If youre planning on buying a PC, laptop, or cell phone in the coming months, a word of advice for you before Christmas: Buy now, not later. Prices are likely set to spike in the new yeardue to a shortage of memory chips.
Memory and storage for DRAM and NAND, two major types of computer memory, have seen costs rise between 30 and 40%, year-on-yearin some cases, theyre even doubling. This impacts the bill of materials (BOMs), or the cost of individual items to make, PCs, and especially low-end smartphones, where margins are thin and the proportional cost increase is more severe.
The sudden spike in memory prices is part of a decades-long pattern of semiconductor supply cyclesbut this one is coming unusually fast, driven by unexpected demand from big tech companies building data centers for AI training and inference.
There is an occasional cycle of supply shortages or some high demand bridges coming in once or twice a decadeit goes about 40 years back, says Runar Bjrhovde, research analyst at Canalys. He estimates that we’ve experienced seven “steep” cycles so far. What’s different now, he says, is the speed and the cause. This has developed really, really quickly.
As a result, the foundries manufacturing chips and memory are prioritizing the high-performance compute chips needed for data centers, as well as higher-paying customers like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon Web Services, because scarce raw materials and limited capacity force them to funnel resources to the most profitable segments.
As memory components become more limited and more expensive, manufacturers face increasing pressure to raise prices, says Anthony Scarsella, research director at IDC, which tracks cell phone shipments and sales. While some OEMs will inevitably be forced to raise prices, others will adjust their portfolio towards pricier models with higher margins to absorb some of the memory impact on BOM, he says. Next year will be a challenging time for the industry.
Because of that, the average price of a smartphone will rise to around $465 next year, up from $457 in 2025 according to IDC data, even as total shipments in 2026 dip slightly because some buyers are priced out or delayed by component shortages. The biggest squeeze is expected in the low-to-mid range Android segment, where customers are most sensitive to price rises and vendors have the least room to absorb higher memory costs. On PCs, the picture is similar. A PC makes up about 15 to 18% of the bill of materials that goes in putting together a PC, says Bjrhovde of the memory and storage share.
It entirely seems to be driven by the extreme data center demand that’s happening currently, says Runar Bjrhovde, research analyst at Canalys. So a lot of Nvidia investments are really pushing a lot of companies doing semiconductors forward.
Bjrhovde isnt convinced that therell be ludicrous price rises, estimating that costs to end users could rise by 10% or 20%. Nevertheless, on a several-hundred-dollar device, that can make an impact.
Some of that could be mitigated by smartphone companies stomaching some of the rise and reducing their margins, Bjrhovde says. That shift could also change what you actually get when you unbox a device. In some categories, especially budget phones, vendors are more likely to hold the price and trade down the quality of other parts outside of the memory, such as their camera, display, or processor.
But theres only so much they can trim before the device becomes so outmoded that its not worth buying. The list of components that can be downgraded is extensive, Scarsella reckons.
Most buyers may not notice the trade-offs. I think the average smartphone is upgraded every three years or so, Bjrhovde says. He suggests that at the point of upgrade, you might well have forgotten what you paid for your last device. But if youre the kind of customer who buys the latest iPhone Pro or top-end Android, youre likely to end up paying a little more, or getting slightly less storage for the same sticker price.
For now, prices have held steady, with the cost increase not yet feeding through to end-user pricing. But that will soon change, warn the experts. So if youre looking to upgrade your PC or phone, bringing that purchase forward could save money. Industry executives are warning the memory crunch has only just started.
The conversation about AI in the workplace has been dominated by the simplistic narrative that machines will inevitably replace humans. But the organizations achieving real results with AI have moved past this framing entirely. They understand that the most valuable AI implementations are not about replacement but collaboration.
The relationship between workers and AI systems is evolving through distinct stages, each with its own characteristics, opportunities, and risks. Understanding where your organization sits on this spectrumand where its headedis essential for capturing AIs potential while avoiding its pitfalls.
Stage 1: Tools and Automation
This is where most organizations begin. At this stage, AI systems perform discrete, routine tasks while humans maintain full control and decision authority. The AI functions primarily as a productivity tool, handling well-defined tasks with clear parameters.
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Examples are everywhere: document classification systems that automatically sort incoming correspondence, chatbots that answer standard customer inquiries, scheduling assistants that optimize meeting arrangements, data entry automation that extracts information from forms.
The key characteristic of this stage is that AI operates within narrow boundaries. Humans direct the overall workflow and make all substantive decisions. The AI handles the tedious parts, freeing humans for higher-value work.
The primary ethical considerations at this stage involve ensuring accuracy and preventing harm from automated processes. When an AI system automatically routes customer complaints or flags applications for review, errors can affect real people. Organizations must implement quality controls and monitoring to catch mistakes before they cause damageparticularly for vulnerable populations who may be less able to navigate around system errors.
Stage 2: Augmentation and Advice
As organizations grow comfortable with AI systems, they typically progress to models where AI not only executes tasks but provides analysis and recommendations that inform human decision-making.
At this stage, predictive analytics tools might identify emerging patterns in customer behavior, enabling more proactive business strategies. Risk assessment systems might analyze historical data to flag potential compliance issues. AI-powered diagnostics might suggest possible causes for equipment failures or patient symptoms.
The critical distinction is that while AI can generate insights humans couldn’t produce alone by finding patterns in datasets too large for any person to analyze, human judgment remains the final authority for interpreting and acting on these insights.
This is where new risks emerge. Over-reliance on AI recommendations becomes a real danger. Confirmation bias can creep in, with humans selectively accepting AI insights that align with their preexisting views while dismissing those that challenge their assumptions.
The responsible approach at this stage requires humans to understand how the AI arrived at its recommendationswhat data it was trained on, what might have changed since training, whether there is any reason to suspect bias. It can be just as problematic when humans reject good AI advice because they don’t understand or trust it as when they blindly accept bad advice.
Stage 3: Collaboration and Partnership
This stage represents a more fundamental shift. Rather than a clear delineation between machine tasks and human decisions, humans and AI work as teams with complementary capabilities and shared responsibility.
The relationship becomes fluid and interactive. AI systems actively adapt based on human feedback, while humans modify their approaches based on AI-generated insights. The boundary between AI work and human work blurs.
Consider emergency response scenarios in which human teams work alongside AI systems during crises. The AI continuously monitors multiple data streamsweather patterns, traffic conditions, resource availability, historical response dataand suggests resource allocations. Humans accept, modify, or override these suggestions based on contextual knowledge not available to the system. The AI learns from these human interventions, improving its future recommendations. The humans develop intuitions about when to trust the AI and when to rely on their own judgment.
This is where accountability becomes genuinely complicated. When outcomes result from humanAI teamwork, who bears responsibility for errors? If an AI recommends a course of action, a human approves it, and things go wrong, the question of fault is far from straightforward.
Organizations operating at this stage need new governance frameworks that maintain clear lines of human accountability while enabling productive partnerships. This goes beyond the need to determine legal responsibility; it is fundamental to maintaining trust, both within the organization and with external stakeholders.
Stage 4: Supervision and Governance
The most advanced relationship model involves humans establishing parameters, providing oversight, and managing exceptions while AI systems handle routine operations autonomously.
This represents a significant evolution from earlier stages. Humans shift from direct task execution or decision-making to a role focused on setting boundaries, monitoring performance, and intervening when necessary.
An AI system might autonomously process insurance claims according to established policies, with humans reviewing only unusual cases or randomly sampled decisions to ensure quality control. A trading algorithm might execute transactions within defined parameters, with human supervisors monitoring for anomalies and adjusting constraints as market conditions change.
The efficiency gains can be enormous. But so can the risks.
The danger of automation complacency grows substantially at this stage. Human overseers may fail to maintain appropriate vigilance over AI systems that usually perform correctly. When you are supervising a system that makes the right call 99% of the time, it is psychologically difficult to stay alert for the 1% of cases that require intervention. Organizations must therefore implement robust oversight mechanisms that keep humans meaningfully engaged rater than performing a purely nominal supervisory role. Gamification of error identification and correction may offer a valuable path forward here, with a game layer of errors to catch sleeping overseers overlaid onto highly reliable systems that rarely err.
Navigating the Progression
Not every organization needs to progress through all four stages, and not every function within an organization should be at the same stage. The appropriate level of humanAI collaboration depends on the stakes involved, the maturity of the AI technology, and the organizations capacity for governance.
High-stakes decisionsthose affecting peoples rights, safety, or significant financial interestsgenerally warrant more human involvement than routine administrative tasks. Novel applications of AI, where the technologys limitations are not yet well understood, require closer human oversight than established applications with proven track records.
But regardless of where your organization sits on this spectrum, certain principles apply universally:
Understand the AIs capabilities and limitations. At every stage, effective collaboration requires humans who grasp not just what the AI can do, but where it is likely to fail. This understanding becomes more important, not less, as AI systems take on greater autonomy.
Maintain meaningful human accountability. The fundamental principle that humans must remain accountable for consequential decisions does not change as AI becomes more capable. What changes is how that accountability is structured and exercised.
Design for evolution. The relationship between humans and AI systems isnt static. Organizations should build governance frameworks that can adapt as AI capabilities advance and as they develop greater understanding of how humanAI collaboration works in their specific context.
Invest in the human side. The most sophisticated AI system delivers limited value if the humans working with it dont understand how to collaborate effectively. Training, cultural development, and organizational design are as important as the technology itself.
The organizations that thrive in the AI era wont be those that simply deploy the most advanced systems. They will be those who master the art of human-AI collaborationunderstanding when to rely on AI capabilities, when to assert human judgment, and how to create partnerships that leverage the distinctive strengths of both.Adapted from Reimagining Government: Achieving the Promise of AI, by Faisal Hoque, Erik Nelson, Tom Davenport, et al. Post Hill Press. Forthcoming January 2026.
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What can a pair of pants tell you about leadership? Much more than you think.
How do you feel when you pull a pair of non-stretch jeans straight from the dryer? Theyre stiff. Way too tight. The waistband digs into your belly. Now picture trying to work an eight-hour day in them. That discomfortand sense of restrictionis exactly what it feels like to work for a micromanager.
On the other end of your closet are those oversized sweatpantstheyre comfy, but theres no shape (or direction) to them at all . . . kind of like a workplace where everyone might like the manager, but no one has any idea whats actually expected or where theyre headed.
Between those two extremes sits the gold standard of workplace comfort: cozy joggers. Stretchy. Supportive. They move with you, not against you. If youve ever worked for a leader who gives you the right balance of support and freedom, you know exactly how good that kind of fit feels.
Because managers not only usually fall into one of these categoriestight jeans, oversized sweatpants or cozy joggersbut their teams respond accordingly. Heres what those leadership styles look like, why they matter and how to move toward the cozy joggers approach that gets the results that every style of leader is looking for.
The Tight Jeans Manager: Restrictive, Rigid and Always Tugging at the Seams
We all know that managerthe one who wants to sign off on every sentence, join every meeting and get updates so frequently you spend more time summarizing your work than doing it. Tight jeans managers often dont mean to restrict their teams. In fact, they usually come from a good place: they care deeply about the work and want to maintain high standards.
But like those freshly washed jeans, this style leaves no room to move.
How to spot a tight jeans manager:
They jump in to fix work instead of guiding.
They insist on approving even the smallest decisions.
They monitor progress constantly.
They prefer their way over any new approach.
They struggle to let go of tasks they used to do themselves.
And the impact on the team is real. People feel stressed and stuck. They stop speaking up or trying new things because theyre afraid of getting it wrong. Meetings turn into long status updates instead of actually solving problems. Everything slows (way) down because nothing can happen without the manager weighing in on every little thing.
To loosen the metaphorical waistband, tight-jeans leaders can ask themselves:
Is this about quality, or is it about control?
Whats the actual risk if I step back?
If I never delegate, am I prepared to own this forever?
Micromanagement might feel productive in the moment, but it turns leaders into bottlenecks and employees into order-takers. Great managers recognize when theyre clinging too tightly and intentionally make space for others to stretch.
The Oversized Sweatpants Manager: Comfy but Directionless
If tight jeans restrict movement, oversized sweatpants eliminate shape altogether. These are the managers who pride themselves on being hands-off, but in their quest to avoid micromanaging, they end up providing almost no guidance at all.
Once again, the intention is usually goodtrust your people, give them room, empower thembut empowerment without clarity quickly turns into ambiguity.
How to spot an oversized sweatpants manager:
They assume teams will figure it out.
They dont have regular 1:1 meetings, just find me if you need me (but never seem to be available).
They dont set clear expectations or deadlines.
They rarely give feedbackunless something goes wrong.
They avoid hard conversationsso the team ends up side-texting about it.
At first, this style can feel freeing, especially for high performers. But after the initial cozy comfort wears off, people get frustrated. They arent sure what good looks like. They dont know how decisions are being made. They cant get any (much-needed) help. Even top talent needs an idea of the what, how, and why.
To add structure without sliding into micromanagement, these managers can focus on:
Clear expectations: What does success look like?
Lightweight checkpoints: Not every project needs a meetingbut a text, Slack message, or short huddle goes a long way.
Actionable feedback: Not looks good, but This direction works because . . .
Its not about controlling every moveits about making sure everyone has what they need.
The Cozy Joggers Manager: Flexible, Supportive, and Built for Real Work
The magic of cozy joggers is their blend of stretch and structure. They hold their shape, but they dont hold you back. Theyre comfortable without being sloppy. Theyre supportive without being stiff.
Cozy joggers managers operate the same way.
They encourage autonomy while offering guidance. They give direction but dont dictate. Theyre not hovering, but theyre not disappearing. Theyre reliable, predictable and consistentthree qualities that transform team culture (and dont require any extra budget).
Signs youre working with a cozy joggers manager:
They communicate expectations clearly, including context (not just instructions).
They ask questions instead of giving orders.
They check in without it feeling like surveillance.
They help employees grow instead of doing the work for them.
They trust their teamsand their teams trust them back.
Most importantly, these managers create environments where people feel both supported and capablethe real sweet spot of leadership.
Managers who want to move into this style can build three simple habits:
Communicate the why: Great managers explain the purpose behind the work. It builds alignment and better decision-making.
Replace answers with questions: Guiding questions help employees think critically instead of relying on the manager for every answer.
Build autonomy gradually: Start with more structure and intentionally pull back as confidence grows.
This is leadership thats effectivebecause it builds your people up instead of adding more to their plates.
You Wont Be Cozy Joggers Every DayBut You Can Always Adjust
Managers are human. We all have tight-jeans days when stress makes us hold on too tight, and oversized-sweatpants weeks when were stretched thin so we cant be as present. The goal isnt to be perfectits to be aware and make the small adjustments that matter.
The question every leader should ask is: What does my team need from me right nowstructure, space, or a blend of both?
Effective leadership is about finding that in-between spacegiving enough support to guide without taking over, and offering enough autonomy without disappearing. Your team doesnt need perfect; they need steady, clear, human direction and room to do their best work. Because in the end, leadership is a lot like what we wear: The right fit changes everything.
Some studies show that the interview process can take up to six weeks. But there are ways that might help speed up the process and get those final hiring managers to land on you as the one they offer the job to.
Just under a year after the rebirth of the Kickstarter favorite Pebble smartwatch, the founder of that tech gadget is debuting the company’s next product.
The Pebble Index 01 is a smart ring of sorts, but instead of focusing on health data or sleep cycles, the sole purpose of this ring is to help wearers remember thoughts that bolt out of the blue during the middle of the day.
“Do you ever have flashes of insight or an idea worth remembering? This happens to me five to 10 times every day,” Eric Migicovsky, who shepherded Pebble from Y Combinator to an angel investment of $375,000 to the record-setting Kickstarter campaign, wrote in a blog post. “If I dont write down the thought immediately, it slips out of my mind. Worst of all, I remember that Ive forgotten something and spend the next 10 minutes trying to remember what it is. So I invented external memory for my brain.”
While some gadget hounds might balk at the Index’s singular focus, they can’t grumble at the price or battery life. RePebble (the company’s new operating name) says people who preorder the Index 01 will pay just $75and the product will cost $99 when it ships in March 2026. As for the battery life? Forget recharging. Migicovsky said it lasts for years.
When the battery does reach the end of its life, the Pebble app will alert users and ask if they want to order another ring. (There’s no charger, as Pebble believed people were more likely to misplace the charger before they needed it.)
[Screenshot: Eric Migicovsky]
Worn on the index finger, the ring has a button you can click with your thumb to record your thoughts to internal memory. If your phone is within range, that recording is automatically sent over and converted to text on the device. A large language model (LLM) will then select the appropriate action (which could be anything from creating a note to scheduling an appointment). And if there’s wind or loud background noises, you can listen to a raw audio playback to recapture your thought.
The ring itself is water-resistant up to 1 meter and doesn’t need to be removed when showering or washing your hands. Unlike some digital assistants, it’s not listening to anything you do if you’re not pressing the button. There’s no monthly subscription fee either.
“Initially, we experimented by building this as an app on Pebble, since it has a mic and Im always wearing one,” Migicovsky wrote. “But, I realized quickly that this was suboptimalit required me to use my other hand to press the button to start recording (lift-to-wake gestures and wake-words are too unreliable). This was tough to use while bicycling or carrying stuff. Then a genius electrical engineer friend of mine came up with an idea to fit everything into a tiny ring.”
The Index 01 comes in three colorspolished silver, polished gold, and matte blackand in U.S. ring sizes 6 to 13. While the point of the ring is to do one thing well, Migicovsky said Pebble is leaving the door open for users to customize it and create additional functionality.
Pebble was one of the first smartwatches, raising $10.3 million on Kickstarter in 2012. From 2013 to 2016, having a Pebble on your wrist gave you instant geek street cred. But in December of 2016, the company announced it would shut down, as it struggled to find a mainstream audience and competition increased.
Migicovsky resurrected it earlier this year, changing the name to rePebble, after Google released the Pebble operating system (OS) as open-source software. With this new product, the company is hoping to show it has learned from its past mistakes.
Pebble Time, the second watch in the Pebble’s original incarnation, was largely responsible for the company’s collapse. The company didnt market the new watch properly, basically dropping it in stores and expecting it to sell, based on the Kickstarter success. Pebble failed, for years, to hire a head of marketing, and any promotion decision the company did make was not necessarily one it stuck with.
Things are a bit different this time around. RePebble has been working on the Index 01 in the background while developing its new Pebble watch, and it is using the same partner factory. There will be a wide alpha test of the product in January before rePebble launches mass production.
Every December, something strange happens inside companies. Decisions that were stuck for months suddenly fly through. Projects get approved. Budgets get finalized. People stop debating and finally choose.
Leaders usually chalk this up to year-end energy or the holiday push. That is an easy story, but it hides what is actually going on. December forces leaders into a tighter frame. There is less time to overthink, fewer acceptable choices, and clearer expectations. In other words, the environment is designed in a way that produces commitment instead of delayeven though for complex, novel strategic bets, the calendar alone is rarely enough.
This isnt holiday spirit. Its design and a great lesson in influence. If leaders learned how to design decisions the way December does, they would get clarity, alignment, and speed all year, and not just when the calendar runs out.
The idea is simple. When options shrink, focus increases. When criteria are explicit, choices become easier. When time is clear, commitment accelerates. The research backs this up. The boardroom stories back this up. And anyone who has lived through a December sprint knows it.
The question is not why December works. The question is why leaders tolerate the opposite for the other 11 months.
What science tells us about too many choices
Executives like saying they want openness. They want to consider every idea, hear every viewpoint, and keep options flexible. In reality, although valuable, this often destroys momentum.
The most cited work on this comes from social psychologists Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper. Their study showed that people presented with fewer choices were far more likely to act. A small, curated set of jams led to dramatically higher purchase rates than a large display. That study has been replicated and expanded for two decades. The principle holds in various settings: When options multiply, action collapses.
It is tempting to think that leaders are different because they have more experience. The evidence says otherwise. Cognitive load does not care about job titles. When executives face too many similar options, they pause, delay, or default to whatever feels safest. In large organizations, the safest option is inaction.
If you want leadership teams to move, reduce the choices they must consider. Curate the field before it gets to the table. Eliminate the noise. Present two or three viable alternatives instead of 12. You will not only speed up decisions; you will improve them.
Why heuristics make or break decision quality
Once choices are reduced, another dynamic kicks in. With limited time or limited information, people rely on heuristics. These are not shortcuts for the unskilled. They are the mental tools that allow experts to move quickly.
Studies on bounded rationality and dual-process theory show that when decisions must be made under constraint, people shift from slow, analytical processing to faster, more intuitive judgment. This is how high-pressure environments function.
The problem is that most organizations leave these heuristics to chance. No criteria. No risk filters. No anchored recommendations. The result is inconsistent, political, or painfully slow decisions.
If leaders want high-quality decisions, they need to supply better heuristics. Give people a clear view of what matters most. Define the nonnegotiables. Make success criteria visible and simple. Present recommended options, not loose collections of ideas.
Heuristics are not the enemy of good thinking. They are the structure that allows it to happen at speed.
The actual role of time pressure in executive decisions
Time pressure is usually treated as a threat to decision quality. The research is more nuanced. Experiments published in academic journals show that time pressure can improve consistency and speed in certain types of tasks. In familiar or lower-risk decisions, moderate time pressure helps people filter distractions and commit.
However, tackling highly complex or ambiguous problems while you’re rushed hinders performance, and studies warn that time pressure can increase risk-taking or reduce perceptual accuracy. But for the majority of decisions that leaders face, especially operational or moderately strategic choices, clear time frames increase action without sabotaging quality.
There is a reason why year-end deadlines work. Not because the clock is ticking, but because the clock forces prioritization. It becomes obvious what matters and what does not.
The real reason December feels productive
December works because it removes the environmental factors that slow leaders down. The constraints create clarity. The deadlines force prioritization. The limited choices reduce noise. People are not more motivated in December. They are simply less confused.
Leaders dont need more time or better slides. They need to design decisions the way December doeswith clearer choices, specific criteria, and no place for indecision to hide.
Leadership influence is not about having the loudest voice in the room. It is about shaping the room so people can finally decide.
Any office party can be challenging, but holiday office parties are particularly stressful. After all, the season brings a set of demandsincluding the need to be merry and bright when you may not feel that way. To survive this end-of-year event (and to use it to advance your career), here are three strategies that will work wonders.
1. Use Holiday Parties as a Chance to Get to Know New People
There are good reasons to circulate broadly at your next holiday party and not to hang out with people you already know.
Clustering with friends can lead to excessive drinking, and with that comes danger to your health and safety. Staying with your pals or people you work closely with also means you wont broaden your circle of colleagues and that you just might miss an opportunity to get to know someone who could influence your career.
Hanging out with people you know often leads to banter about how terrible the party is and how much you dislike these holiday events. This grumbling does not become you or your pals.
Instead of staying with your inner circle, use the gathering as an occasion to get to know new staffers or people you may not come in contact with during the workweek. If you do, you will be showing leadershipfor it is a mark of a leader to know how to build relationships.
And by seeking out unfamiliar faces and befriending them, you will show that you have the ability to help people who may be feeling holiday anxiety or loneliness. Indeed, a study by the American Psychological Association shows that 54% of American adults feel isolated, 50% feel left out, and 50% say they lack companionship. All these signs of loneliness peak during the holidays.
2. Talk to People Who Might Be Able to Help You Advance Your Career
You will find influential people at holiday parties, so seek them out. They could include your boss or the head of your department or invited guests. Approach them and have something warm to say, without feeling that you are kissing up.
For example, if someone outside your department is attending, you might say, It is great that you could join us. Your opening to your boss or department head might simply be a positive statement such as This is a great party. Then, go on to say what a good year it has been for the company or the department. The point is to create a positive, upbeat message that will appeal to someone senior in your department or in your company.
Another approach is to compliment this individual regarding something he or she has done. For example, you might say, I thought that was a strong speech you gave to our team last month. It raised some interesting goalsones we will have to work hard to achieve. Or you might mention that you saw your department head at a conference, and ask whether he or she enjoyed the two-day event.
People at all levels like to know that they are liked and respected. So, focus your remarks on what theyve accomplished or situations in which theyve done something impressive.
They will be more interested in you if you show appreciation for them.
The point is also to move the discussion toward something you can offer to support the more senior person. So, for example, segue from something impressive theyve done to something you can do for them, or simply share your thinking that dovetails with something they said. There is no ideal length for this conversation. But end with some kind of action or follow-up.
3. Talk to Customers
Some holiday parties are company affairs held in honor of customers. In these cases, be sure to make a fuss over them. Dont chitchat with your colleagues and ignore your firm’s customers.
I attend lavish holiday parties each year that are hosted by our investment firm. These events have lots of good food and music. But the thing that I like most is when the principals of the company come over to talk to my husband and me, ask pointed questions about our family, and show they care about us.
The secret to customer conversations is to be warm. So you might begin with Its a pleasure to see you or So glad you could make the party. Ask good questions. For example: Do you have family plans for the holidays? or How is the family? Beware of questions about business or questions about health. Keep your questions broad and do your best to make sure they lead to positives. You will be strengthening your companys relationship with its customers if you initiate a discussion that shows you care about them and their families.
In the tournament of pop culturean arena increasingly obsessed with charts, data, and stat linesTaylor Swift has, by most measures, already emerged the victor.
In her nearly two decades in the public eye, she has become a billionaire by engineering one of the most dependable fan bases on the planet: a legion willing to buy every vinyl variant for her latest album, The Life of a Showgirl, and generate such collective frenzy at her 149-date Eras Tour that it registered as seismic activity.
Swift has become something like an institution, around whom various rituals and practices have formed, whether the exchanging of friendship bracelets or sharing easter eggs with fellow Swifties. In an age of fragmentation, Swift remains one of the last reliable captains of the monoculture within popular music.
Her latest album rollout for The Life of a Showgirl makes clear how deliberately she continues to extend her reach, as she now angles toward new terrain and one of the largest mass audiences on the planet: football fans. As with the rest of her album rollouts, the effort for her 12th album has been planned meticulously. So it was not for nothing that she announced the record in August on New Heights, the podcast hosted by her fiancé, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
Her appearance became the podcasts most viewed and listened-to episode by an order of magnitude, peaking at 1.3 million concurrent livestream viewers, compared with the podcasts previous record of 141,821. The crossover continued in her music video for her standout single The Fate of Ophelia, which included a series of sports-related gestures that would register only to her ever-attentive fans. She catches a football; she mimics Kelces touchdown celebration; and the numbers 13 (for her December 13 birthday) and 87 (his jersey number) glide into frame. Together they total 100: a tidy metaphor for the merging of sports and pop culture.
Swift is now taking keen advantage of this convergence, plugging her own romance-led narrative into an arguably more durable mass spectacle: NFL football. Kelces domain remains one of the last functioning monocultures in Americabesides Swiftthat’s capable of reaching tens of millions of homes at once. Its an opportunity Swift has no interest in wasting.
The pop star attended her first Chiefs game on September 24, 2023, right around the time her relationship with Kelce became public knowledge. Immediately after, she received attention from corners of sports media that had scarcely covered her before. The NFL itself was wise to take full advantage of the moment, briefly updating its Instagram bio to read: Taylor was here. The alliance helped score a 20% surge in sponsorships, as well as more than a 50% increase in 12- to 17-year-old girls tuning in to games.
Much has been made of these gains for the NFL, but curiously, little attention has been paid to what the league has done for Swift. Entering this sphere has given her access to a new (previously Swift-averse) vertical: male, suburban, middle-American, multigenerational households that tend to organize their week around Sunday broadcasts.
Her regular high-profile appearances at Chiefs games have boosted her own social media followers and Spotify music streams. Immediately after her first game appearance, Swifts Spotify monthly listeners increased by 2.25%, and she gained a 1.12% follower increase on Instagramand most significantly, a 5.37% jump on TikTok. Streaming analytics database Streams Charts tracked a 3,000% spike in Swift listenership after her New Heights appearance, with a large influx of first-time male listeners.
If I’m Taylor Swift, and I want to take over the world, then how better for me to break into the 49% of the population than through sport, which is traditionally a masculine bastion, says David Rowe, professor emeritus at Western Sydney University in Australia and author of Sport, Culture, and the Media: The Unruly Trinity.
As this happens, it highlights the growing overlap between sports and music, fueled by the same data-driven logic that now governs modern fandom. With music listeners adopting the analytics-driven habits of sports fans, and NFL teams embracing social-media storytelling to court younger audiences, both worlds are collapsing into a single superfandom-driven entertainment economy. That shift has primed sports fans to receive Swift differently, and her visible integration into this masculine stronghold has turned her relationship with Kelce into an opportunity to capture an audience that once dismissed her.
Music borrows the sports playbook
Sports and music have a large range of formal similarities that have long gone underappreciated. Each are shapers of identity, with their range of rituals; sets of language, chants, and symbols; and paraphernalia and merchandiseall of which enhance a sense of community and belonging.
Something that I think the music industry has tried to adopt over time from the sports industry is the ability to rally people around fandom, because of a deep connection to it, and it being part of who they are, says Tatiana Cirisano, VP of music strategy at entertainment analysis firm MIDiA Research. “In a lot of ways, I think sports has done a better job of taking advantage of fandom than music has.
Both sports and Swift, in particular, inspire a highly emotional investment that can easily be monetized. You can connect them in strategic and organized ways, as part of a total entertainment package. And by having this convergence, you help connect across the gender divide, Rowe says. Swift and Kelces relationship, he adds, is a sublime marriage in more ways than one.
Swift is hardly the only pop star moving strategically into the sports arena. For years, artists have performed during the Super Bowl halftime show for free because the exposure is worth more than the check. And in 2025, Beyoncé has become a familiar presence at Formula One races, her fandom for the Grand Prix becoming all the more visible; Tems joined San Diego FC as a club partner through her company, The Leading Vibe; and high-profile musicians including Ed Sheeran, ASAP Rocky, Jay-Z, and Drake, have all taken stakes in professional teams to solidify their alliance with the sports world.
For these artists, sports offers a constant visibility that the music industry rarely facilitates. Seasons are long; games recur weekly; and broadcasts, stadium screens, and league-affiliated podcasts create more touchpoints than a standard album ccle. Sports organizations also sit on vast amounts of audience data and are largely considered brand-safe, giving entertainers a controlled environment in which to expand their reach.
Data makes music into sports
The similarities between sports and music are only continuing to blur in the age of algorithms and datafication.
While analytics were once top-down, now theyve become accessible to everyonewhich is why theyve become so central in music fandoms today. Now, thanks to real-time streaming dashboards, chart-tracking accounts, and analytics sites that update hourly, everyday listeners can see these numbers in a way that was unimaginable a decade ago. says Nicole Santero, a fan culture researcher and PhD candidate at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Sports betting, Cirisano says, has infiltrated pop culture, too. Now fans are betting on who they think will win the Grammys, she says. (Due to the August 30 cutoff date, Swifts latest album, released in October, is ineligible for the upcoming Grammys. At press time, Kalshi betters were 40% behind Bad Bunnys Debí Tirar Más Fotos to win album of the year.)
This fairly recent fan focus on data and analytics was pioneered in the early 2010s by K-pop artists and fandom, who have increasingly inspired Western pop acts, Swift included. K-pop showed that being a fan can feel a lot like being part of a team, UNLV’s Santero says. Instead of just listening to music, fans get pulled into a whole system where their actions matter. When a group has a new album or song, it isnt just a release; its almost like game day. Fans make streaming schedules, coordinate worldwide voting pushes, and keep track of charts the way sports fans keep track of stats.
Unlike sports, music once had no victor. Now, with a keener focus on metrics and statistics, a quantifiable winner emerges. Swift continually smashes records, consistently beating out her rivals. Fandom in sport and in music has always been defined by what you don’t like as well, says Rowe of Western Sydney University. “Its structured into sport. You have the enemy, the other teams. And there has always existed a similar dynamic in popular music: Beatles versus the Rolling Stones, Blur versus Oasis, East Coast versus West Coast rap, among many others. Tribalism and anti-fandom has only increased in this age. Its a rivalry Swift has always made a fine point of in her music, whether her references to Katy Perry in 2014s “Bad Blood” or Charli XCX in Life of a Showgirls “Actually Romantic.”
Whats new about this moment, and which has heightened the convergence between sports and music, is a necessary cross-pollination across forms. We’re at this point where the competition for attention has reached an all-time high. And if you’re an artist, you’re no longer just competing with other artists; you’re competing with the latest show on Netflix or a sports broadcast, says Cirisano of MIDiA Research.
Football fans open their minds
Swifts efforts to grow her audience through her visibility within sports are coinciding with sports leagues embracing the methods by which the rest of culture is building its audienceshareable content.
[The NFL] was once defined by traditional broadcasts and highlight reels, but its now transformed into a full-fledged digital entertainment machine, Santero says. Teams now treat social media platforms like their own storytelling studios. They share a ton of micd-up moments, behind-the-scenes footage, and even meme-able posts that feel designed for TikTok and Instagram.
This crossover has opened the door for sports fans to meet Swift halfway, priming them to receive her differently as she moves into their territory. Alex Folck, a die-hard Denver Broncos fan and former Swift hater, admits hes changed his tune since Swifts game and New Heights appearances.
I learned how weird she is, and it made me like her a lot. Her authenticity doesnt feel forced, Folck says. Swift has charmed many previously Swift-skeptical men with her bashful, self-deprecating, andwhat they interpret asauthentically unguarded demeanor during her sports-related appearances.
On camera, she seems relaxed and unrehearsed. If theres one thing male sports fans want to see in their spaces, its more of me, she joked on New Heights. That attitude has persuaded several male fans to reconsider her.
Writer Kasey Symons, a lecturer of communication at Deakin University in Australia, believes its a little more calculated: Swift is incredibly smart regarding her positioning and understanding her place in culture as a woman, no matter if that is pop music or sport, she says. And she is incredibly aware of her impact in sport, and will be strategic about how she uses it.
That strategy is resonating with fans like Folck. I definitely had a negative opinion of her beforehand, so I think seeing her in an NFL context had a positive effect, he says. Part of his change in attitude stems from the sense that she looks like shes genuinely really into it when she attends games. His preferences are emblematic of a familiar American male demographic: indifferent to pop music and deeply invested in sports. I follow games like the news, he says. Last year, he and his friends even threw a Swift-themed Super Bowl party.
Sports and music fans are now beginning to converge around Swift in ways that upend familiar gendered assumptions about each fandom. Women are joining fantasy football leagues at much higher rates, often choosing Swift-referential team names. Men, meanwhile, are placing Swift-themed bets: If the Chiefs win, rival fans must write elaborate essays about Swift and her music. Folck himself was subjected to this ritual after the Chiefs beat his team for the 16th consecutive time; he has since produced 200 pages on Swift this way.
With men finally on boardbegrudgingly or notSwift is inching closer to total media ubiquity, and football fans are inching toward masculinity (Taylors version). Guys still rolling their eyes at Taylor Swift are the same dudes who can’t enjoy an appletini or an ice cream cone, Folck says. Once the performative barriers come down, there’s plenty to enjoy that used to feel off-limits.
Theres a statistic thats been making the rounds for the better part of a decade that says the average person is exposed to about 10,000 ads every day. This has always sounded a tad suspect, as it amounts to an ad every six seconds of our waking day (it has since been debunked).
But maybe the reason its persisted this long is because it really feels true.
Our feeds are saturated with ads. The airwaves, TV broadcasts, sports sidelines, team jerseys, and our streamers are full of them. Now artificial intelligence is threatening to make that 10,000 ads a day statistic a reality.
Agency Genre.ai has made AI-generated ads for IM8, Popeyes, and Qatar Airlines, as well as the viral Kalshi spot that aired during the NBA Finals. When Soras latest version dropped back in October, agency founder PJ Ace posted on X, Brands will need to make an ad every other day to stay relevant.
Kill me.
Meanwhile, earlier this month, Philip Ho, the founder of the appropriately named AI video production company Absurd, told the TBPN podcast that his company is getting asked for as many as 1,500 videos a month from single clients.
Just set me on fire.
All due respect to Ace and Ho, but the version of commercial culture theyre selling sounds like an AI-generated fever dream in which were all forced to remove our own eyeballs with rusty shrimp forks. Even legislation is starting to agree.
Drowning culture in a sea of sameness isnt good for our eyeballs, nor is it a good investment for brands. If you watch the ads Aces company has produced, and compare them to McDonalds’ recent AI ad (which just got pulled off the air in Europe), or even Cokes AI holiday ads, they all have that same . . . vibe. The people and scenes all appear to be using the same filter. It feels oddly homogenous. Now take that and increase the number of ads by tenfold. Pure unfiltered nightmare fuel.
If every brand is pumping out a new AI-generated ad every single day, lets consider what actual differentiation looks like. In 2026, brands should be finding new ways to utilize scarcity, anticipation, and fandom communities to that end. You could call it the less is more approach, but I prefer the STFU Brand Strategy.
The STFU Brand Strategy isn’t about being quiet, it’s about being more strategic in both how and when you talk to your audience. It is the pursuit of work or experiences that are enthusiastically passed around, as opposed to having AI slop fire-hosed down people’s throats every waking moment.
Award-winning ad agency Johannes Leonardo was one of the best practitioners of the STFU brand strategy this past year through its work for brands like Adidas and Oscar Mayer. Cofounder and creative chairman Leo Premutico is a firm believer in the idea that differentiation will come in the form of interesting ideas that real people share with other real people.
There’s no way that volume is the answer, says Premutico. This whole idea that the more AI is generating crap that it is then itself learning from, is just going to snowball to the point where, what are we even looking at? The last thing we need is more quantity. It needs to be something else.
The types of ads and content initially being produced en masse by AI are the social media video equivalent of banner ads. Performance marketing churn baiting us to click to find out more or shop now. Reports for years have pegged banner ad click-through rates at less than 1%.
Now, AI-generated ads are reportedly performing much better than banner ads ever did. But this is not how brands are built. Or rather, it’s not how long-lasting brands are built. Brands with a very healthy upper funnel utilize these tools to keep the lower funnel wheels turning, but it is (or should be) purely supplemental or supportive of the primary brand work.
At the very moment were seeing industry capitulation to AI as a sacrifice to the gods of efficiency (read: cost savings as AI replace humans) were seeing this steady drumbeat of audience backlash to AI advertising. Think about that: The very thing people routinely say they hate (ads!) is something they dont want despoiled. The brands and agencies that creatively heed that call will be the ones to forge the most meaningful connections with consumers.
Pump down the volume
First of all, this is not a revolutionary or particularly unique viewpoint. Let’s take one modern example. The entire streetwear and sneaker economy is built upon scarcity. Limited editions and surprise drops, combined with a very specific point of view, elite communication, and taste have built rabid fanbases. Brands like Supreme, Palace, and Corteiz are not churning out AI slop.
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London-based Corteiz is arguably the hottest streetwear brand on the planet. Its founder communicates directly with its audience on social, and its Instagram page was initially private. Its pop-ups are often one-day-only, with the location announced just hours before the event. Its ethos is reportedly real life only. Last year in New York, the brand invited fans to exchange other brands of denim for a pair of Corteiz, limited to just 250 pairs. The result of this restraint? Rabid fandom.
The focus on specific moments, and using them as a flywheel of ad materialcapitalizing on user-generated content around that moment, producing additional content from itworks to reinforce a brand’s cultural relevance. Take, for example, racing giant hot dog cars in front of 100,000 people.
Earlier this year, Premuticos agency created the Wienie500 for Oscar Mayer, in which they raced five of the brands famed Wienermobiles against each other at the Daytona 500. It streamed live on the Fox Sports app, getting 150 million total views; media coverage and social media attracted nearly seven billion earned impressions. Oscar Mayer saw its biggest Memorial Day sales lift in years.
I think the opportunity and the way to build a brand today is figuring out how each time you do something that captures people’s imagination, attention, and participation that it’s feeding into something bigger, says Premutico. It’s feeding into that brand equity so that it’s not a one-off online thing and then disappears.
Anti-slop algorithm
Asking brands to STFU isnt some Luddite plea. That ship has sailed. The good ship Sloppipop is here, and its never going awayjust like all the programmatic ads that follow you around trying to sell you the shoes you already bought a goddamn week ago. Despite how much we hate those ads, the programmatic ad tech firms are still rolling in billions.
Rich doesnt mean good. But it could mean better. Instead of using this technology to flood our feeds, brands should be using it to refine them.
Brand strategist and consultant James Kirkham wrote in his newsletter back in October about cracks in our obedience to the algorithm, that a second age of algorithmic culture may be upon us, defined “not by blind submission, but by conscious negotiation.” Well still use the machines, but well start interrogating their taste a bit more because we want to know whos feeding the feed. He said taste is becoming the new trust.
If the first age of algorithms was about eery prediction, the next will surely be about permissin, writes Kirkham. Those who build tools that help us understand rather than merely consume, and who restore agency, authorship, and flavor to our choices will own the decade ahead.
This is consistent with what multiple studies and trends have been telling us: As AI threatens to turn up the volume on the number of ads we see online, more people are seeking ways to avoid the algorithm and have more unique experiences. Studies show that 81% of Gen Z wish it was easier to disconnect from devices, and 54% prefer no AI involvement in creative work. Meanwhile, 84% of ads reportedly go unnoticed or simply arent remembered. They are effectively invisible. And now TikTok is giving users some control over how much AI they see in their feeds.
Ive talked to Yeti CEO Matt Reintjes about the dangers of overexposure, and how his brand’s growth strategy, while ambitious, has always favored depth over breadth. Obviously the outdoors gear brand advertises extensively, but its brand-building workthe stuff that gets people excited, like its films and involvement in sportsis very carefully and strategically built over time.
Back in 2023, he distilled it down to this: Brands face multiple points in their journey where they can be deep and relevant, but at the expense of growth and expansion, or they can chase growth and they forget about the depth of connections that they had already built, said Reintjes. Over time, you erode brand value, you erode uniqueness, you erode support and passion for who you are. And so weve been really thoughtful about how we drive breadth, adding on more communities, bringing in more consumers domestically, growing the brand internationally, all while also keeping those deep and connected roots all the way back to our earliest communities.
Participation value
When any brand can fake content, testimonials, or “viral” moments at an infinite scale, the only real measure of true value may become actual human participation.
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Nike is doing it with its soccer work lately. Witness its Manor Palace community space collab with Palace in London, or the latest stop of its Toma El Juego street soccer tournament event series at Art Basel in Miami last week.
But real human participation can also extend to content. Just look at State Farms Gamerhood series. Part game show, part reality show, featuring gaming creators like Kai Cenat, and its latest season has more than 27 million views.
One of the best examples of this past year was how Adidas effectively became the sixth member of Oasis for the bands massive reunion tour last summer. The omnipresent merch, retail events, and even an adcreated by Johannes Leonardothat ran at the start of every show.
Premutico says that creative marketers can no longer be asking themselves, “What content do I make?” but “What community do I build?” with the challenge of creating ideas worthy of consumer participation.
We need to create an outcome for a brand that is bigger and better than the outcome that’s going to be guaranteed by the algorithm, says Premutico. That’s our central challenge as a creative industry.
CNBC and its sister networks, including USA, Golf Channel, and E!, are spinning off from their former parent company Comcast NBCUniversal to form a new publicly traded company called Versant. As part of the new company, some of the brands in the portfolio have to rebrand to get rid of NBC’s iconic Peacock mark, CNBC included.
CNBC’s new logo, which goes live December 13, might take viewers some time to get used to.
CNBC’s logo evolution, 1989present. [Images: CNBC]
The financial news network’s new logo was designed in house to easily match the preexisting visual assets it uses on air. The typography of the mark based is on the network’s font, Gotham, and it shows a triangle cutting into the letter N and floating just above the wordmark. That triangle, which the network calls an arrow, matches its on-air graphics package.
The triangle shape has been used by CNBC since 2023. It’s shown next to stocks to indicate which companies are up in green and which are down in red, and it appears as an icon displayed next to on-air chyrons like “Earnings Report.” The colors used in the new logo match the the dark “Broadcast Blue” and light “Neon Blue” already used in the network’s primary color palette.
The new logo is meant to reflect a modern, streamlined identity, CNBC says, but the initial reaction online to the new logo hasn’t exactly been positive. In one Reddit thread, complaints ranged from “generic” and “corporate-looking” to being bothered by the triangular notch at the bottom of the N and B. “The triangle represents a guillotine blade, killing the brand,” one wrote. On X, a commenter asked if it was a joke.
Though the peacock is gone, CNBC is betting that by sticking to its arrow and wordmark it will be able to maintain the strength and recognition of its name brand with its audience even with a new look.
