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America is on the cusp of its first major winter storm of the new year. Dubbed Winter Storm Fern, the storm is expected to begin today and last until at least Monday. As Fast Company previously reported, the noreaster is expected to affect as many as 230 million Americans as it moves from the Southwest to the Mid-Atlantic states, then continues eastward toward New England. The storm’s progression over 72 hours is expected to dump snow and ice on significant portions of the country, with major cities including St. Louis, Chicago, Memphis, Nashville, Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. expected to receive significant accumulation. The severity of Winter Storm Fern has led many states to already declare emergencies before the bad weather has even hit. Residents across the country have been stocking up on food for days, as well as buying winter storm supplies like shovels and rock salt. Airlines are also warning travelers to expect delays and cancellations. Given the potential impact, many U.S. carriers have already said they will waive change fees or fare differences if travelers want to change their travel plans ahead of time. 2 maps show Winter Storm Ferns expected path The first major winter storm of 2026 wont hit most of America all at once. It is expected to begin in the Southwest on Friday and slowly move northeastward across the country over the following days. Exactly when it hits you depends on where you are along the storm’s projected path. If you want to see when experts think the storm is most likely to hit your area, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has two excellent sets of maps that show the storm’s current projected path. [Map: NOAA/NWS/NCEP] The first map is the agencys National Forecast Chart. This map forecasts the countrys weather for the next three days. While the map will change as new data is aggregated, at the time of this writing, the map shows that today, freezing rain and mixed precipitation will begin in the Southwest, in states including Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Snowfall is expected from Wyoming to western Missouri. But Saturday and Sunday are the days that most of America will be hit hard, according to the maps. On Saturday, snow, a wintry mix, or freezing rain is expected to occur in states ranging from Arizona to Philadelphia. On Sunday, the storm is expected to cover the remainder of the northeastern United States. [Map: NOAA/NWS/NCEP] But just how impactful the winter storm weather will be varies by location. And its predicted impact is shown in another NOAA map, called the Winter Weather Forecasts, which displays the Probabilistic Winter Storm Severity Index (WSSI-P). This index displays a range of winter weather impact probabilities over a geographic area, NOAA states. The impacts are shown via a color-coded system with darker colors signifying a greater chance of impact. Currently, the Winter Weather Forecasts map shows that Saturday and Sunday will bring a 90% chance or greater of significant impact from the winter storm. On Saturday, the chance of impact is greatest in states including Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. On Sunday, the chance of impact is greatest in states including North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, New York, and more.
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E-Commerce
In the world of earnings reports and pitch decks, the ultimate goal of our current AI boom is usually called something like artificial general intelligence (AGI), superintelligence, orif you’re really nerdyrecursive self-improving AI. But in the real world, we’re all just looking for the Enterprise computer: a digital assistant you can talk to that doesn’t just fully understand you, but can do things for you instantly. The last couple of months have seen a lot of progress on this front. While I was at CES, I attended Lenovo’s keynote, which unveiled Qira, an always-on AI that will be built into its devices going forward. As I wrote about at The Media Copilot, the innovation with Qira is that the assistant is now an “orchestrator of agents,” seamlessly passing off the user to other services like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or others, depending on the user’s request. The reason a device maker like Lenovo can do that is because it doesn’t compete with those servicesQira is a facilitator, not a do-everything AI service. It appears Apple has also finally woken up to that strategy now that it’s announced a multi-year deal to integrate Googles Gemini models into a revamped Siri later this year. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/media-copilot.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/fe289316-bc4f-44ef-96bf-148b3d8578c1_1440x1440.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to The Media Copilot\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Want more about how AI is changing media? Never miss an update from Pete Pachal by signing up for The Media Copilot. To learn more visit \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/mediacopilot.substack.com\/\u0022\u003Emediacopilot.substack.com\u003C\/a\u003E","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/mediacopilot.substack.com\/","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91453847,"imageMobileId":91453848,"shareable":false,"slug":""}} Apple has colossally overpromised and underdelivered on AI over the past two years, partly because of its reluctance to rely on partners for parts of its AI experience. Now that there’s more clarity on the orchestrator visionand on how AIs talk to each otherit looks like we’re past concerns over empowering competitors. Assistants evolve into agents Into all this come agentic tools like Claude Code and Claude Coworker. The buzz around these tools in the AI world has been insane, and a big part of the reason is they can do much more than code and build websites. They are effectively agents, able to take instructions, turn them into plans, and then execute on them, often with minimal guidance from the user. Whether it lives in the OS (Qira/Siri) or in a desktop app (Cowork), the effect is the same: decision-making moves closer to the interface people actually use. Several people on X say the experience using Coworker is closer to working with a colleague rather than prompting an AI. But there are new worries, too: Anthropic is warning users about safety riskslike unclear instructions leading to file deletionbecause thats what happens when the model can act, not just talk. All this is pointing in the same direction. Sometime soon, it seems likely that a significant and growing amount of device interactions will be essentially telling agents what to do. No apps, no browserjust the answer, output, or outcome you were looking for. It’s the Enterprise computer, just not on the bridge of a starship but in millions of pockets worldwide. There are huge implications for the media, brands, and other content providers. In my Qira piece, I talked about how the battle for context is going to play out in the information space in the coming year, but agent-based work will also have an effect on information-based work itself, especially journalism. Embedding an agentessentially a decision-making computerinto your workspace is potentially a huge accelerant, but it poses difficult questions around attribution, access, and how it treats sensitive data. Auditability in the agent era Sounds serious, and there’s a simple solution to those concerns: don’t use it. But that’s not a strategy. Like any tool, those who learn it, use it, and master it will have an advantage over those who don’t. As agentic work grows in popularity, the workplaces that figure out how to implement it safely and securely will have the best chance of success. The media is particularly challenged, though, since information is their business. We’ve already seen this play out with regard to hallucinations. The propensity of AI systems to make things up out of the blue continues to persist, and it keeps many newsrooms from adopting AI, at least in any way that touches content. The danger of a workplace agent is more insidious. The AI isn’t creating content per se, but it is making decisions such as what information sources to use, what services to help with a task, and what company knowledge to apply to any specific request. But if an agent is going to make decisions in a newsroom, it cant be a black box. Even without the AI making a mistake per se, the question of how the AI makes its decisions matters. Look at the corollary in search: When Google made a deal with Reddit, which led to Reddit appearing at the top of many more search results. That unquestionably had an influence on where people got their information, especially since Google is an effective monopoly on search. Well, a device or workplace agent will have a similar monopoly. How an agent goes down a tree of decisions can’t be a black box. Certainly, steering workers toward sanctioned services and company software is an obvious first step. Following style guides and company policy in the actions it takes is another. But it’s in the parts of workflows that aren’t covered by that where things get strange. This isn’t just about getting informationit’s about the context it relies on when taing action. The need for AI governance While actions need to be seamless to the user, there needs to be an auditable paper trail for them. How the agent gets context from the web, and from which services, should be clear and traceable. When asked, in plain language, why it took a specific action, there should be a rabbit hole the user can go down if they wish, along with a method to correct any problems in its thinking (including bias). Disclaimers won’t cut it on agentstraining how to both use them and audit your own use, should be standard. In other words, governance matters. Agents like Qira and Claude Coworker might deliver on the dream of true AI assistants. But the potential they promise to unlock requires an equal amount of deference. If AI has shown anything over the past few years, it’s that it can do incredible things, but it can’t be trusted to always get it right. For organizations to truly advance into the agent era, they’ll need to adopt an old adage: trust, but verify. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/media-copilot.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/fe289316-bc4f-44ef-96bf-148b3d8578c1_1440x1440.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to The Media Copilot\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Want more about how AI is changing media? Never miss an update from Pete Pachal by signing up for The Media Copilot. 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The Trump administration just redesigned the official White House website. Its new aesthetic might best be described as a personal action hero reel for the president. [Screen Capture: whitehouse.gov] The updated website design rolled out on January 22 in the wake of a broader relaunch of government sites by the new National Design Studio. It replaces the old homepagewhich featured a banner image of Trump, the bolded phrase America is Back, and headshots of the first lady and vice presidentwith a decidedly more cinematic design. Now, when people visit whitehouse.gov, theyre immediately greeted with a wall of videos, including shots of Trump sporting his own Make America Great Again merch, saluting military personnel, and taking off in a helicopter. Every shot is bathed in a warm, fuzzy filter, making the whole page feel like a retro-inspired movie trailer. [Screenshot: whitehouse.gov] This design direction is part of a familiar playbook thats come to define how the second Trump administration shows up online. On the surface, it touts a glossy, airbrushed version of the U.S., pulling from Americana aesthetics popularized in film and art. Underneath, though, is the ever-present subtext of Trumps ideal vision for America. One big movie trailer With the new whitehouse.gov design, the Trump administration has sidelined a previously held ethos of communicating specific administrative goals in favor of evoking an emotional response from the viewer. [Screenshot: whitehouse.gov] Historically, the official White House web page has maintained a consistent structure between presidencies. From Bush in 2008 to Obama in 2015, Biden in 2022, and even Trump himself in 2018, opening the web page would lead to a photo of the president, paired with a rundown of his current key objectives and a selection of top news stories. [Screenshot: whitehouse.gov] Today, the entire home screen fills with a looping, 30-second highlight reel of Trump. Beneath this reel is a short statement lauding the second Trump administrations successes, followed by five sections (each dedicated to an objective like Secure the Border and Make America Healthy Again). To read more about the administrations current aims, users have to click on one of these subsections or navigate to a separate header bar at the top of the page, which links out to additional resources, like a news, gallery, and livestream page. [Screenshot: whitehouse.gov] The cumulative effect of these choices is that opening the whitehouse.gov page now feels less like getting a snapshot of the current administrations goals, and more like watching five different advertisements at once. And, like any advertisement, these video clips are clearly designed to make the viewer feel something. From close-up shots of a man in a cowboy hat to wide views of a billowing American flag and a grainy clip of farmers at a Trump rally, each compilation leans on recognizable Americana aesthetics to generate a sense of patriotism. Interspersed between feel-good shots of the president signing bills and shaking hands with children, the site includes clips of border patrol agents handling lengths of barbed wire, military helicopters taking off, and ICE agents gearing up and climbing into armored vehicles. The redesign comes just weeks after an ICE agent shot and killed Minnesota resident Renee Nicole Good, leading to ongoing tension and protests across the state. In terms of connecting with its intendd audience, this website design is undoubtedly effective. It plays into the ways that people are already consuming content onlinethrough short, enticing bursts of videoto tell a glamorized story about the current administration. The same can be said for most of the recently revamped government websites: they trade an emphasis on clearly communicating information for scaffolding Trump’s vision for America’s future. Ultimately, the aesthetic strength of this design is also its biggest shortcoming. At a time when the president should be building solidarity with his citizens, he’s instead designing a website that serves as a reminder that his government isn’t meant for everyone.
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E-Commerce
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