It continues to grow, reporting $281.5 million in revenue for the first quarter of 2025, compared to $199.1 million for the same period in the year prior.
The company reported net income of $201 million last year, up from $87 million in 2023.
What else is there to know?
Despite the current economic turmoil, many companies are still proceeding with IPOsand finding success. Fintech companies Chime Financial and Circle Internet Group had positive results after debuting this month on the Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange, respectively. Each saw their stock shoot up to well above their IPO price, a positive sign for upcoming offerings like Slide.
Six of the Group of Seven leaders discussed Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Israel-Iran conflict but failed to reach major agreements on those and many other top issues closing a summit that was forced to try and show how the wealthy nations’ club might still shape global policy despite the early departure of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and his counterparts from the U.K., France, Germany, Italy and Japan were joined during Tuesday’s final sessions by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NATO chief Mark Rutte.
“We need support from allies and I’m here,” Zelenskyy said, before adding, “We are ready for the peace negotiations, unconditional ceasefire. I think it’s very important. But for this, we need pressure.”
The remaining leaders agreed to jointly attempt to combat what they called non-market policies that could jeopardize global access to critical minerals. They also pledged to limit the downsides of artificial intelligence on jobs and the environment, while still embracing the potential of the “technological revolution.”
There was consensus on other issues, but though the summit was meant to showcase unity on top global concerns, no joint statement on the conflict in Ukraine was released.
Zelenskyy had been set to meet with Trump while world leaders were gathering in the Canadian Rocky Mountain resort of Kananaskis, but that was scrapped. The U.S. also previously signed an agreement granting American access to Ukraine’s vast mineral resources.
A senior Canadian official who briefed reporters at the summit said the U.S. opposed a joint statement on Ukraine amid its efforts to promote negotiations with Russia. The official said it only became clear during the summit’s first day on Monday that there wouldn’t be a joint statementthough other attendees suggested no consensus agreement was seriously on the table. Emily Williams, a spokeswoman for the prime minister, later retracted the briefing statement and said “no proposed statement regarding Ukraine was distributed to other leaders.”
In Trump’s absence, the remaining six leaders held an extensive session on Ukraine. Lacking unanimity, individual leaders also met with Zelenskyy to reassure him of their support.
The summit also was largely overshadowed by a showdown over Iran’s nuclear program that could escalate. Israel launched an aerial bombardment campaign against Iran, and Iran has hit back with missiles and drones.
French President Emmanuel Macron warned against the U.S. and other powers pushing for regime change in Iran, suggesting it could destabilize the greater Middle East.
“I believe the greatest mistake today would be to pursue regime change in Iran through military means, as that would lead to chaos,” Macron said.
Before leaving, Trump joined the other leaders in issuing a statement saying Iran “can never have a nuclear weapon” and calling for a “de-escalation of hostilities in the Middle East, including a ceasefire in Gaza.” Getting unanimityeven on a short and broadly worded statementwas a modest measure of success.
Macron said Carney fulfilled his mission as G7 host by preserving the unity of the multilateral organization. “We shouldn’t ask the Canadian presidency to resolve every issue on earth today. That would be unfair,” said Macron, who will host the G7 next year.
Carney said in his final remarks Tuesday evening that Trump’s early exit was about the “extraordinary” situation in the Middle East, not anything that occurred during the summit.
“There was no problem,” Canada’s prime minister said. “Mr. Trump felt it was better to be in Washington, and I can understand that.”
Carney said Canada would impose new economic sanctions against Russia and was releasing its own statement offering “unwavering support for a secure and sovereign Ukraine.” Asked if the U.S. pushed to soften any possible joint statement from the gathered leaders on Ukraine, Carney said he consulted with Trump while preparing the language his own country used.
Still, Trump’s departure only served to heighten the drama of a world on the verge of several firestormsand of a summit deprived early of its most-watched world leader. `
“We did everything I had to do at the G7,” Trump said while flying back to Washington. But things were getting awkward even before he left.
After the famous photo from the G7 in 2018 featured Trump and then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel displaying less-than-friendly body language, this year’s edition included a dramatic eye-roll by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as French President Emmanuel Macron whispered something in her ear during a Monday roundtable.
That, and concerns about the Russia-Ukraine war, little progress on the conflict in Gaza and now the situation in Iran have made things all the more tense especially after Trump imposed severe tariffs on multiple nations that risk a global economic slowdown.
Members of Trump’s trade team remained in Canada to continue discussing tariffs, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who sat at the table as world leaders met with Zelenskyy.
Trump’s stance on Ukraine also put him fundamentally at odds with the other G7 leaders, who are clear that Russia is the aggressor in the war. The U.S. declined to join new sanctions against Russia, with Trump saying, “When I sanction a country, that costs the U.S. a lot of money, a tremendous amount of money.”
Trump also said at the summit that there would have been no war in Ukraine if G7 members hadn’t expelled Putin from the organization in 2014 for annexing Crimea. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the G7 now looks “very pale and quite useless” compared to “for example, such formats as the G20.”
Additionally, the U.S. president has placed greater priority on addressing his grievances with other nations’ trade policies than on collaboration with G7 allies.
He has imposed 50% tariffs on steel and aluminum, as well as 25% tariffs on autos. Trump is also charging a 10% tax on imports from most countries, though he could raise rates on July 9, after the 90-day negotiating period set by him would expire.
One bright spot for Trump during the summit came when he and British Prime Minister Keir Starmersigned a trade framework that was previously announced in May. Trump said British trade was “very well protected” because “I like them, that’s why. That’s their ultimate protection.”
But, while announcing that agreement, Trump brandished pages spelling out the deal and dropped them. Starmer stooped to pick them up, later explaining that he was compelled to ditch diplomatic decorum because anyone else trying to help risked spooking the president’s security team.
“There were quite strict rules about who can get close t the president,” Starmer said, adding that he was “just deeply conscious that in a situation like that it would not have been good for anybody else to have stepped forward.”
___
Associated Press writers Josh Boak in Calgary, Alberta, and Chris Megerian in Washington contributed to this report.
Rob Gillies, Jill Lawless and Will Weissert, Associated Press
Today I woke to find that yet another CEO has written yet another memo about how head over heels in love they are with AI. This time, the memo was from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. It was posted publicly to Amazon’s website on Tuesday.
Tech CEOs have been rattling off these love letters from time to time lately, and they usually sound similar: They talk about how the technology is transformative, how chatbots will somehow benefit customers, how it will make their company more efficient because AI will enable them to lay off more humans, and, most ominously, how this is just the beginning.”
We get the gist: CEOs of large companies love the bottom line and AI is going to do wonders for it.
But since Jassy is the CEO of the largest online retailer on the planet, his all-too-samey memo raises a burning question: Who is going to buy all of Amazons products once AI takes most of our jobs?
Jassy does admit in the memo that AI is going to cost people jobs at Amazon. Speaking about how the company is rolling out AI agentsartificially intelligent programs that will do the work a company used to pay human workers to doJassy said that Amazon will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs.
He goes on: Its hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.
Jassy is likely right that AI is going to reduce the total corporate workforce, but not just at Amazon. AI will reduce the total workforce at many companies in the years ahead, likely the majority of them.
How bad could things get?
Estimates vary, but a 2023 report from investment bank Goldman Sachs said that AI could threaten 300 million jobs over a 10-year period. A 2017 report from McKinsey stated that the automation of jobs could result in between 400 million and 800 million individuals being displaced by 2030.
Automation refers to the process by which code or robotics perform a task that a human was once required for, and often at a much lower operating cost than what a company would need to pay an individual.
So, again, if every company in the world does what Amazon plans to doreplace workers with AIand that does lead to a potential billion or so white-collar workers seeing their jobs evaporate, who exactly is Amazon going to sell to?
Honest question.
Once AI is doing all the work, and humans can no longer earn a paycheck, who buys Amazons stuff? Does AI start trying to sell cheap goods to other AI? I mean, surely AI has no use for clothes, sporting goods, or shampoo. And it doesnt have any need for the books, movies, or art prints that Amazon sells because, lets be honest, AI models have already stolen most of that stuff. It knows them so well that it can replicate them instantly.
AI might be a good workerand great for a companys bottom linebut it’s the worst customer a company could ask for.
So if AI cant buy Amazons stuff, and human workers are now unemployable because AI took their jobs, who shops at Amazon, then?
Thats something that none of the CEOswho seem so determined to be seen as AI thought leaders every time they rattle off one of these AI love lettersever address in these memos.
If theres one thing that humans can take heart inat least for nowit’s that some companies that have already announced their plans to go all in on AI at the expense of their employees’ livelihoods have faced public backlash for it. But I think thats a problem companies may solve as AI advances.
As for what happens to these companies bottom lines once consumers can no longer afford to buy their products because AI has taken their jobs? Well, Im still waiting to hear CEOs offer a solution to that problem.
Hello and welcome to a special edition of Modern CEO! Im Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs; this week Im dropping a few extra newsletters from the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning.
To hear the creative leaders assembled at Cannes Lions this week, reports of the advertising industrys death by AI are greatly exaggerated. In keynote speeches and panel discussions, advertising and marketing executives say they are wholeheartedly embracing generative AI as a partner they are integrating into their work.
In 2023, AI were the two most-used letters at Cannes, Josh Rosenberg, cofounder and CEO of Day One Agency, an independent creative and communications shop, tells Modern CEO. Fast-forward two years, and the conversation has evolved from novelty to practicality. Weve moved beyond the hype into implementation, and with that comes a more grounded understanding of both the potential and the limitations of the technology.
The AI advantage
Susan Howe, CEO of the Weber Shandwick Collective, says the communications advisory group uses GenAI to create synthetic personas to understand how different demographics and constituencies might respond to a clients message. Other executives have talked about using AI to review written work to query what questions they forgot to ask or topics they failed to address.
The AI enthusiasm is tempered by an admittedly self-serving belief that the technology is a tool that will helpnot replacethe human touch. The good news is AI is not going to kill advertising, declared Tor Myhren, Apples vice president of marketing communications, in his keynote speech here. The bad news is AI is not going to save advertising. Weve got to save ourselves by believing in whats always made this industry special: human creativity.
Day Ones Rosenberg concurs, noting, The dominant theme at Cannes isnt just what AI can do but how it should coexist with human creativity. AI will never replace our most powerful creative asset: emotion. It can accelerate workflows and expand possibilities, but it cant replicate taste, intuition, or the spark that makes a piece of work truly move people.
Exceptional work still requires humans
Of course, Rosenbergs and Myrens organizations are responsible for award-winning, groundbreaking campaigns that embody the ingenuity, heart, and humor that feel viscerally humanat least for now. Apple is the 2025 Cannes Lions Creative Marketer of the Year, and Day One was short-listed in the last year for a Chipotle social campaign. So while a computer might not be able to conceive, script, shoot, edit, and recruit talent such as Pedro Pascal to star in a short film promoting AirPods, it is pretty easy to imagine GenAI capably replacing mediocre or uninspiring advertisingof which there is plenty.
In fact, AI is just one of the forces buffeting the ad business: The large holding companies that dominate the industry are consolidating (Omnicom late last year agreed to acquire rival Interpublic Group, prompting fears of layoffs).
Taking the lessons from AI in advertising
What lessons can the rest of the business world learn from advertisings experiences with AI? Companies in the space have successfully moved beyond proof of concept into adoption of the technology, but whats perhaps most striking is the way AI has galvanized agencies and brands to move quickly and take risks. In an environment where products and services need to constantly differentiate and reach new audiences, such nimbleness is a good skill to havewhether or not your company is responding to the potential disruption of AI.
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Including women in corporate boardrooms does more than diversify leadershiprecent research shows it can also lead to safer job sites, potentially saving companies from costly safety incidents.
Companies with more women on their boards tend to have fewer workplace safety incidentsespecially when these women hold positions of power within the board, according to an analysis of workplace safety at 266 companies between 2002 and 2011. These findings were published in April in the Journal of Operations Management.
“What’s cool about this paper is . . . by exploring the human element, it really sheds a new light on the firm’s operations and why there’s variability in different operational processes,” said study coauthor Kaitlin Wowak, an associate professor of business analytics at the University of Notre Dame.
Companies in the U.S. spend more than a billion dollars each week on workplace safety incidents. These incidentswhich range from strikes and shutdowns to worker injuriescause reputational harm and lost profits and can lead to loss of life or limb for employees. Learning more about how workplace leadership impacts safety is one step toward mitigating these harms.
To gauge differences in workplace safety between the companies analyzed, the study authors examined data from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), director-level information from Institutional Shareholder Services, and regulatory violation data from the Violation Tracker database. They found boards with more women had fewer recorded incidents.
These safety benefits were even more pronounced when women held positions of power on the board, such as seats on influential committees, researchers found. When women have these positions of power, they are not only able to express their perspectives more freely, but others also pay more attention to their ideas, explained Corinne Post, coauthor of the study and professor of business leadership, management, and operations at Villanova University.
The researchers theorize that the difference in safety outcomes between boards with and without women may come down to men and women having different socio-cognitive approaches to stakeholder concerns, risk assessment, and regulatory compliance. These different approaches stem from having different experiences to bring to boardroom discussions. Women are, for example, more likely to have experience with community outreach and philanthropy, researchers note in the study. Having these different specialties and experiences represented in decision-making are a benefit of diversified leadership more broadly, the researchers say.
“It’s not just gender diversity, too, it’s all forms of diversity [that are important],” Wowak said. “When you have different backgrounds and different cognitions, you bring a different perspective to decision making that’s truly beneficial.”
This research is the first to establish a link between operational safety and diversity in upper leadership, adding to a growing literature that provides the business case for diverse leadership.
I was happy to see the findings, but not surprised, said Michael Abebe, a professor of management at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley who researches diversity in business leadership. He said the new study shows another facet of the benefits gender diversity in leadership can bring to a companyand how the research focus on diversity in leadership has changed over time.
Abebe mentions that for many years, studies about diversity in leadership generally focused on the glass ceiling, an invisible barrier that keeps women and minorities out of leadership even in otherwise diverse professions. But over the years, the field of study evolved to focus on the business case of diversifying companiesand how more diverse leaders can lead to positive business outcomes.
The paper’s authors acknowledge that this field of study is relatively new and say there is still a lot to explore at the board level and beyond. There are multiple different echelons that future scholars should explore, because they all impact a firms operations in potentially different ways, Wowak said.
For companies looking to turn these present and future research findings into real change, Abebe recommends “rethinking how we recruit, where we recruit, and go beyond the conventional to create more pathways to the top for women in the workforce.
Having women on the board does present an opportunity to really run better businesses, Post said. It’s not just about putting women in there . . . but it’s putting them in a position where they can actually voice their ideas more.”
If you ask the average American what Shutterstock is, theyll probably tell you it’s a company that collects stock images. And back in 2003, when the brand was created, they would have been right. But now, more than 20 years later, Shutterstock is attempting to transform into a creative company that can also produce advertisements, generate AI content, and train large language models. To clue in the public on this change, it just got a sleek new look.
This week, Shutterstock rolled out a rebrand that includes a new logo, updated typography, a brighter color palette, and a modernized website. The look is clean and streamlinedeverything you might expect from a leading-edge creative company. It takes Shutterstock from a visual identity that was reminiscent of the 2010s to one that reflects the companys growing ambitions.
[Image: courtesy Shutterstock]
Over the past several years, Shutterstock has expanded its stock library to encompass video and audio. It opened its own production arm called Shutterstock Studios thats created ads for La Roche-Posay, Lenovo, and Carhartt. And more recently, it has gone all-in on generative AI.
To that last point, Shutterstock has licensed its image and video datasets to tech companies including Open AI, Meta, Google, and Amazon to help them train LLMs. According to Bloomberg, Shutterstock made $104 million in AI licensing deals in 2023 alone. The company also collaborated with Databricks in 2024 to make its own user-facing text-to-image model, trained specifically to avoid copyright infringement.
So far, these moves appear to be boosting Shutterstocks business: In February, the company reported that full-year 2024 revenue was up 7%, to $935.3 million, compared to $874.6 million in 2023. Now, as Shutterstock leans into content creation and GenAI, it’s giving its branding a makeover to match.
[Image: courtesy Shutterstock]
Rebranding from 2010s to business sophisticated
According to Allison Sitzman, Shutterstocks VP of brand strategy, the company conceptualized this rebrand as a kind of reintroduction to the public.
I think our rebrand is really meant to introduce Shutterstock for who we are, which is not just a creative content provider, but really a full-scale creative partner, Sitzman says.
That process started with rethinking the companys logo and wordmark, which formerly featured a sans-serif font with a stylized o designed to mimic a cameras viewfinder. The concept made sense when it was first introduced in 2012, but became a bit dated both in terms of visual presentation and what it implied about the companys core offerings, which have since become much broader.
From top: The previous logo, and the rebrand [Images: Shutterstock]
With the rebrand, the wordmark font has been updated to a wider, rounder type called Haffer, which is also used in various weights throughout the branding. Instead of the former viewfinder, the o now features a kind of radiating ripple effect, which Sitzman says represents Shutterstocks widening impact.
[Image: courtesy Shutterstock]
Also on the chopping block was the brands former color palette, which centered an intense red along with black-and-white accents. Now Shutterstock is turning to a core palette of neutral tones, accented by pops of red, orange, green, blue, and purple. Per the brands updated visual guidelines, these hues were inspired by everyday office tools, like highlighters, file folders, and sticky notes. In all, Sitzman characterizes the brands transformation as an identity thats more business sophisticated.
[Image: courtesy Shutterstock]
Doubling down on generative AI
Alongside the rebrand, Shutterstock is reinforcing its commitment to GenAI with a new Generative AI Pro tier built for businesses. According to a press release, Generative AI Pro allows users to enter a text prompt and generate 4K visuals using a multi-model system made up of both Shutterstock’s own models (built in collaboration with Databricks) and trusted third-party models from providers like Open AI, Amazon, and Google. Essentially, Shutterstocks own AI-powered model recommender takes the written prompt and chooses which LLM to feed it to for more relevant, higher-quality results.
To Sitzman, new AI features like these are part of the company’s larger plan to “remove any friction possible” from companies’ creative processes.
GenAI is not coming; it’s here, Sitzman says. I think we do ourselves a disservice, our teams a disservice, and our customers a disservice if we ignore that. At Shutterstock, our approach has always been: This is emerging territory. How do we approach it, just doing the best that we can to try to take care of the needs of our customers and . . . creators?
