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Ralph Lauren revealed Team USA’s Milan Cortina Winter Olympics looks Thursday, complete with Americana knit sweaters and plenty of vintage call-backs.The formal opening ceremony look pairs a patterned red, white and blue knit sweater with tailored cream trousers and a matching wool coat. Moving sportier, the closing ceremony outfit features a graphic puffer coat inspired by vintage ski kits over a color-blocked sweater.“We are creating something that we know has to become timeless and has to be something that people will wear forever and appreciate forever,” said David Lauren, the Chief Branding and Innovation Officer at Ralph Lauren. “So in creating jackets like this and creating things, we’re looking at the things that we most cherish. Things that are already enduring parts of the Ralph Lauren lexicon, and then we’ll build on that.”Beyond the ceremony looks, a Team USA collection, which will also be given to athletes as Olympic village wear, became available to public Thursday.The collection follows similar design themes as the opening and closing ceremony looks, with classic red, white and blue patterning on lots of knits, and includes Ralph Lauren’s versions of winter staples like bomber jackets and hockey jerseys.The process of creating these looks is a long one. The Ralph Lauren team, which has been designing Team USA’s Olympic apparel since 2008, starts on each Olympics’ looks about 2 1/2 years out from the Games, meeting with athletes and brainstorming ideas for the kits. As Milan-Cortina’s looks are unveiled, Lauren said the looks for the 2028 Los Angeles games are already months in the making.He knows the cultural importance each Olympics’ outfits holds, and the attention they garner in the fashion world and among American consumers.“The fact that we know people will want them and collect them and chase them down across eBay, is just an exciting part of the game,” he said.Sometimes, even international Olympic athletes are on the lookout for them. Beyond being an addition to an American athlete’s Olympic wardrobe, the pieces are also sometimes used as bargaining tokens in the Olympic village.Para snowboarder Brenna Huckaby and snowboarder Red Gerard explained to The Associated Press that there’s a tradition of swapping team sweaters and jackets with other nations at the Olympics, if there’s a certain country’s design that catches an athlete’s eye. That’s only if there’s a piece of their collection that they’re willing to let go of, that is.“I rarely trade, because I almost always love every single piece of Team USA stuff,” said Huckaby, modeling the color-blocked closing ceremony sweater that she said “is going to be on rotation after.”“But every now and then there will be some random thing that another country has. And it’s so hard to sit with all my bags, all my stuff open, like, ‘OK, what am I willing to part with?’ That is probably, aside from competing, the hardest part of the Games,” she said. AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics Alyce Brown, AP Sports Writer
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Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Companys weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. Im Mark Sullivan, a senior writer at Fast Company, covering emerging tech, AI, and tech policy. This week, Im focusing on the increasing pressure on the AI industrys wunderkind, OpenAI. I also look at the change in AI leadership at Apple, and at the music industrys new cooperation with AI music generation apps. Sign up to receive this newsletter every week via email here. And if you have comments on this issue and/or ideas for future ones, drop me a line at sullivan@fastcompany.com, and follow me on X (formerly Twitter) @thesullivan. Is OpenAI still the king? The AI industry has always been very competitive, and its getting even more so. A relatively small group of AI labs are slugging it out to release the smartest models, and, by extension, the smartest chatbots. Ever since OpenAI released its ChatGPT chatbot three years ago, the upstart company has been seen as the leader, but that status has been called into serious question by Googles new Gemini 3 Pro model (and the Gemini app).ChatGPT has grown quickly. The official number is 800 million weekly active users. Googles number is 650 million monthly active users for the Gemini chatbot. So, apples and oranges. SimilarWeb provides a somewhat better comparison, saying that Geminis share of web traffic grew from 5.7% a year ago to more than 15% today. Meanwhile, ChatGPTs 87% share a year ago shrunk to 71.3% today. OpenAI is feeling the pressure from Gemini (and probably from Anthropics new Claude Opus 4.5 model). CEO Sam Altman sent a memo to staff Monday declaring a “code red” effort to improve ChatGPT, according to The Information and other outlets. The effort includes reducing investments in enhancing the health information available on ChatGPT, as well as reducing work on the shopping experience, and the advertising that could go around that. “Our focus now is to keep making ChatGPT more capable, continue growing, and expand access around the worldwhile making it feel even more intuitive and personal,” ChatGPT product lead Nick Turley tweeted Monday. In a wider sense, OpenAI is losing billions, and spending billions, a fact that must make its investors both nervous and curious. Leaked documents and analyst estimates show OpenAI will lose between $9 billion and $11 billion in 2025 (spending roughly $22 billion while bringing in about $13 billion in revenue). The company recently told investors that its spending through 2029 could rise to $115 billion. Altman has said his company, partners, and investors will commit as much as $1.4 trillion to infrastructure (chips, data centers, etc.) in the next eight years. OpenAI is an aggregator, as the analyst Ben Thompson points out. The fact that its willing to de-emphasize its shopping and advertising experiences, which are potential revenue generators, shows that its still in the mode of growing users, and not yet in the mode of growing revenue. And the way that aggregators (like Facebook) grow is by becoming more things to more people in order to maximize attention and engagement on its platform, regardless of whether the users are paid subscribers. In the aggregator model, actually monetizing all those eyeballs comes later. The confidence in that model, which requires constant growth toward a critical mass of users, has afforded OpenAI a certain swagger, and even a cavalier attitude about making returns for its investors. One of those investors, Altimeter Capitals Brad Gerstner, asked Sam Altman during an October podcast (12:30 mark) how he explains to the markets spending more than a trillion on infrastructure when his company is operating deep in the red. Altman was exasperated. Brad, if you want to sell your shares, Ill find you a buyer, he said. I just . . . enough. But it’s no longer clear that OpenAI has the best models and the go-to chatbot. Setting aside the shopping and advertising work, OpenAI is right to reassign its talent to work on new models and new skills for ChatGPT. This also might mean taking talent off fun projects like the Sora app, which seems far afield from the mission of making ChatGPT the highest performing chatbot available. On the other hand, things can change very quickly in the AI world. Reports say OpenAI is already set to release a new reasoning model codenamed Garlic that will overtake Gemini 3 on a number of key benchmarks. Well see if Garlic gets a better reception than GPT-5. Apple must keep publishing AI research under Subramanya This week Apple announced that its AI boss, John Giannandrea, will be leaving the company. Giannandrea had been a successful AI leader at Google, but his name is linked to Apples failure to seize on generative AI to improve its Siri voice assistant and make the iPhone and other iDevices smarter and more personalized. Hell be handing the reins to another Google vet, Amar Subramanya, who once led engineering on Googles Gemini chatbot, and is stepping down after seven years on the job. Apples stock price got a slight boost on the news, as some investors saw Apple signaling a new urgency to bring AI to its devices. Subramanyas remit will be restoring Apple to some kind of parity with its peers in developing AI models and applying them in meaningful ways. As Mark Zuckerberg can attest, achieving that goal will depend on recruiting and retaining top-shelf AI researchers. Giannandreas AI/ML group saw a lot of churn and lost a number of top shelf researchers to Meta and others, including Ruoming Pang and Robby Walker. One reason for this was the groups habit of investing time and labor in technical approaches to problems only to see them scrapped. Another was the slow pace of developing and releasing new AI features for products like Siri. Another problem is publishing. Apple is famously secretive about its R&D in all areas of the company. The company likes to talk about customer-facing products, and dislikes talking publicly about the technology that makes them work. AI researchers arent OK with that. They want to publish their research. They want the exposure and influence that can bring within an ultra-competitive industry. When Giannandrea came to Apple, the company began allowing its AI talent to publish more of their researchto the extent they could do so without revealing trade secrets. Apple now has a Apple Machine Learning Research web page that lists published papers, technical reports, and conference submissions. It will be crucial that Subramanya keeps this practice going, or expands it. Otherwis Apple risks losing key researchers to competitors. Record Labels are having their iTunes moment with AI The Music Industry has stopped suingAI music generation appsinstead, its making deals with them: The three major record labels have now signed licensing agreements with AI music startups. Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, and Sony Music Entertainment have made licensing deals with an AI music startup called Klay Vision. The agreements grant Klay Vision permission to train its music generation models on music catalogs owned by the labels, replacing previous models that relied on scraped or unauthorized data. AI-generated music is getting more popular. An AI-generated song using a simulation of a real human country singers voice recently hit number one on the Billboard Country Digital Song Sales ranking. Suno, another AI music company that previously faced lawsuits from major labels, has signed what it calls a “first-of-its-kind partnership” with Warner Music. The deal moves the company toward licensed, artist-opt-in AI models. The moment feels similar to the record labels decision in the early 2000s to sell digital music on Apples iTunes platform. The labels saw CD sales tank as consumers downloaded free MP3s from sites like Napster and Limewire. More AI coverage from Fast Company: The Trump administration keeps taking stakes in chipmakers it may come back to haunt them Will chatbots ever be funny? Why these comedians arent worried about an AI takeover, yet Can your AI adapt to multiple cultures? 10 ways I use AI to be a better journalist Want exclusive reporting and trend analysis on technology, business innovation, future of work, and design? Sign up for Fast Company Premium.
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From reality TV to fashion and beauty and everywhere in between, youve unmistakably heard of Kim Kardashian. Critics may talk, but theres no denying shes one of the most influential and accomplished women of our timewith a net worth of $1.7 billion. And shes still expanding. Now, after building a multibillion-dollar empire, Kardashian is taking on a new role: instructor. Her new MasterClass, The New Rules of Business: The Ten Kimmandments with Kim Kardashian, launches today. Master them and youll create marketing that commands attention and build businesses that will scale,” Kardashian says. The tenets cover a range of 10 lessons, but Kimmandment #8Know Your Worth. Then Add Tax.stands out as one of the most misunderstood. While it often gets reduced to monetary value, Kardashian stresses its about more than that. Its really about understanding the value you bring that no one else can and protecting that value, she explains. Experiences early in my career taught me that if you dont set your own standard first, you cant grow a brand or business. Thats why its so important for anyone just startingknowing your value is the foundation for everything else. When Fast Company asked what inspired the Kimmandments, Kardashian pointed to her own unconventional career path. [Photo: MasterClass] Her foray into entrepreneurship came long before Keeping Up With the Kardashians. At 16, Kardashian had her first work experience as an aspiring closet organizer. [I got the job] not because I had to, but because I wanted independence and I really wanted to earn my own money, she explains. Not long after, she ran a thriving eBay business flipping designer pieces, and even operated a successful closet-organizing venture for both celebrities and everyday clients. Over time, her visibility became her advantage. In 2017, Kardashian launched KKW Beauty, now partly owned by Coty. Building on that momentum, in 2019 she cofounded SKIMS with Jens Gredetoday valued at $5 billion. I never had a traditional business background, so everything I know came from learning on the job,” says Kardashian. “I noticed that I kept coming back to the same principles. They were guiding every decision I made.” When the MasterClass team and I started talking, I realized these werent just habitsthey were my rules,” she adds. “Theyve helped me build my brands, stay focused, and stay resilient. I want to give the tools that have worked for me throughout my career so far. By the end of the class, Kardashian wants students to walk away with more than just tactics. I want members to take away a mindset: Stay resilient, trust your instincts, and keep building even when others doubt you,” she shares. “Youll face setbacks, criticism, and moments where you feel stuckbut those are just part of the process.”
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Adidas defeated an appeal on Wednesday by U.S. shareholders who said the footwear and apparel maker fraudulently concealed antisemitic and other improper behavior by Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, before its partnership with the rapper and fashion designer imploded in 2022. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said Adidas did not mislead shareholders in its annual reports by saying improper behavior by partners from the entertainment industry could have a negative spill-over effect on business. “A reasonable investor would know that a partnership with a celebrity partner like Ye would come with inherent risks relating to improper behavior,” a three-judge panel said. The panel also found no intent to defraud, and said Adidas’ disclosure “presents the hypothetical risk as the negative effect of improper behavior, not the improper behavior itself.” Lawyers for the lead plaintiff HLSA-ILA Funds, which serve maritime workers in southeast Virginia, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Adidas did not immediately respond to similar requests. Ye was not a defendant. Shareholders in the proposed class action said they lost money because Adidas’ stock price fell after antisemitic rants led the German company to sever ties with Ye in October 2022, ending a nine-year partnership that in 2021 generated about 1.5 billion euros ($1.75 billion) of sales. The shareholders said Adidas continued the partnership despite being “fully aware” since at least 2018 that Ye routinely made improper comments to its employees and employees at his Yeezy design shop. Adidas began selling leftover Yeezy sneakers in May 2023, pledging to donate some proceeds to groups combating antisemitism, and finished late last year. The company’s sales in North America fell 2% in 2024, “solely due to significantly lower Yeezy sales,” Adidas said in March. Wednesday’s decision upheld an August 2024 dismissal by a federal judge in Portland, Oregon, where Adidas’ North American headquarters are located. Jonathan Stempel, Reuters
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Theres a very common question asked of people working in space exploration: Why explore space when we have so many problems on Earth? From Wi-Fi, to satellite images of real estate, to matters of national security, much of our daily lives has been made possible by policy changes in the 1990s that permitted the deployment of low-Earth-orbit satellites. But the tangible benefits to space exploration may not always be obvious, according to Jack Kilray, director of government relations for The Planetary Society, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing space science and exploration. What we discover in space invariably helps life on Earth, Kilray said at last months World Changing Ideas Summit, cohosted by Fast Company and Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C. These investments in fundamental researchalthough maybe you don’t see those direct comparisons to your life immediatelyhave these knock-on effects for decades after you make that initial discovery and revolutionize the economy, national security, and just our fundamental understanding of the cosmos. And space has evolved to become a critical infrastructure, said Rich Cooper, vice president of strategic communications for the Space Foundation, a nonprofit advocating for space education and exploration. More than 90 countries now have active space operations, and hundreds of companies are operating business interests in spacewhich is why policy efforts must focus on balancing the needs of these various interests, he added. Dealing with space traffic and litter In space, one of the biggest policy challenges right now is managing all of the traffic. Finding the place for a satellite or other instrument, so it doesn’t impact any other operations, is literally threading quite the needle, Cooper said. The policies about how to deal with space litter have improvedgovernments and companies are now required to have a plan in place to prevent the creation of more orbital debris, though more work is still required. Countries as well as companies are looking to be much, much more responsible, but we still have other players that need to be far more responsible than they’ve been, Cooper said. The next era of human exploration Finally, policies must adapt amid the race thats underway to send humans to the moon once again, and eventually to Mars. The good news is that this next era of space exploration is likely to unite people around the globe, Kilray said. It’s no longer just a flags-and-footprints approach, but a sustainable approach to whether it be lunar exploration with crew or scientific exploration of the outer planets or the building of the next great observatory to image habitable worlds around other star systemslike that’s all within our grasp as a species, which is truly amazing, Kilray said. We couldn’t have imagined what was possible today 60 years ago.
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