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The workplace in 2025 is evolving faster than ever, thanks to bold shifts in culture, technology, and employee expectations. From asynchronous work models that prioritize output over presence to the rise of artificial intelligence agents and freelance leadership, companies are rethinking traditional norms in real time. Below, discover 10 of the most surprising trends reshaping how we work, along with expert advice on how to manage them. The insights paint a clear picture: adaptability, trust, and human-centered innovation are the new cornerstones of business success. Asynchronous Work Prioritizes Outcomes Over Presence In 2025, the most future-ready companies aren’t asking, Where are you working from? They’re asking, What did you move forward today? We’re prioritizing outcomes over outputs, and replacing outdated office culture with systems that reward clarity, creativity, efficiency, and speed. We’re an asynchronous-first organization. That means fewer meetings and more momentum. We don’t gather on Zoom to prove we’re working; we create Loom videos, build shared documentation, and give people the time and space to create in a manner that works best for them. The result is sharper thinking and stronger ownership. We’re also an AI-native company, so AI is a partner in our work, not a threat. Our teams use it to write, synthesize, and research, freeing up time and brainpower for strategy and storytelling. AI takes care of the repetition while we keep the strategy and relationships. And while some leaders are doubling down on rigid return-to-office (RTO) mandates, we’ve doubled down on trust. We don’t monitor keystrokes. We don’t care if someone is building a pitch deck in a café in London or reviewing press targets from their lake house in Wisconsin. What matters is the work product and how it’s driving outcomes for our clients. The companies clinging to control are losing talent and time. If your team still measures productivity by hours online or office attendance, you’re not just behind, you’re building a business for a workforce that no longer exists. Sarah Schmidt, President of PR and Strategic Communications, Interdependence Meritocracy Resurges in Workplace Compensation Strategies So far this year, as we’ve seen divestment in diversity, equity, and inclusion programs driven by shifts in federal expectations, another trend has emerged in the workplace: a renewed focus on meritocracy. This has been especially visible at companies like Amazon and Google, which both recently adjusted their compensation and performance strategies to provide outsized rewards to top performers. Generally, I’m aligned with this trend when it’s implemented carefully. High performers often drive significant value for the business, and their contributions should be reflected meaningfully in their rewards. However, our more average performers still support the company in many valuable and exceptional ways. As we think through similar changes, we need to be mindful of how they impact this group, ensuring that they feel motivated and inspired to do better, and not disregarded or underappreciated. With respect to paying high performers, I often advocate for creating additional budgets rather than reallocating funds, which can feel penalizing to average performers. Both groups are necessary for business success and should be recognized accordingly. I also advise revisiting the use of restrictive performance distributions. When too few people can be rated highly, it creates environments where peers may feel forced to compete rather than collaborate. Instead, expanding room for more high ratings, while still maintaining guardrails and very clear definitions, enables leaders to recognize talent more equitably without fostering scarcity or resentment. Finally, as we evolve our approach to rewarding top performers, we need to consider how these changes impact our broader pay policies across base salary, bonus, and equity. We may need to rethink and adjust our programs and frameworks to ensure they are equitable, sustainable, and aligned with our long-term business goals and overall strategy. Overall, I support the shift toward rewarding impact. However, I also believe we must balance that with care for our steady, solid performers. My advice is to make expectations clear and attainable, offer support and growth opportunities, and ensure people feel valued even if they’re not always at the top. Tyren Thompson, Total Rewards Manager, Zoom Companies Shift Focus from Employees to Technology One trend I’ve observed in 2025 is that many organizations appear to be shifting away from being people- and employee-centric to being more leader- and technology-centric. For the better part of the decade, “employee experience” was a central idea. Defining your Employee Value Proposition and creating a culture where employees truly thrive was top of mind. The “culture wars,” which hit a tipping point in 2020 (and again in 2024 with the election), coupled with the dehumanizing rhetoric from the current administration, created a situation where many companies either shifted or deprioritized certain “People & Culture” initiatives. Add in the emergence and increased utilization of AI, and many companies are seemingly making AI central to their positioning and overarching value proposition. This has led to some uncertainty for employees, as well as some fear-mongering about AI taking jobs, all resulting in the increased deprioritization of the employee experience. While it is necessary to consider how you’re leveraging and utilizing emerging technology, simply put, you can’t forget about your people. As long as any organization has employees, their experience should remain a priority. People want to work in organizations that align with their values, and feeling like you’re a “cog in the technology wheel” will ultimately lead to adverse consequences (e.g., retention issues, disengagement, etc.). The companies that figure out how to prioritize the human/employee experience at work, while also keeping up with emerging technology, are the ones who will win. Daniel Oppong, Founder & Lead Consultant, The Courage Collective Women Leaders Embrace Freelance Opportunities The rise in the freelance workforce was already accelerating, but the incredible pace of women pursuing independent work is a trend we should all pay close attention to. As women leaders continue to lose ground in corporate environments, they are finding agency and economic opportunity as solopreneurs. This trend poses an economic and reputation risk for brands that need the empathy and lived experiences of their customers and community represented across the business. For leaders building strong, agile wokforces, it’s time to get creative to keep these critical voices in the workforce. One strategy to attract and retain these leaders is to think beyond the traditional employment model, instead building flexible, blended teams of employees and independents working in close collaboration. Shifting from a default full-time employee model to one where we distribute work to project-based teamsspun up more quickly and without the long-term commitmentallows workers the ability to contribute while maintaining schedule autonomy. My advice for anyone considering building a blended team or entering into the independent workforce is to get very clear about scope. What is the job to be done? And what skills are needed to do it? Remove the old expectations of how to get there, because the innovation coming from AI and the independent workforce means women can meaningfully participate in our economy in new and exciting ways without the burnout of our post-pandemic era. Brea Starmer, CEO and Founder, Lions & Tigers Engaging Gen Z Through Personalized Career Growth A recent trend we’ve noticed is younger employees who feel disconnected from work. Amid rising inflation and a weaker job market, the new generation wants to feel growth and stability. When these employees don’t, it affects their work and productivity. Here’s how we prioritize job satisfaction to keep our younger employees happy and engaged: 1. We make Gen Zers part of their own growth plan development. Our job is providing a transparent career path and setting clear expectations. Their job is to proactively seize opportunities to grow on that path. We let them decide what their career growth looks like. 2. We don’t let the new workforce feel stuck. Our team leaders actively look for high-performing employees. We keep pace with their performance by giving new training, seminars, and collaborative projects. 3. Our mentorship program allows Gen Zers to work with senior individual contributors (ICs) and upskill or reskill with greater flexibility. Working with Gen Z trends has not only made our employees happier, but it has also increased engagement by 46% and boosted our employee retention rates by 62%! Himanshu Agarwal, Cofounder, Zenius.co Embracing Employees’ Digital Footprints as Assets Companies with a future-forward culture are openly embracing their dynamic team members’ “career portfolios” and digital footprints. Businesses that see the proliferation of technology and deployment of AI as the future view their team’s talent outside of work as a value-add rather than a brand liability. This new wave of companies highlighting and reposting their staff’s achievements is reframing visibility as a shared asset, where individual thought leadership, podcast features, or side ventures become a signal of trust, not a threat. It is a shift from controlling the narrative to coauthoring it. I see this trend of career portfolio diversification as a necessary response to digital platforms cementing online presence. This acceptance allows top performers to expand their reach while also remaining in their roles, ultimately preventing attrition at their current companies. I advise employees to create an online executive presence and to build a brand that puts their core values at the center of their messaging. Olivia Dufour, Founder, Olivia Dufour Consulting Intergenerational Mentoring Circles Bridge Skill Gaps The uptick in intergenerational mentoring circles is one of my favorite emerging workplace trends for 2025. Several companies are revolutionizing mentoring by creating structured programs in which Gen Z employees teach digital skills to senior colleagues, while simultaneously learning institutional knowledge and strategic thinking from those same professionals. It’s an important trend because it addresses two critical workplace challenges simultaneously: the digital skills gap among senior leaders and the institutional knowledge gap among younger employees. Intergenerational mentoring fosters more cohesive and adaptable teams while enhancing retention across all age groups. Major corporations like P&G, Citibank, General Electric, Fidelity, Cisco, and Target have all found success running reverse mentoring programs across different business areas as a competitive advantage tool, as well as to solve business challenges. To bring this trend effectively to your organization, design programs that will emphasize mutual benefit rather than one-way knowledge transfer. Focus on creating psychological safety so that senior employees feel comfortable being “students,” and set clear learning objectives for both parties to ensure measurable outcomes. Establish success metrics, including skill assessments, engagement surveys, and project collaboration outcomes. Amanda Fischer, CEO & Executive Career Coach, AMF Coaching & Consulting Virtual Coworking Boosts Productivity in Remote Era In the age of hybrid work and digital overload, a quiet trend is gaining momentum: cowork video companionship. Also known as virtual coworking, this practice pairs individuals via video calls to work silently alongside each other, often with brief check-ins and checkouts. Platforms like Focusmate have logged over 5 million sessions, with 93% of users reporting an improvement in productivity. As isolation, screen fatigue, and attention fragmentation continue to challenge remote teams, this low-pressure, high-focus format offers a surprisingly effective alternative to traditional collaboration. My take? This trend isn’t just a productivity hackit’s a cultural shift. Cowork video companionship taps into something deeply human: the desire to be seen without needing to perform. It’s rooted in body doubling, a practice long used by people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to stay focused by working in the quiet presence of another person. The psychology is sound, and the use cases are expandingfrom freelancers and founders to students and solopreneurs. It provides presence without pressure and structure without surveillance, and it’s helping remote professionals find rhythm in a world of digital chaos. For those considering this trend, my advice is simple: Start small, be consistent, and stay flexible. Try a few sessions on Focusmate or set up weekly cowork blocks with a colleague over Zoom. Observe how it impacts your focus, stress, and output. You don’t need to overhaul your workflowjust integrate the companionship where it counts. In a world where “togetherness” is increasingly virtual, body doubling might be the most human productivity tool we didn’t know we needed. Analia Mendez, CEO and Founder, Signature Careers LLC AI Agents Reshape Workfrce Dynamics and Roles One of the most surprising workplace trends in 2025 (at least to me) is the emergence of agentic AInot as a distant concept but as a real, operational shift in how work gets done. This is not about passive tools or helpful copilots anymore. These AI agents are now handling everything from scheduling meetings and onboarding to approving expense reports and drafting documentsall done autonomously. When late last year Salesforce cofounder and CEO Marc Benioff said, “We are really at the edge of a revolutionary transformation” when it comes to using digital labor, most of us couldn’t even tell what digital labor is. And yet just last month, Salesforce’s research on chief human resources officers’ views on agentic AI revealed that 80 percent think that “within five years, most workforces will have humans and AI agents or digital labor working together.” Many companies have moved past the experimenting stage. Leaders at Microsoft, Salesforce, IBM, and other businesses are already reframing roles with this in mind. Even their messaging is clear in that direction: In the near future, every employee will manage a portfolio of AI agents, essentially becoming a team leader of digital collaborators. This is not just a tech upgrade. It’s a mindset shift. Managing people and managing agents require very different skills. We’re moving fast from delegating tasks to defining logic, setting thresholds for autonomy, and teaching AI when to handle something itself and when to raise its hand and say, I think you’d better take this one. It’s both exciting and unsettling, especially for roles built on execution rather than strategy. My advice for individuals and organizations is to adapt. And fast! You’d need to start small and pilot an agent in a real workflow. Learn how to supervise, audit, and co-create with these systems. Focus not only on productivity gains but also on the redesign of human roles around this new digital workforce. This also means developing new skills, such as prompt strategy, process design, digital judgment, and the ability to set boundaries that tell AI when to act and when to step aside (that is, critical thinking). Everyone is concerned about AI. What most don’t realize is that the real differentiator isn’t whether you use AI, but whether you know how to lead it. Maria Papacosta, Cofounder, MSC Marketing Bureau Power Skills Replace Soft Skills in Business The most surprising workplace trend hitting us in 2025? Companies are finally ditching the term “soft skills” and recognizing what I call “power skills”the strategic capabilities that actually drive business results. I’m seeing job descriptions that list “conflict resolution” and “emotional regulation” right alongside technical requirements. Not as nice-to-haves, but as core competencies with measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) attached. Here’s why this matters: We’ve spent decades treating communication, empathy, and strategic thinking like personality traits instead of learnable, scalable business skills. Meanwhile, companies hemorrhaged talent and missed revenue targets because their “high performers” couldn’t collaborate, give feedback, or adapt under pressure. The shift happened when organizations started connecting the dots between people skills and profit margins. It turns out that managers who create psychological safety aren’t just “nice”their teams deliver 67% more breakthrough innovations. Leaders who can navigate difficult conversations don’t just keep peacethey prevent the costly dysfunction that kills productivity. My advice for leaders jumping on this trend: 1. Stop outsourcing people development to HR. If you’re a director expecting someone else to teach your team how to give difficult feedback or manage up effectively, you’re missing the strategic advantage. These skills directly impact your bottom line. 2. Get specific about measurement. “Better communication” isn’t a goal “reduce project revision cycles by 30% through clearer stakeholder alignment” is. Track the business impact, not just the feel-good metrics. 3. Invest like you mean it. Companies that drop $50K on new software but balk at $5K for conflict resolution training are making backward investments. Your people problems are costing you more than your tech problems. The organizations winning this transition are treating power skills like any other competitive advantagesomething you develop systematically, measure relentlessly, and leverage strategically. Because here’s the truth: In a world where AI can handle the technical work, your humans’ ability to think, connect, and adapt isn’t just importantit’s your only sustainable differentiator. Dana Mahina, Founder, CEO, & Transformational Leader, Dana Mahina
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A 1.6 million square foot, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. That is how architect Frank Mahan, from the firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, described the Waldorf Astoria’s near $2-billion renovation project on a recent behind-the-scenes tour. “If you were here a few months ago, or a year ago, you would see workers undertaking restoration in these spaces that we’re walking through with a fine point paintbrush.” When the Waldorf Astoria opened over a century ago, the hotel became so synonymous with high society gatherings that one of its corridorswhere the elite came to show off their finest attirewas known as Peacock Alley.” The hotel quickly became a symbol of New York’s glamour, ambition, and what the author Henry James called the hotel spirita place where everyone was equal as long as they could pay the price of entry. [Photo: courtesy Waldorf Astoria New York] When I visited in late April, the ambition was evident in the constellation of workers buzzing around the premises. Some were tearing plastic wrap from freshly delivered armchairs. Others were busying around Cole Porter’s grand piano, which was tauntingly shrouded under a protective cloak. But if the renovation was one giant puzzle, then these were the last pieces. This week, after much delay, the reimagined Art Deco landmark has finally reopened. It is as spectacular as New Yorkers deserve it to be. Peacock Alley [Photo: courtesy Waldorf Astoria New York] Midtowns belle of the ball Spanning an entire block in Midtown Manhattan, the Waldorf Astoria was the tallest and largest hotel in the world when it opened in 1931, to a design by Schultze & Weaver. Quickly, the Art Deco landmark, which hosted presidents, royalty, celebrities, and major global events, became synonymous with power and cultural cachet. Over the years, however, the celebrated building underwent a patchwork of renovations that gradually chipped away at its character. The lobby was reconfigured, cooling towers were added to the roof, and by 2017, when the entire hotel closed, just one of the original 5,400 windows remained. Basildon Room [Photo: courtesy Waldorf Astoria New York] Eight years later, the Waldorf Astoria has undergone a wildly complex transformation that converted some hotel rooms into opulent residences designed by top-tier designers, and restored every inch of the place, including signature venues like the Grand Ballroom and Peacock Alley. The project was slowed down by the fact that 60,000 square feet of the building were designated as a landmark. (This makes the Waldorf Astoria the fourth largest interior landmark in New York City.) Some parts of the building were meticulously restored to reflect the building’s original 1931 design; others were modernized to meet 21st-century standards. “It’s an awesome responsibility because in a sense, [the building is] owned by New Yorkers, but you can’t be afraid,” Mahan told me. “You have to allow change in order for it to have a new life.” Silver Corridor [Photo: courtesy Waldorf Astoria New York] Instead of freezing the building in time, or even gutting its identity, the Waldorf has merged old and new. At a time when countless other historic buildings are being converted into private condos, or getting demolished altogether, its rebirth offers a blueprint for how landmark preservation can coexist with new investment. Eight years after the hotel closed, the myth of the Waldorf Astoria lives on. Residenial Lobby [Photo: courtesy Waldorf Astoria New York] The most iconic address The most anticipated change has been the Waldorf Astoria residences. These high-end apartments generated up-front sales revenue, which helped finance the hotel’s renovation. Before it closed, the hotel counted 1,400 guest rooms. Now, that number has been reduced to 375 rooms operated by Hiltonand 375 residential units designed by French interior designer Jean-Louis Deniot. Today, for the first time ever, those with enough disposable income can own an apartment at The Waldorf and call one of the worlds most iconic addresses their home. [Photo: courtesy Waldorf Astoria New York] The residential wing comes with a separate entrance, a private porte cochre, and the sort of detail youd expect from a luxury enclave carved out of a hotel this storiedlike a cleverly disguised concierge closet that can be accessed both from the apartment and the corridor, allowing staff to deliver packages, laundry, or room service without setting foot inside. Studios start at $1.875 million and four bedrooms begin at $18.75 million. (At the time of writing, 25 residences have already closed, and many residents have moved in, including the managing director of Waldorf Astoria New York, Luigi Romaniello; two penthouses, housed in the copper-clad towers, are yet to be unveiled.) [Photo: Colin Miller/courtesy Waldorf Astoria New York] The residences are spectacular, but the real gift is the public-facing side of the hotel. Average New Yorkers can now walk up the steps of the Park Avenue Lobby, take in the grandeur of the interiors while shortcutting through the building, and exit onto Lexington without spending a single penny. This journey was possible before the hotel closed, but todayat long lastit looks like it was always meant to. [Photo: courtesy Waldorf Astoria New York] Going back to 1931 To return the Waldorf to its former glory, SOM consulted archival black-and-white photographs, specification books, and original drawings from the Schultze & Weaver collection at the WolfsonianFIU museum in Florida. On the outside, the team restored the buildings bronze entryways and distinct brickwork, and replaced every windowexpanding 900 of them to let in more daylight. They removed the cooling towers to reveal a skylight that once crowned the Starlight Ballroom, where Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra once dazzled captivated audiences. That space has now been reimagined as a 25-meter indoor swimming pooldubbed the Starlight Poolbathed in natural light. [Photo: courtesy Waldorf Astoria New York] Inside, they worked with French designer Pierre-Yves Rochon to make the Waldorf look both old and new again. In the Park Avenue lobby, they stripped back the ceiling, updated the underlying lighting infrastructure, and rebuilt it to match an old design they had seen in an archival photograph. It was a black and white photograph, but Mahans team still noticed that the ceiling reflected light in an unusual way. Pairing that with notes from the spec book, they discovered the central marble panel had once been backlit. “That was the case with many of the spaces,” he says. “People had been walking through them and thinking, ‘oh, thats a historic hotel, this is the way it’s always been,’ but in fact, it changed many times,” he says. Now, the new lobby looks brighterand closer to the original architects intent. In the check-in lobby, the iconic Waldorf Astoria clock that once served as a meeting point for New Yorkers, was disassembled, cleaned, re-gilded, and re-silvered. In the Silver Gallery upstairs, art conservation firm ArtCare painstakingly restored a series of murals depicting the 12 months and four seasons. In photos Mahan shows me, the murals look muddied by time. The restored versions you can see today appear to be glowing with light. [Photo: courtesy Waldorf Astoria New York] In the check-in lobby, the architects reduced the number of reception desks from a seemingly endless row of desks that Mahan says made it look like a train station, to just two. And in the Grand Ballroom, where the Beatles were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, they relined the walls with genuine silver leaf and acoustically isolated the entire space. In the past, theyve either had to keep the volume down or not rent out the rooms around the ballroom because the vibrations would bother people in the surrounding rooms, says Mahan. Now, this space basically floats in the center of the building. Perhaps most impressively, SOM reinstated the original volume and drama of the buildings public passagewaythe one that allows you to traverse the block from Park Avenue to Lexington. In 1931, Schultze & Weaver designed the corridor as a cinematic journey through five distinct but connected lobbies that widened and narrowed to create moments of compression and release. That would’ve added to the drama of the space, says Mahan. By 2017, some lobbies had become cluttered with retail build-outs and clashing materials. Now, it flows like the choreographed experience it once was. The building has survived COVID-19 delays, supply chain issues, and even a corruption scandalonly to reopen at a troubled time for the tourism industry. According to the World Travel & Tourism Council, the U.S. is on track to lose $12.5 billion in travel revenue this year, which makes it the only country out of 184 analyzed thats projected to see tourism dollars decline in 2025. If all else fails (it likely wont considering the target clientele) New Yorkers will at least have that glorious shortcut.
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Traditional brain scans only show part of the picture. They cant fully capture how different regions of the brain communicatean essential factor in detecting neurological diseases early. Dr. Rahul Biswas, a neurologist at the University of CaliforniaSan Francisco, is working to change that with AI-powered tools that map these hidden neural connections. His groundbreaking research reveals how Alzheimers disrupts brain communication in unexpected areas, challenging long-held assumptions about the disease. Now, through his company, Kaneva Consulting, Dr. Biswas is focused on transforming this science into practical diagnostic tools that can identify brain disorders long before symptoms emerge. Fast Company spoke with Biswas about how AI is revolutionizing brain health, from early disease detection to personalized treatments and everyday tech. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. How are AI models revealing new insights about the brain that weren’t possible with traditional neuroscience methods? AI is giving us a radically clearer view of how the brain worksnot just where activity happens, but how regions interact, influence each other, and change over time. Traditional neuroscience often studied brain areas in isolation. But AI can analyze massive, complex data setslike full-brain recordings or scansand uncover subtle patterns across the whole system. For instance, it can detect a network of regions that consistently cooperate during memory formation, which might be overlooked in conventional analysis. In short, AI helps us move from snapshots to systems-level understanding, revealing hidden relationships and early warning signs of dysfunction. What are some of the most promising current applications of AI in brain health, like early detection of neurodegenerative diseases or personalized treatment strategies? One exciting use of AI is early detection of brain disorders. AI can sift through brain scans or even routine health records to spot subtle signs of disease long before symptoms show. For example, a machine learning system detected Alzheimers with over 90% accuracy on MRI scans, years earlier than traditional diagnosis. Catching such changes early means doctors can intervene sooner. Another promising area is personalized treatment. AI can help tailor therapy to each individuals brain. By analyzing a persons unique neural and genetic data, an algorithm might predict which depression medication will work best for them, reducing the usual trial-and-error in finding effective treatment. How would this brain monitoring work in practice for patients? Let’s take, for example, the brain network modeling approach. As part of their visit, a patient has an fMRI scan. And you directly feed it into the algorithm and get the network model. The beauty of this is you’re getting the brain network of the patient himself directly from his data. So you can see how the brain network is changing at every visit. Its personalized for that one patient. And over time you can really observe how the different network connections are changing. Are they getting closer to signatures of Alzheimer’s or other neurological diseases? Or are they doing fine? And if they are at the scale of any disease scenario it will be flagged. So just like if we take a blood test every visit and if the level of some parameter of the blood goes off the chart, you’ll see like a red mark out there saying “Hey, this is above the normal zone.” So something just like that can happen for brain networks, because networks are considered so good biomarkers for disease prediction. How might AI-driven predictive analytics and wearable technologies change the way we monitor and maintain brain health in daily life? AI plus wearable tech will make brain health monitoring continuous and proactive. Our smartphones and smartwatches already track sleep, heart rate, and movement. By adding AI analysis, these devices could also watch for subtle changes that signal cognitive decline or mental health issues. For example, an app might notice your typing speed has slowed or your sleep patterns have shifted and flag this as a possible early warning. Essentially, brain health checks would become a seamless part of daily lifea bit like a check engine light for your braininstead of something that only happens at the doctors office. How does your approach differ from traditional brain network analysis? Naive methods will say that, hey, two brain regions are correlated and so consider that as a connection. But perhaps those two brain regions were affected by a single parent brain region. A single brain region C was affecting both A and B together. So it just appeared that A and B are connected, but it was like a spurious connection. So causal methods try to be more specific. And they really try to say, “hey, brain regions A and B were not connected. It was brain region C which was directing influence on A and B at the same time.” You’re creating causal network models of the brain. What surprising discoveries has this approach uncovered about how information flows through neural circuits? By using causal models (which show who influences whom in the brain), we discovered some unexpected things about how signals move. In Alzheimers disease, for example, we saw a widespread communication breakdown across multiple regionsnot just the memory centers people expect. Connections through parts of the frontal and temporal lobes, and even the cerebellum, were significantly weaker in Alzheimers patients. This was surprising, since the cerebellum isnt typically linked to Alzheimers, and it suggests the disease disrupts broader networks than we realized. We also noticed the brain attempting to reroute signals when a main pathway weakened, hinting at a built-in resilience where secondary pathways try to pick up the slack. What are the practical implications of these discoveries now or in the near future? These findings have clear practical implications. Better diagnostics could be one: if we know a certain network typically weakens early in Alzheimers, doctors might use that as a biomarker. A brain scan could check the strength of that network in a person with mild symptoms to help diagnose or even predict the condition sooner. Another implication is targeted therapy. By pinpointing which brain hubs or pathways are breaking down, treatments can focus therefor example, a targeted brain stimulation or a cognitive exercise to strengthen a specific circuit. In short, understanding these causal networks lets us start addressing the root network disruptions, not just the surface symptoms. You’ve applied your brain network analysis to Alzheimer’s disease. What potential clinical impacts do you envision from this work in the next three to five years? In the next three to five years, I anticipate a few important clinical impacts: Brain network markers could be used to spot Alzheimers much sooner. An AI-analyzed scan might catch the diseases signature network disruption years before noticeable symptoms, enabling early intervention. Doctors may also monitor patients brain connectivity over time as a new vital sign. If a treatment is working, we would see the patients network decline slow or stabilize. That feedback could help adjust therapies promptly. Finally, theapies might be tailored to a persons specific network weaknesses. For example, if someones frontal network is most affected, doctors could focus medication or cognitive exercises on strengthening that regions function. This network-guided approach means more individualized and potentially effective care. Beyond medicine, how might your research on causal brain networks impact everyday technology we use? What we learn about the brains networks can directly inspire smarter everyday technology. One example is in AI software: by observing how patterns of influence between brain regions shift across different mental statessomething our causal network models help revealdevelopers can draw inspiration for digital assistants that better adapt to changing contexts or tasks, much like the brain does. Another area is brain-computer interfacestechnology that lets users control devices through neural signals. By understanding how brain regions causally influence one another during specific tasksinsights from our causal network modelsengineers can design more responsive interfaces that align with the brains natural information flow. In short, studying brain networks offers tech designers a blueprint for creating more brain-like, efficient, and user-friendly systems. What common misconceptions do people have about how the brain actually processes information, and how does your research address these? Many people think the brain works like a simple computer. Input goes in, processing happens in one place, and output comes out. But in reality, the brain is a dynamic web of interconnected regions constantly influencing one another. Our research shows that even a simple decision can involve multiple regions in complex causal chains. Its not about one brain area doing one thingit’s about networks adapting, rerouting, and interacting in context-dependent ways. How is AI enabling new kinds of scientific questions and research approaches in neuroscience that were previously impossible or impractical? With traditional tools, we were limited to studying local effectslike how one brain region responds to a stimulus. But AI lets us ask broader, system-level questions: How do signals propagate across the brain over time? How do networks reorganize in disease or under stress? These were hard to test before because of the data complexity, but now with AI, especially causal modeling and large-scale computation, we can track and test those dynamics with precision. If you could advise healthcare leaders or policymakers on one priority for ensuring AI delivers on its promise for brain health, what would it be? Build a strong foundation of data and validation. This means encouraging secure sharing of high-quality brain health data across institutions, so AI models can be trained on diverse, representative information. It also means requiring rigorous testing of AI toolslike clinical trials for algorithmsbefore theyre deployed in clinics. With richer data and strict validation, we can ensure that AI actually delivers safe, effective improvements in brain health, rather than just hype.
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