Sun-soaked beaches, cocktails by the pool, and a rare break from Zoom: Its what we all want from a summer break. Yet, for millions of parents, the reality doesnt live up to the dream.
With school out and schedules upended, working moms find themselves under increased pressure. They juggle deadlines, playdates, meetings, and household chores, all while trying to create core memories with their loved ones. For them, it isnt a vacationits another full-time job.
Unsurprisingly, a survey from the Headway app found that 36% of workers admitted that balancing work, social life, and downtime during the summer season leaves them drained; 9% say theyre already suffering from sun-induced burnout. For working moms, the toll is even steeper: 81% reported experiencing burnout as they attempt to do it all.
As someone who has balanced parenting with my role as a productivity coach at Headway, I know the exhaustion all too well. At times, theres the burning desire to quit. Theres also the guilt of putting work before family, and the misery of returning from vacation more tired than when you left.
The toll summer takes on working moms
For working moms, the pressure to manage everything often leads to chronic overworking, skipped breaks, and stress levels. Over time, this slowly chips away at their physical and mental well-being. Burnout isnt a buzzword. Its a precursor to anxiety, depression, insomnia, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and more.
And, again, working parents are at greater risk. A 2022 Harris Poll data (commissioned by CVS) found that 42% of working parents admit they suffer from anxiety, depression, or both. Its not surprising that motherhood often coincides with women leaving the workforce. A journal article from Behavioral Sciences found that some 24% quit within the first year.
And working mothers who choose to come back dont always receive support. Instead, they face skepticism. They face scrutiny from employers over their commitment and competencefurther stalling their career progression. Another journal article from Behavioral Sciences found that mothers were less likely to be interviewed, hired, promoted, or paid a fair wage.
How to ask your employer for more summer support
If youre struggling through summer with little support from your employer, here are some tips on how to make a compelling case that seasonal flexibility is a smart business decision that benefits all:
Use data to support your case
Unfortunately, the reality is that not all employers will care about your personal circumstances. Most, however, will care a great deal about your productivity. Headway research shows that 54% of workers have had their work routine disrupted by summer, while 46% are managing fewer than 30 productive hours each week.
By supporting your request with data, youre showing how a lack of flexibility impacts the wider workforcewhether through reduced productivity, more sick days, or higher turnover. That way, it becomes less of a personal plea and more of a strategic business decision that benefits all.
Ask for flexibility, not time off
Your employer is paying for your time, so its unrealistic to expect additional time off at their expense. Instead of requesting an absence, ask for flexibility. For instance, rather than saying you cant work Wednesday morning, explain why you need that time off and when youll make it up. In this case, it might be when school (and normality) resumes. When you bring this up, stress that you arent asking to do less. Youre simply proposing a schedule that allows you to maintain your productivity while keeping on top of your summer responsibilities as a parent.
Frame flexibility as a retention tool
Turnover is an expensive problem for employers. Based on data from the Social Security Agency, the cost of replacing an employee can range from $33,000 to $50,000. Given the high quit rates among working moms, especially during high-pressure periods such as summer, retaining this talent can be a strategic solution. Present flexibility as a retention tool, and show how with a few adjustments, your employer can support your teams well-being while retaining talent, preserving knowledge, and saving costs in the process.
Call on HR for support
Your manager might not be all ears initially, but HR should be. After all, with data showing that working mothers shoulder a disproportionate share of the stress that comes with balancing work and caregiving responsibilities, this is an equality issue. In my experience, most employees want to be inclusive and supportive, but simply havent addressed the specific need yet. But your advocacy could be the spark that prompts upper management to implement broader policies that ease the burden on all caregivers across the organization.
Highlight other companies’ successes
While many companies are hesitant to disrupt the status quo, others have committed to supporting working parents and seen strong results. Patagonia, for instance, offers on-site childcare to all its employees, providing peace of mind over childcare during working hours and plenty of quality time with their little ones throughout the day. Likewise, HubSpot offers flexible work schedules and unlimited time off, prioritizing results over the number of hours an employee logs.
These forward-thinking policies alleviate pressure on working parents while boosting loyalty, engagement, and retention. And its no coincidence that these companies are regularly voted among the best places to work. And thats something that should pique your employer’s interest, no matter what industry they come from.
On the morning of April 28, large parts of Spain, Portugal, and southern France went dark. A massive blackout left millions without power, halting trains mid-track, cutting mobile networks, and rattling the foundation of one of Europes most advanced energy grids.
In the days that followed, experts and media outlets scrambled to explain what had happened. Was it a cyberattack? Human error? A structural failure? More than two months later, official investigations are ongoing. Early statements by the Spanish government confirmed that although no single cause has emerged, it wasnt a cyberattack.
While the exact cause remains under review, one thing the energy industry agrees on is clear: This cant keep happening.
“A relentless cycle of evolution”
Power systems are not only extremely complex, they are also in a relentless cycle of evolutionwith new parts coming in and old ones going outall while remaining stable and dependable 24/7, says Richard Schomberg, special envoy for smart electrification at the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).
The problem is that many of todays systems werent built for this era of energy evolution. As traditional power plants go offline and renewables come online, grid stability becomes harder to guarantee. What once worked isnt working anymore.
There are many causes for failure in an electric system, Schomberg notes, from design limitations to user error to cyberattack to a sudden uptick in use. The goal of a resilient grid, he says, should be to divide and conquerisolating failing parts of the network quickly to avoid destroying critical infrastructure. But in practice, this often results in brownouts or blackouts.
The April event wasnt just a wake-up call for Europe. It was a warning for the world. And it echoed similar large-scale disruptions in the U.S. (notably in Texas in 2021), Pakistan, and parts of Africa, where fragile infrastructure, outdated protocols, or extreme weather have repeatedly revealed how brittle many modern grids remain.
“It’s not just about having more power”
According to energy experts, one of the biggest culprits in grid fragility isnt malicious intent; its poor planning. Anders Lindberg, president of Helsinki-based Wärtsilä Energy, points to the growing gap between ambition and infrastructure. As we bring more renewables online, were not replacing the stability that traditional power plants used to provide, he explains, noting that stability once served as a kind of shock absorber for the grid. When it disappears, even small disruptions can spiral into systemic failure.
Wärtsiläs approach focuses on fast-ramping engines and hybrid systems that can stabilize the grid when the wind dies down or clouds roll in. In Scotland, for example, we partnered with Zenobe to deliver grid-forming batteries that can restart the system if it goes down, Lindberg says. Wärtsiläs systems also have black start capabilities, meaning they dont depend on external power to turn on.
While large utilities play a role, startups are also part of the puzzle. Norway-based Heimdall Power uses sensor technology and AI to monitor grid infrastructure in real time. With our sensors, you get actual capacity data from the grid, not static limits based on weather or assumptions, CEO Jrgen Festervoll tells Fast Company. That kind of real-time visibility can mean the difference between targeted intervention and total system collapse.
Conventional grid monitoring typically relies on fixed thermal limits and weather-based estimates, which often underrate the actual capacity of power lines. Heimdalls sensors measure real-time line temperature, current, and sagallowing operators to safely optimize capacity without overloading.
Festervoll adds that events like the Iberian blackout are no longer rare anomalies; theyre signals of deeper grid instability. Its not just about having more power, he says. Its about knowing where that power is going and when things might go wrong.
“You need storage that can scale with demand”
For many experts, the grid of the future isnt centralized. Its flexible, distributed, and intelligent. This is where battery innovation comes in. While not part of the blackout investigation, companies like Morrow Batteries are positioning themselves to help solve the intermittency problem at scale.
Morrow Batteries, which aims to reduce battery costs by 50% while cutting emissions, is building a factory in Norway with a target capacity of 43 gigawatt-hours focused on high-efficiency lithium-ion cells. CEO Lars Christian Bacher says scale and proximity are what make local solutions like Morrow important: You cant just have generationyou need storage that can scale with demand.
According to the Net Zero Emissions by 2050 scenario of the International Energy Agency, grid-scale battery storage capacity needs to grow from around 16gigawatts in 2021 to 680gigawatts by 2030a roughly 44-fold increaseto align with net-zero targets agreed to at COP28, the 2023 U.N. climate summit in Dubai.
But technology alone wont solve everything. The rules of the grid also need to change. Without systemic reform, even the best batteries cant deliver the results theyre built for.
Many grid protocols were written for a world of centralized, fossil-fuel power, Wärtsiläs Lindberg says. They dont account for the unpredictability of wind or solar. You can have the best tech, but if the regulations dont allow it to respond fast enough, you still fail.
Wärtsilä, for example, is working with regulators to modernize system response and ensure decentralized assetslike batteries and flexible enginescan step in when needed. The companys recent hybrid system agreement in Curaçao and its support for Texas grid resilience during the 2021 winter blackout are proof points.
“We have the tools”
Globally, the cost of blackouts is rising. The U.S. Department of Energy projects that by 2030 the United States could experience more than 800 hours of blackouts per year, up from just a handful today.
If current infrastructure and resilience investments dont keep up, that reality could become grimmer. Add climate volatility to the equationwith more storms, heat waves, and energy demand surgesand the economic stakes grow even higher.
Building for resilience doesnt only mean faster restoration. It means designing systems that can avoid outages in the first place. A 2024 study by the USC Price School emphasized that investments in power grid resilience are more cost-effective than repeated recovery efforts. The researchers found that a dollar spent on resilience tactics could avoid several dollars in future outage costs, particularly in regions prone to extreme weather or infrastructure failure. These tactics range from undergrounding power lines and strengthening substations to integrating decentralized energy systems.
And resilience isnt only a matter of hardwareit includes coordination, visibility, and smarter protocols that can isolate, contain, and correct anomalies before they escalate.
Yet theres hope.
We have the tools. We have the technology, Lindberg says. What gives me hope is that countries are starting to take a more pragmatic view, focusing not just on cutting carbon but on building systems that can handle stress.
IECs Schomberg agrees, stressing that standardization will be key: Energy designs and local constraints will vary, but all systems need technical solutions to monitor, optimize, and stabilize. Thats where IEC standards come in.
The April blackout in the Iberian Peninsula was a flashpoint, but it shouldnt be the final word. If anything, it exposed just how fragile our energy systems are when ambition outruns readiness. The next question isnt whether there will be another blackout, but whether well be ready when it comes.
Its never felt more impossible to keep up with the trend cycle. Trends feel harder to predict, too fast to respond to, and even harder to get in front of. In many instances, it appears to be all reactive rather than proactive. Micro-trends are fleeting and elusive. By the time you read this, the Labubu boom might be over. Dont know what that is? Exactly.
Were inundated with trends that are so low-level, so born from “the internet,” that it makes it hard for anyone to zoom out and see the big picture. Theres no time to ask questions like whats driving this change? Whats the human trend behind the micro-trend? However, there are always ways to distinguish the fleeting happenings of the day from insights that actually matter.
Doing this successfully does require time and effort. A recent MIT study revealed that the use of ChatGPT is atrophying critical thinking skills. This is a bitter (but likely not shocking) pill, but critical thinking is exactly what we need more of. Sure, tools like ChatGPT can help you move quickly, collating info or top-line snapshots, but they cant replace the time and thinking that you need to unlock relevance.
There are core tenets of trend forecasting that can help us with this. They allow us to sort the relevant and useful from the overblown and noisy. But like I said, they require a little effort.
Build your bibliography
First, breaking free from your self-perpetuating, algorithmic bubble requires significant work. Some platforms may allow you to reset your algorithm, but theres no substitute for building your own bibliography.
If you havent already, try to build one that actively takes you away from your typical sources of news and information. Look in places you might not naturally gravitate towards, but show you whats happening outside your sphere. If youre a telehealth brand trying to move from transactional to aspirational, look at whats emerging in high-end hospitality. If youre a fitness brand looking to help your consumers build habits and stay with you, consider reading about the mechanics of the gaming industry. Look outside of your business to get new points of view.
Say youre a beauty or a wellness brand right now. Its easy to think clean girl is the key micro-trend influencing the globe, and you should lean in. But if you look around your meeting table and see only slick-haired, twenty-to-thirtysomethings with Rhode lip gloss phone cases, it might just be your surroundings. Businesses have to learn to think forward.
Consider the driving factors
Once youve uncovered an insight that feels meaningful, its time for some critical evaluation.
Speed and convenience are everything right now, so its easy to slip into the just get it done mindset. But when youre trying to speak to deep human truths, you do need to get it right. That means sitting with things and letting them percolate. A classic trends tool is STEEP factors. These help us remember the drivers of trends. They are social, technological, environmental, economic, or political forces that feed into major movements or attitudinal shifts.
For example, do you know what a borg (blackout rage gallon) is? A favorite of college students the last several years, theyre gallon jugs filled with alcohol and usually have a fun, borg-centric play on pop culture written on them. The average person looks at this and thinks, Wow, college kids are drinking more than ever. Thats insane. A marketer may look at it and think, Cool, we can sell borg-sized products to young people now. Cultural strategists and trend forecasters might ask, Well, whats in it?
If you unpack Gen Zs borgs, theyre made up of alcohol, water, flavor, and electrolytes. Thats because theyre a generation that grew up firmly steeped in wellness culture. You realize borgs arent just about silly names and colorful alcohol, they reflect an attitude of a generation who considers their health differently than those before them.
Manifestation versus cultural moment
Bear in mind as you uncover new ideas and topics, too, that one example doesnt make a trend.
Yes, we can use data from fast-moving content, but we need to assess it thoroughly. Thats when you notice whats beneath the surface of a seemingly quick-churn micro trend.
Remember, were looking for cultural signposts. That means different, multi-category, multi-industry spanning examples. I wouldnt call the sustainability movement a trend necessarily, but when it began to explode, we saw its impact everywhere. In fashion, we saw Patagonia encouraging us to buy less. In food, we saw Impossible Foods and Oatly become consumer favorites. Beauty brands began to offer refillable packaging. When you see cross-category adoption, you know something is sticking.
Crafting relevance
Isn’t this the goal of every business leader? To uncover insights that meaningfully shape your business and its future. Some relentlessly chase relevance, jumping on every viral trend, while others strive for resonance and longevity.
You need to strike a balance between the two, but its also important to be intentional in how you pursue the former. To be honest, I struggle to think of an example of a trend thats established itself as truly resonant in recent years. Something impactful doesnt get lost in the endless flood of content. Yet, consumers are increasingly looking for something more enduring.
A definition of “insight” is the capacity to gain an accurate and deep, intuitive understanding of a person or thing. If were so overloaded with content, we no longer have that capacity. Those who succeed will be the ones taking the time to uncover the enduring, shaping not just their businesses, but the culture around them.
If youve spent any time on the kids birthday party circuit in the past few years, youve likely logged more than one Saturday at a trampoline park amid packs of children freed from the tyranny of indoor voices.
Parents of yore in search of movement-focused venues had to settle for Chuck E. Cheese or the ball pit at McDonalds. Today, chains like Sky Zone, Altitude, and Urban Air are competing to earn the loyalties of energetic children everywhere. With a mix of acrobatics, rock climbing, and foam pits, these venues prioritize exercise over technologyand their recent success challenges common assumptions about modern parents tolerance for risk, if only for the length of a childrens party.
Or perhaps theyre just thrilled by the absence of smartphones. We hear a lot from our customers about screen time, says Shawn Hassel, CEO of Sky Zone, the trampoline park sectors dominant player. We focus on that analog experience, where kids can just be kids.
[Photos: Evan Jenkins]
[Photos: Evan Jenkins]
Sky Zones 251 locations in North America, almost evenly split between corporate owned and franchises, collectively hosted 300,000 birthday parties in 2024. The company saw $435 million in corporate revenue, $80 million of which Hassel says will go toward expanding to 500 locations by 2027, mostly via franchises. Fueling its growth is a shift to targeting experienced franchisees; the company recently closed a 10-pack deal in the Dallas and Oklahoma City markets with a family that owns several McDonalds locations.
On the customer side, Sky Zones membership program, with 800,000 active members, continues to grow, driven byyou guessed itbirthday partiers. Every time, they bring 9 or 12 of their friends, Hassel says. It pretty much sells itself.
In recent months in Texas, hempand the state’s $5.5 billion hemp industryhas become a flashpoint in state politics and the wider cultural war.
A successful push by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick earlier this year to have the Legislature ban hemp and hemp-derived THC (tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive ingredient in hemp and marijuana) was temporarily thwarted by Gov. Greg Abbotts veto of Senate Bill 3 on June 23. But just this week, a special 30-day legislative session was called by the governor, with THC as a top agenda item. A new bill, Senate Bill 5, nearly identical to the vetoed bill, is on the docket for legislators to consider.
Texas, by dint of its size and stature among red states, can be seen as a bellwether for how Republican lawmakers are going to handle the hemp and marijuana markets. The state legalized hemp products in 2019, modeling it after the federal Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, which kick-started the contemporary hemp industry and cultivation across the country.
But the Texas law concerned itself more with agriculture and regulating the growing of hemp, which led to some oversights in terms of consumer regulation, said Katharine Harris, a drug policy expert at Rice Universitys Baker Institute for Public Policy. Products made with THC derived from hemp became legal, even while THC derived from marijuana plants remained banned. Thats led to rapid growth and a consistent pushincluding from the industry itselffor more regulations.
Texas has the potential to be the second-largest cannabis market in the country, said Lukas Gilkey, founder of Hometown Hero CBD, a prominent advocate for the industry who previously launched ongoing legal action against state regulators to prevent them from banning hemp-derived TCH products in 2021. You used to be sent to jail for having a joint, but the numbers for this industry are staggering for an industry that isnt even six years old.
A sudden multibillion-dollar industry
In the six years the hemp industry has existed in Texas, its been on a speedrun toward becoming a sizable sector of the economy, according to a March 2025 Whitney Economics analysis. The industry now generates $267 million in state tax revenue, employing 53,000 workers who receive $2.1 billion in wages. Hometown Heros revenues expanded five times over during the first six months after the law was passed.
Recreational marijuana is not legal to sell in the statealthough Texas does have a small medical marijuana programbut possession of small amounts is starting to be decriminalized in some cities. However, since hemp is legal, the hemp industry in Texas can conduct transactions that pot sellers cannot, such as take credit card payments and engage in interstate commerce.
The growth of hemp in the state has garnered quite a constituency of small-business owners, entrepreneurs, and recreational users, as well as a sizable community of military veterans who utilize hemp goods for medicinal purposes. Many farmers have made hemp a main crop and were outraged that the industry was on the verge of closure.
Throw the lowlifes in jail if you want to stop the bad actors, Ann Gauger, co-owner of Caprock Family Farms in Lubbock, told The Texas Tribune. But dont take out the American farmers. Dont take out the ag producers.
A battle for what Texas means
The battle over hemp in Texas can be cast as a battle about the personality of the frontier state itself: a no-nonsense, freedom-loving, self-made sense of pride in building a business with your bare hands versus a well-earned reputation as a right-wing policy incubator with deeply religious leaders.
There have been other attempts to regulate and reform hemp laws during other legislative sessions. (Texas has biannual sessions that last six months every other year.) But over the course of the last few years, the industry has grown substantially, to the point where its quite visible, Harris said.
That has simply made some of the regulatory issues more obvious. For instance, manufacturing smokable hemp products was outlawed, but the sale of such items wasnt prohibited. The states regulations also lacked more concrete restrictions around potency and age limits, and had few restrictions on where items could be sold: A retail license cost just $155 per location.
One of the issues that we have right now is that there are a lot of unsafe products on the market because we don’t have the oversight necessary, Harris said. That’s one of the things that they really need to fix.
George Medici, a spokesperson for the Texas Hemp Business Council, said the industry itself has been advocating for new regulationschildproof packaging, age limits, setbacks to keep sales away from schoolsso far, to no avail. Advocates have been busy lobbying in Austin during the special session, and they feel somewhat positive about the future.
I think were optimistic; its kind of hard to tell, Medici said. Polling suggests, and always has, that people want these products on the market, and want them regulated. The momentum is positive. What thatll look like making the sausage, I dont know.
There are also efforts to push production of more industrial hemp, according to state Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, but thats just getting started. Miller believes that regardless of what happens with the regulation of products with THC, Texas will be a national leader in the hemp industry.
The potential for a full ban
Its also clear that the clash around hemp will continue. During a press conference about the issue, Lt. Gov. Patrick suggested that hemp producers might be part of a terrorist money-laundering scheme and asked if the state really wanted everybody to get high.
Patrick and his allies in the Texas Legislature feel that hemp products have become too common, are too hard to police, and should be banned instead of regulated.
Rice Universitys Harris believes the current special session will likely deal with additional regulations around prohibiting access to minors and addressing additional regulations for the industry. She argues that any kind of ban would just push buyers to the illicit market, which would end up being more dangerous. Hometown Hero’s Gilkey believes Senate Bill 5 will pass in the Senate but says that even if it does end up getting signed by the governor in the special session, he has a team of lawyers ready to sue them into oblivion.
In the long term, the Texas hemp industry will have to adapt to a changing landscape and likly face a little more regulation, akin to whats already seen in many of the legal marijuana states, Harris said. Shed like to see an effort toward self-regulation and legislation that encourages better behavior within the industry, as far as guaranteeing the safety profiles of their products (as do many in the industry).
The problem is that theres an industry and a market for these products that exists, so it becomes a lot harder to make it all go away, she said.
Creativity has been heralded as our last irreplaceable skill, the one thing machines could never touch. Yet in offices everywhere, teams hit the same walls: blank screens, stale ideas, the exhausting churn of brainstorming sessions that go nowhere. The promise of human ingenuity feels increasingly at odds with the reality of modern work, where the demand for fresh thinking has never been higher, but the conditions for producing it have never been worse.
Its awkward to admit, but were not brainstorming the way we used to. Its not that weve lost the ability. Creative thinking remains the lifeblood of everything from product development to marketing campaigns.
But the uncomfortable truth is that we no longer have the luxury of time for the classical creative process. The slow simmer of ideas, the meandering discussions, and the trial and error that once defined innovation have been compressed into frantic sprints. We’re still creative, but we’re drowning in the busywork that keeps us from accessing that creativity when we need it most.
Were in the decade of the creative bottleneck
For years, innovation has unfolded at a breakneck pace, but the evidence suggests things are slowing. The low-hanging fruit of the digital revolution has been picked, and the next wave of breakthroughs requires more than incremental tweaks. Yet the very systems meant to foster creativity have become clogged with bureaucracy and inefficiency.
Consider the latest estimates on how knowledge workers spend their time: they waste 3.6 hours each week managing internal workplace communication, another 2.8 hours searching for or requesting information they need to do their jobs, and an additional 2.2 hours trapped in unnecessary or unproductive meetings. Thats nearly a full day every week lost to process rather than progress.
White-collar workers, especially in tech, were supposed to be the disruptorsthe ones breaking old models and inventing new ones. Instead, theyve become administrators of their own stagnation.
We cant create more time, but we can rethink what creativity actually is
At its core, creativity isnt the romanticized lightning strike of inspirationits a grueling, mechanical process. It requires grinding through bad ideas, hitting dead ends, and enduring countless revisions before arriving at something worthwhile.
The hardest part? Ideationthe raw generation of new concepts. Humans arent wired to produce fresh ideas on demand. Our brains cling to familiar patterns, get stuck in ruts, and freeze under pressure. But this is precisely where AI excels. Where we see a blank page, an AI sees infinite permutations. Where we fatigue after a dozen iterations, an AI can generate thousands without losing focus.
Heres the real opportunity: if improving an idea by 5% used to take two weeks of human deliberation, what happens when AI can deliver that same 5% gain in 30 minutes? Suddenly, those incremental improvements compound exponentially. The bottleneck isnt the quality of our thinking; its the speed at which we can cycle through possibilities.
AI is actually very good at the creative process
Where AI thrives is in the parts of creativity that humans find most draining: the relentless generation of variations, the cold-eyed evaluation of options, the pattern recognition across vast datasets. These are the unglamorous foundations of innovation, the behind-the-scenes work that makes the “aha” moments possible.
Think about it. Humans can run at 15 mph tops; cars can go 200 mph. We dont insist on sprinting everywhere just to prove our legs work. We use technology to extend our natural capabilities. Why should thinking be any different?
Humans simply arent built to crank out a hundred versions of a logo, or a thousand variations of a marketing message, then dispassionately select the strongest. Our attention falters, our judgment clouds, our patience wears thin. But for AI, this is trivial. It doesnt need coffee breaks or pep talks. It doesnt get attached to pet ideas or succumb to groupthink. It just generates, analyzes, and iteratesexactly the skills needed to break through creative logjams.
This isnt about replacing human judgment. Its about augmenting it.
The real value of AI lies in its ability to handle the brute-force labor of creativity, leaving us free to focus on what humans do best: refining, contextualizing, and applying ideas with taste and strategic insight. Its the difference between digging a foundation with a shovel and using an excavator. The end goal isnt the tool its the building.
We dont have to cede complete creative control
To be clear, this isnt about surrendering creativity to machines. AI lacks our intuition, our cultural awareness, our understanding of human nuance; the very qualities that make our best ideas resonate. The breakthroughs of the next decade wont come from AI working alone, but from humans wielding AI as the ultimate creative accelerator.
The real paradigm shift is recognizing that AI isnt here to replace human creativity, but to unstick it. For years, weve treated brainstorming as a sacred ritual, as if the magic were in the method rather than the outcome. But what if the magic is actually in removing the friction between thought and execution?
We need to let machines do what they do best (generating and sorting possibilities at superhuman scale) so we can focus on what we do best (selecting, shaping, and elevating the best ideas). The next big idea might be waiting in iteration #387and thanks to AI, we might actually have time to find it.
Dearest reader,
I hope this article finds you in good health.
I deeply desire also that if you use generative AI to boost your productivity at work, that you, for all that is good and holy, review everything it produces, lest it hallucinate data or quotes or address your boss by the wrong nameand you fall on your face and embarrass yourself.
Sincerely,
Your unchecked AI results
AI is taking the workforce by storm and stealth, as the rules for how to use it are still being written and employees are left to experiment. Many employees are under pressure to adopt AI: Some companies such as Shopify and Duolingo are requiring employees to use AI while others are ratcheting up productivity expectations so high that some workers may be using it just to meet demands. This creates an environment ripe for making mistakes: weve seen Grok spew hate speech on X, and more recently an AI agent deleted an entire database of executive contacts belonging to investor Jason Lemkin.
Funnily enough, no one wants to share their own AI-induced flub but they have a story to tell from someone else. These AI nightmares range from embarrassing to potentially fireable offenses, but together they reveal why there always needs to be a human in the loop.
The Email You Obviously Didnt Write
Failing to review AI-generated content seems to be the most common mistake workers are making, and its producing errors big and small. On the small side, one worker in tech sales who asked to remain anonymous tells Fast Company her colleague used to ask ChatGPT to write natural-sounding sales emails, then contacted clients with Dickensian messages that began, I hope this email finds you in good health.
The Slackbot Gone Awry
Similarly, Clemens Rychlik, COO at marketing firm Hello Operator, says a colleague let ChatGPT draft Slack replies largely unchecked, and addressed him as Clarence instead of Clemens. When Clemens replied in good fun, calling his colleague the wrong name too, their reaction was, of course, guilt and shameand the responses after that were definitely human.
The Inappropriate Business Recommendation
On the larger side, some people are using AI to generate information for clients without checking the results, which compromises the quality of their work. Alex Smereczniak is the CEO of the startup Franzy, a marketplace for buying and selling franchise opportunities. His company uses a specially trained LLM on the back end to help customers find franchises, but Smereczniak says their clients often dont know this.
So when one client asked to see opportunities for wellness-focused franchises, and the account manager recommended she open a Daves Hot Chicken, she was less than pleased. Smereczniak says the employee came clean and told the customer he had used AI to generate her matches.
We took a closer look and realized the model had been weighting certain factors like profitability and brand growth too heavily, without enough context on the prospects personal values, says Smereczniak. We quickly updated the models training data and reweighted a few inputs to better reflect those lifestyle preferences. When the Franzy team fired up the AI again, the model made better recommendations, and the customer was happy with the new recommendations.
At a startup, things are moving a million miles a minute, Smereczniak says. I think, in general, its good for us all to remind ourselves when we are doing something client-facing or externally. Its okay to slow down and double checkand triple checkthe AI.
The Hallucinated Source
Some companies have used AI mistakes to improve their work processes, which was the case at Michelles employer, a PR firm. (Michelle is a pseudonym as shes not technically allowed to embarrass her employer in writing.)
Michelle tells Fast Company that a colleague used Claude, Anthropics AI assistant, to generate a ghostwritten report on behalf of a client. Unfortunately, Claude hallucinated and cited imaginary sources and quoted imaginary experts. The quote in this piece was attributed to a made-up employee from one of the top three largest asset management firms in the world, she says. But the report was published anyway.
Michelles company found out by way of an angry email from the asset management firm. We were obviously all mortified, Michelle says. This had never happened before. We thought it was a process that would take place super easily and streamline the content creation process. But unfortunately, this snafu took place instead.
Ultimately, the company saved face all around by simply owning up to the error and successfully retained the account. The PR firm told the client and the asset management firm exactly how the error occurred and assured them it wouldnt happen again thanks to new protocols.
Despite the flub, the firm didnt ban the use of AI for content creationthey want to be on the leading edge of technor did it solely blame the employee (who kept their job), but it did install a series of serious checks in its workflow, and now all AI-generated content must be reviewed by at least four employees. Its a mistake that could have happened to anyone, Michelle says. AI is a powerful accelerator, but without human oversight, it can push you right off a cliff.
The AI-Powered Job Application
AI use isnt just happening on the job, sometimes its happening during the job interview itself. Reality Defender, a company that makes deepfake detection software, asks its job candidates to complete take-home projects as part of the interview process. Ironically its not uncommon for those take-home tests to be completed with AI assistance.
As far as Reality Defender is concerned, everyone assumes, and rightfully so, that AI is being used in either the conception or full on completion for a lot of tasks these days, a rep for the company tells Fast Company. But its one thing to use AI to augment your work by polishing a résumé or punching up a cover letter, and another to have it simply do the work for you.
Reality Defender wants candidates to be transparent. Be very upfront about your usage of AI, they said. In fact, we encourage that discretion and disclosure and see that as a positive, not a negative. If you are out there saying, Hey, I did this with artificial intelligence, and its gotten me to here, but I am perfectly capable of doing this without artificial intelligence, albeit in a different way, you are not only an honest person, but it shows your level of proficiency with artificial intelligence.
Personally, I dont think its necessarily bad to use [AI] to some extent, but at th very, very least, you want to check whats being written and reviewed before we share it, says Rychlik at Hello Operator. More broadly, I ask everyone to pause regularly on this because if your first instinct is always ask GPT, you risk worsening your critical thinking capabilities.
Rychlik is tapping into a common sentiment we noticed. On the whole, companies are trying to use mistakes as a learning opportunity to ask for transparency and improve processes.
Were in an age of AI experimentation, and smart companies understand mistakes are the cost of experimentation. In this experimental stage, organizations and employees using AI at work look tech-savvy rather than careless, and were just finding out where the boundaries are. For now, many workers seem to have adopted a policy of asking for forgiveness rather than permission.
Emojis are a quick, succinct way to get your point across, and let’s be real, they’re just downright fun, but if youve ever wondered if theyre work appropriate, take heart, youre not alone.
According to a new survey from Glassdoor, professionals frequently use emojis to communicate, yet, at the same time, wonder if doing so is work appropriate. Nearly 37% of professionals have questioned whether emoji usage was suitable for work, and this jumps to 41% for Gen Z. However, people ages 2125 also tend to be the heaviest emoji users: 41% of them use emojis at work.
Emojis use also seems to be industry dependent. In particular, people-centric industries, such as healthcare, education, entertainment, consulting, and advertising, had the highest rates of emoji use. But the most popular emojis for the industries differed. For example, while teachers leaned into emotions that expressed warmth or caring, healthcare workers were more inclined to use emojis that revealed dark humor or burnout. Those in advertising used emojis that emphasized both “flair and feedback,” such as music and applause hands.
Fittingly, those who used emojis the least were “regulated and risk aware” fields like insurance and real estate.
While emojis tend to be used differently across industries, the survey pointed to some common ground. Employees across industries pointed to three emojis as being the most snide: thumbs up, ellipses (…), and the simple smiling emoji. Still, some respondents said that how to interpret an emoji really depends on context, mainly, who is doing the sending. “I think it really depends on the person,” one respondent said. “Sometimes even a smiley face or thumbs up by the right person can be really passive aggressive.
This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here.
Four new AI tools caught my attention recently for solving specific problems well. They are free to try and quick to learn, and they point toward where AI is heading.
1. Lovart: Create a brand kit or marketing campaign with an AI design agent
Lovarts conversational interface allows you to generate posters, social posts, branding kits, storyboardseven packaging. Unlike other image generation tools, you can generate dozens of images from a single prompt, then iterate on the results in a chat dialogue. You can also edit the images. I used an eraser to remove stray text in a promo poster.
Pricing: Free (limited use), or $15 to $26/month billed annually for additional usage and pro models.
2. Little Language Lessons: Brush up on French, Spanish, or other languages
Polish your linguistic skills in three different ways using Googles Little Language Lessons. Unlike Duolingo, Babbel, and other subscription language-learning systems, this is completely free. Its just for micro-learningpicking up some words, phrases, and grammarnot for developing full fluency.
Tiny Lessons: Pick from a long list of languages and type in a scenariolike hosting a meeting or going to a concert. Learn related words and phrases.
Slang Hang: Catch up on popular new chitchat by watching a conversation thread between native speakers. While listening, youll see the translation.
Word Cam: Snap a picture to get translations of objects in the image, along with related phrases. Tip: Use this app on a mobile deviceit will be handier for capturing images than your computers webcam.
3. Gemini Scheduled Actions: Set up simple AI automations
Scheduled actions are an emerging format where AI assistants send you personalized updates. You design the task and choose its frequency. ChatGPT Tasks, Perplexity Tasks, and Geminis Scheduled Actions are three Ive been testing. Get notified when a task is completed by email, push notification, or within the app. Here are a few examples.
Generate a summary of headlines on your niche topic. I get positive news memos to counter the weight of news negativity. Ask for one-sentence takeaways, source links, specific subtopics, or whatever else interests you.
Get weather-related wardrobe suggestions. Create morning weather updates with outfit ideas based on a list of wardrobe items you provide for personalized guidance.
Plan a creative spark moment. Get a dailyor weeklyprompt for a creative activity: writing, drawing, journaling, cooking, or whatever you love.
Catch up on your favorite teams, shows, or bands. Request updates on your favorite artists or athletes. Unlike services like Google Alerts, these AI actions let you use natural language to detail your personal interests.
Explore new restaurants to try. Ask for a weekly summary of new nearby eateries, cafés, or dessert spots, with whatever criteria matters to you most.
4. MyLens: Create an infographic from a link, YouTube video, or text
Creating infographics can be complicated and time-consuming. Ive been experimenting with MyLens to convert raw material into visuals.
How it works: Paste in text or upload a PDF, image, or CSV/Excel file. Or add a link to a site, article, or YouTube video.
What you can make: Generate timelines, flowcharts, tables, or quadrant diagrams. Or upload data to create line, bar, or doughnut charts.
Watch MyLenss one-minute demo video to see it in action.
Pricing: Free to create three non-editable, public infographics (stories) a day, or $9/month billed annually for 300 monthly editable creations.
Alternatives: Ive covered Napkin.ai, Venngage, and apps for creating timelines.
This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here.
When we started Equal Research Day on June 10, 2022the anniversary of women finally being included in U.S. clinical research in 1993we intended it to be a celebration of progress and a call for more inclusive science. We wanted to mark how far wed come and how much opportunity still lay ahead. We never imagined that just three years later, wed be fighting to keep that progress from being undone.
The Trump administrations ongoing federal actions targeting women, diversity, and equitysuch as budget cuts affecting critical research funding, and the sporadic erasure of critical data and educationhave already caused massive damage and hindered progress for health parity in only five short months. We’re just beginning to wrap our minds around the lost progress and bleak future that we’re facing if there is no change of course. And we don’t have time, let alone four years, to wait on continuing health parity workfor women and for all marginalized groups harmed by the administrations actions.
If it feels like we are going back in time, it’s because we are. As founders building the future of womens health, we cant stay quiet. We are witnessing the erasure of womenagain.
Medicines long history of leaving women behind
While women weren’t required to be included in clinical research until 1993, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) didnt required researchers to account for sex as a biological variable until 2016. While some progress has been made, even in 2024 we were far from closing the research gapparticularly for marginalized and underrepresented groups.
Because women have been left out of research for so long, many of the drugs, diagnostics, and standards of care we rely on today were never tested on womens bodies. As a result, women are diagnosed, on average, four years later than men across hundreds of diseases. Women are more likely to die in surgery if their surgeon is a man, and women are twice as likely to die after a heart attack, compared to men. Were more likely to be misdiagnosed, to experience severe medication side effects, and to be told our symptoms are all in our heads.
Behind already, we’re taking massive steps backwards in closing the gender health gap and reaching health equity.
In 2025, history is repeating itself
This year alone, the NIH slashed $2.6 billion in contracts, plus an additional $9.5 billion for research grants, a devastating blow to women’s health research. The Womens Health Initiative (WHI)a decades-long study of 160,000 women, critical for better understanding chronic disease, hormone therapy, and morewas abruptly defunded in April (an apparent reversal to the cut was later confirmed in May), leaving the WHI in limbo for weeks.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) fired 18% of its staff, including entire teams dedicated to maternal health, contraceptive guidance, and drug-resistant sexually transmitted infection (STI) tracking. And the National Science Foundation (NSF) canceled over 1,400 grants, especially those tied to gender, equity, or health disparities.
Federal agencies were given directives to reject funding for any research grants that include “banned words” such as “women, trans, or diversity,” at the NIH, and for the NSF, an even longer list, including:
-“Female” and “women,” but not male or men
-“Male dominated”
-“Gender”
-“Equity”
-“Diversity”
-“Minority”
-“Underrepresented”
-“Antiracist”
-“Diversity”
-“Trauma”
-“Biases”
-“Disability”
-“Inclusion”
-“Victims”
-“Racially”
This is targeted, strategic, and deeply dangerous for not only women, but for all underserved and under-researched groups that need the funding and research the most.
Data and education are disappearing, too
As if defunding wasnt enough, the federal government scrubbed over 8,000 public health web pages. These included critical health guidance on contraception, LGBTQ+ health, STIs, and maternal outcomes. Some of the pages were hastily scrubbed and restored while missing key facts, essentially erasing certain groups. The CDC removed or changed key datasets and web pages on the LGBTQ+ community and other underrepresented, marginalized groups. The CDC also pulled fact sheets on HIV prevention, HIV diagnosis, and transmission, and then republished some of the information, leaving out transgender people. The FDA also took down an entire website dedicated to minority health and health equity.
This kind of censorship isnt just alarmingits life-threatening. If we cant see the data, we cant measure the problem. And if we cant measure the problem, we can’t fix it.
This is more than a research crisis. Its a public health emergency, and it will hit the most vulnerable communities the hardest. The U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate of any wealthy nation. Erasing programs like PRAMSwhich monitors postpartum complications, means entire states are now totally unequipped to track what happens to postpartum women.
Shuttering research labs and programs on STIs, HIV, and sexual health will hinder progress for women’s sexual health and disease prevention, particularly for women and LGBTQ communities. Finally, widespread government directives to cut research funding for anyone who focuses on gender threaten to uno all the progress we’ve made since 1993, and this in turn, hinders what we can change moving forward.
We know that when women are under-researched, we pay the highest price. Women already spend 25% more of their lives in worse health than men. And, 64% of common medical interventions are less effective or less accessible for women, compared to only 10% for men. For every woman diagnosed with a womens health issue, approximately four are not diagnosed. (There are 97 similar statistics published in our book, 100 Effed Facts About The Gender Health Gap.) This will only get worse with the current federal actions.
What can be done
While some companies and researchers are stepping in to fill the void, in reality, no private innovation can replace the scale, accountability, and public good of federally funded research. As founders of a women’s health company, we believe more than anyone about the power of private, high-growth solutions for the world’s most pressing problems. We are doing our part at Evvy. But even we don’t see the path through without government investment.
Alone, we simply can’t approach the scope and magnitude of what the government to help the more than 50% of the population who deserve better. Startups can pilot new tools, but they cant collect longitudinal data on maternal mortality across all 50 states. Academic labs can push science forward, but they cant maintain national health surveillance systems. The erosion of public health infrastructure means were losing the connective tissue that links discovery to care. And without it, even the best innovations risk being isolated solutions in a broken system.
This isnt just about research; its about rights. Its about refusing to let an entire half of the population be sidelined under the excuse of cost cutting. We need to fund the science that sees us, protect the data that tells our stories, and build a healthcare system where womens bodies are studied, understood, and prioritized.
We can fight for funding, for research, for truth. And, most importantly, we can fight to make sure women are never again an afterthought in the story of medicine.
To help, join the Equal Research Day campaign to demand equal research funding for women, or donate to nonprofits funding critical research like Womens Health Access Matters and the Foundation for Womens Health.Priyanka Jain is CEO and cofounder of Evvy. Laine Bruzek and Pita Navarro are cofounders of Evvy.
