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The streaming service branding game of musical chairs continued this week when Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) announced the streaming platform Max would once again be called HBO Max, starting this summer. Its a complete brand reversal from a switch the company made back in 2023, when it ditched the HBO in its name for a head scratching Max. It immediately brought to mind this joke from 2024: It’s on Tubu. It’s literally on Heebee. It’s on Poodee with ads. It’s literally on Dippy. You can probably find it on Weeno. Dude it’s on Gumpy. It’s a Pheebo original. It’s on Poob. You can watch it on Poob. You can go to Poob and watch it. Log onto Poob right now. https://www.tumblr.com/orcboxer/745857099387584512/have-you-seen-the-new-show-its-on-tubu-its But for all the absurdity, the decision to resurrect the HBO name is the right one. And the company continued its good brand decision-making when it decided to unload a tidal wave of social content making fun of all this branding back and forth. @streamonmax Rolls off the tongue. original sound – Max Social strategist Jack Appleby said in his Future Social newsletter that this might actually be his favorite social campaign of the year so far. This is the kind of big decision agility more companies should aspire to, and create a culture that encourages it, said Appleby. What she said. pic.twitter.com/nUDClK8i9G— HBO (@HBO) May 14, 2025 Not only is it rare for a giant company to be this quick to make a good reversal on a bad decision, its equally rare that its self-aware enough to create genuinely funny content acknowledging how silly it all is. The power of sorry Remember when Skittles brought back its lime flavor in 2022? The brand livestreamed a 35-minute press conference in which it began to individually apologize to all 130,880 people who complained about limes removal from the classic Skittles bag. As hilarious as that was, it was also grounded in solid research. A study from Forrester that same year found that 41% of consumers would return to a brand that concedes to making a mistake and apologizes for it. @streamonmax POV: finding out about the rebrand from @John Cena #HBOMax #JohnCena #Peacemaker original sound – Max For HBO, the moment gave the brand a perfect excuse to utilize some of its iconic IPfrom Game of Thrones to The Wireto celebrate its name reclaimed. A name reclaimed. pic.twitter.com/PG6ycGaFwK— Game of Thrones (@GameOfThrones) May 14, 2025 The lesson here for other brands and companies ties back to a common refrain among top marketers: know how your brand is being discussed in culture, and act accordingly. While brands do have some power to dictate their own image, ultimately that image is a product of a back-and-forth between that and how fans and culture see them. Put the word out there. pic.twitter.com/fL118nqQIA— HBO (@HBO) May 14, 2025 HBOs self-awareness, and its ability to articulate that in a fast, funny way is a case study in how brands can say, We f**ked up and still win.
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Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Companys weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week here. Trumps Middle East tour is all about AI diplomacy The U.S. enjoys its superpower status mainly because of two things: its military and its financial influence. What were seeing in Trumps tour of the Middle East this week is the rise of another lever of geopolitical power: AI. And the competition between the U.S. and China in this realm is heating up. The U.S. is becoming more focused on exporting the best U.S. AI technology to other countries. Trumps lavish reception by heads of state in the Middle East this week can be explained in part by a major policy change: The Trump Commerce Department announced plans Tuesday to rescind Bidens AI diffusion rule, which had restricted the export of the most powerful AI chips to other countries, including those in the Middle East. The removal of the chip restrictions opens big new markets for American AI chipmakers (to wit, Nvidias stock rose 6% Tuesday) and could cause an increase in global investment in new AI data centers in the Middle East. Trump announced a series of U.S.-Saudi investment deals, including a partnership between Nvidia and Humain, a newly formed Saudi AI firm backed by the kingdoms sovereign wealth fund. The plan: to build AI data centers powered by several hundred thousand of Nvidias most advanced GPUs. The change in posture couldnt be starker. During Bidens presidency, the U.S. took a more cautious approach to AI. Biden-era chip export controls were seen as necessary to protect national security and preserve Americas edge in the AI race. Many in the tech industry supported them, at least when it came to chips. Restricting access to the best hardware, as one source put it, was one lever that the U.S. can pull to maintain its lead. The result: U.S. firms like OpenAI and Anthropic had access to elite silicon, while Chinese competitors like DeepSeek were left scrambling. But the game has changed since Biden was in office. The U.S. is no longer home to the only company (Nvidia) that can supply chips powerful enough to train state-of-the-art AI models. The Chinese multinational company Huawei is now shipping the Ascend 910C, a chip that rivals Nvidias best, along with a high-end server rack, the CloudMatrix 384, that competes with Nvidias GB200 NVL72. These systems are powering research inside China and are being pushed into global markets. That has raised alarms in D.C. The Commerce Department recently warned that organizations using Huaweis Ascend chips could be violating U.S. export rules, since the chips were likely manufactured with U.S.-origin technology. But enforcement will be difficult as more countries seek alternatives or try to hedge their bets between the U.S. and China. AI models and chips offer a new way for state actors to project power on the world stage. Thats whats unfolding in the Middle East this week. The Trump administration isnt so much trying to open new markets for Nvidia as it is trying to advance American AI as the prevailing standard around the world. GOP bill would freeze state AI laws for a decade A sweeping AI regulatory ban that would prevent states from overseeing the technology for a decade has been quietly inserted into a powerful Republican tax and spending bill currently under review by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. If passed in its current form, the bill would mark a major victory for the U.S.s largest tech companies, which argue that state-level regulations threaten innovation. It would impose a 10-year freeze on any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems. For companies like Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Alphabets Google, the provision offers a way to sidestep pending or active state laws that are imposing stricter oversight than the federal government. Their pitch in recent months has been that any slowdown in AI development could allow Chinese competitors to outpace the U.S., a message thats resonating with many Republicans. Currently, these companies face a wave of state-level scrutiny. In this year alone, states have introduced at least 550 AI-related billscovering issues from deepfakes to algorithmic discriminationaccording to a tracker by the National Conference of State Legislatures. And its only May. The House committees draft bill could effectively nullify these efforts, a move that has alarmed AI safety advocates and critics of Big Tech, including leading Democrats. This is an outrageous abdication of congressional responsibility and a gift-wrapped favor to Big Tech that leaves consumers vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, said J.B. Branch, Big Tech accountability advocate at Public Citizen. This isnt leadership; it is surrendering to corporate overreach and abuse under the guise of protecting American innovation. Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts warned that the proposal will lead to a dark age for the environment, our children, and marginalized communities. Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky said the ban would allow AI companies to ignore consumer privacy protections, let deepfakes spread, and allow companies to profile and deceive consumers using AI. The bill is advancing through Congress via the budget reconciliation process, which allows certain legislation to bypass the Senate filibuster and pass with a simple majority. However, as Bloomberg reported, the provision may not survive this route, since Senate rules require that such measures be primarily fiscal in nature. Still, the proposal is offering insight into the GOPs broader stance on AI regulation. Vice President JD Vance has already cautioned that overregulation could kill the AI industrya sentiment that appears to be gaining traction among lawmakers. New Heartland/Rasmussen survey shows 60% of voters say AI companies hould pay for lost jobs A new survey from the The Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports finds that voters support the idea of AI companies paying reparations for the jobs their technology eliminates. A majority of those surveyed (62%) said that if AI advancements were to cause the elimination of millions of jobs, they would support a government program that taxes big technology companies and then uses the funds to provide every American with an income large enough to pay for basic necessities like housing, clothes, and food. The finding suggests the voting public is increasingly aware that AI could threaten their livelihoods sooner rather than laterand that a serious public discussion about the need for a universal basic income (UBI) may be around the corner. UBI is a type of social welfare program in which all people in a society receive regular, unconditional cash payments, regardless of their employment status. Adding urgency to the discussion, the World Economic Forum predicts that AI and automation could lead to the loss of 83 million jobs globally by 2027. More AI coverage from Fast Company: Elon Musks DOGE is launching a new AI retirement system. It was built under Biden Polling giant Morning Consult is using AI to help dig through survey data Anaconda wants to become the GitHub of enterprise open-source development Going AI first appears to be backfiring on Klarna and Duolingo 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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Heres a sentence thats likely never been seen before in human history: The 2028 Olympic Games have an official air taxi. Archer Aviation, an electric air taxi company based in California, announced that its been named the Official Air Taxi Provider for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, as well as for the Paralympic Games and Team USA. Archers electric air taxis will be zipping around the skies in Southern California during and around the Olympics, shuttling VIPs, athletes, and anyone else who books a ride around various sites in the greater L.A. region. That includes Dodger Stadium, SoFi Stadium, Hollywood, and LAX airport. Archers CEO, Adam Goldstein, tells Fast Company that when the Olympics finally do roll around in a few years, expect to see dozens of Archers Midnight aircraft quietly navigating the airspace. He also thinks its an excellent opportunity to show off some American aviation muscle. The current [presidential] administration wants to focus on things that can put America in a good light, and aviation is having a tough time right now. This will be like a bright, shining star, Goldstein says. Not only that, but Goldstein thinks itll be a great opportunity for potential customers to learn about and fall in love with air taxi technology. Its a good product. Its clean, quiet, and affordable, he says, and will also give people a needed break from L.A. traffic, which is notoriously bad. Archers aircraft will offer an alternative to helicopters, moving around the city at speeds of up to 150 miles per hour. The air taxis can carry up to four passengers (plus a pilot). If theres an event at Dodger Stadium and athletes need to get back to SoFi [Stadium] for a ceremony, that could mean sitting for two hours in traffic, Goldstein says. The air taxi trip will cut that to mere minutes. With a few years to prepare, work will commence on getting the aircraft certified, the landing zones built, and other infrastructure up and running, he says. Its a cool way to show that America has some pretty good horsepower in the aviation space,” says Goldstein.
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