 |
|
|
|||||
Every few weeks, Americans get another letter in the mail that starts the same way: Were writing to inform you that your personal data has been exposed. A retailer gets hacked. A hospital. A supermarket. A travel site. It never ends. Most of us feel like weve lost control over who has our information and how its being used. But a new kind of privacy technology, one that lets companies confirm what they need to know without ever seeing your personal details, may finally offer a way out of this mess. Weve slipped into a world where giving away our personal information is the cost of participating in modern life and where were frustrated, but not surprised, when it gets stolen. In an age defined by apps, AI, and digital payments, our data has become both currency and collateral damage. But we may finally be reaching a turning point. And the solution thats emerging didnt come from Silicon Valley or Washington; it came from an unexpected place: cryptography, the science of using math to secure information, and the foundation of blockchain technology. Its called zero-knowledge proof technology, and despite the intimidating name, it theoretically offers something every American wants: privacy without the headaches, and security without the surveillance. Wall Street quietly moved first While consumers are dealing with endless breach notifications, something very different is happening on Wall Street. Many of the worlds financial titans, including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and BNY Mellon are testing blockchain-based trading, settlement, and other systems that let assets move 24/7. Tokenized treasuries, money-market funds, and even tokenized stocksa mechanism where something is turned into a digital “token” that lives on a blockchainare no longer experiments; Robinhood introduced tokenized versions of stocks and ETFs for European Union investors this summer. But theres one major barrier: on a public blockchain, everyone can see everything.Investors dont want that. Banks, pension funds, hedge funds dont want thatfor competitive reasons, among other things. If financial markets are going to ultimately run on modern cryptographic infrastructure, they will need privacy that doesnt compromise trust or oversight. Consumers feel the same way Americans are tired of being told that if they want convenience, they must give up control of their personal information. The AI economy depends on massive streams of data and whether it survives may come down to one thing: trust. Right now, trust is running out. People dont want more logins, more verification codes, or more data sitting in more databases that will inevitably get hacked. They want a world where businesses can verify what they need to verify, without collecting everything about us. Thats exactly where zero-knowledge proof technology comes in. Zero-knowledge proofs: verify without exposing A zero-knowledge proof lets someone prove something is true without revealing the underlying data. You can prove youre old enough to buy a product, without giving away your birthdate. A bank can prove it has enough reserves, without exposing its entire balance sheet. A company can verify a user is real, without storing personal details that can get hacked later. This isnt science fiction, and it isnt just crypto. Its already in the apps Americans use today: Google Wallet has quietly integrated zero-knowledge technology. Bumble uses it to verify user attributes without storing sensitive data. Financial institutions are incorporating it to protect user data. StarkWares founders codeveloped zk-STARKs and zk-SNARKs, advanced cryptographic methods for zero-knowledge proofs, and this technology now underpins some of the most promising privacy tools in AI, fintech, and digital identity. Regulators are finally ready to talk about privacy and the crypto angle For years, the word privacy in Washington was viewed with suspicion, confused with anonymity, or treated as a threat to oversight. Hopefully, thats now changing. Back in August, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce wrote compellingly that the “sledgehammer has become the tool of choice for monitoring financial crimes,” and “[t]he American people and their government should guard zealously peoples right to live private lives and to use technologies that enable them to do so.” The SEC is now preparing to convene a first-of-its-kind roundtable on Financial Surveillance and Privacy, where builders at the forefront of privacy technology will show how these tools allow for risk management without exposing every transaction. At the same time, the Executive Branch has embraced emerging technologies, signalling a top-down encouragement for regulators to approach innovation as a path towards improvement, and to encourage its growth. Why this moment matters The privacy wave is not just a consumer protest. It is institutional. It is technological. It is regulatory. It is an inflection. Institutions need privacy to operate competitively. Consumers need protection from constant breaches. Regulators need tools that preserve oversight without creating systemic vulnerabilities. Zero-knowledge proofs sit at the center of all three needs. The digital economy, from AI systems to payments to financial markets, is gaining speed. But without privacy infrastructure, we are setting ourselves up for a future where every trade, every transaction, and every personal detail is visible to everyone. We dont need to accept that world. Zero-knowledge proof technology offers a better one:a world where verification is possible without exposure, where markets are efficient without being surveilled, and where people can participate in the digital economy without surrendering their most intimate data. Privacy is not anti-technology.It is the foundation of trust and trust is the one thing the AI economy and the financial system cannot survive without.
Category:
E-Commerce
There’s a generational shift happening in workplaces that goes far deeper than debates about RTO or perks and snacks. Gen Zthe cohort that learned to communicate through stories, stickers, and swipe cultureis fundamentally reimagining how work gets done. After analyzing data from 2,475 professionals across our latest research, I’m convinced they’re crafting the future of work. Gen Z intuitively understands something many organizations are still learning. As we live in a world drowning in information, clarity is a competitive advantage. And increasingly, that clarity is offered visually. The Visual-First Expectation Sound familiar? Workplace tools mirror social behaviors, just with a lag. Just like how early 2000s texting culture paved the way for Slack, were now seeing Gen Z’s visual-first communication style make its mark on how we collaborate at work. Technology isn’t driving generational change, it’s catching up to how people already interact. Now, all work is expected to be visual, collaborative, and intuitive by default. For senior leaders managing distributed, multigenerational teams across time zones, the challenge is dual: translating complex ideas into clear visual communications while cutting through visual clutter to reach precise audiences. The goal remains constantmake every design count through compelling, memorable visuals that drive engagement. Among Gen Z professionals we surveyed, the majority say they do their best work visually and believe visual fluency makes them more valuable employees in addition to a critical skill to future-proof their careers. Other generations approach AI with varying degrees of skepticism or caution, but Gen Z sees it as a natural extension of their creative capabilities. Yet despite this confidence and capability, Gen Z workers are being systematically slowed down by outdated systems and fragmented tools that hinder their natural workflows. More than half want their companies to shift to a visual-first approach entirely. The Business Case for Visual-First Our neuroscience research, conducted in partnership with Neuro-Insight, provides objective evidence that Gen Z’s instincts for visual communication are spot on, aligning with how human brains actually process information. Visual content triggers memory encoding 74% faster than dull alternatives. In controlled laboratory settings, participants exposed to high-quality visual presentations showed 21% more emotional intensity and 16% greater likeability compared to boring or poorly designed versions of identical content. Documents with superior visual design generated 26% higher emotional intensity and 9% improved likeability. The report bears out that emotion fuels attention. And attention fuels retention. These represent fundamental differences in how information resonates and persists. Companies that embrace visual-first communication report 66% clearer and more efficient communication, while 61% achieve stronger brand cohesion and sharper differentiation. With 89% of business leaders now considering visual fluency a must-have skill for leadership positions, the question for ambitious professionals isnt whether or not to adapt at allits how quickly can they upskill across their teams. Organizations that resist this shift face measurable consequences. In the U.S., companies invest $65,000 annually per creative team member on visual content creation. Despite this substantial investment, more than 90% of leaders and their Gen Z colleagues continue to face obstacles that prevent them from producing their highest quality creative work. The creativity gap compounds these costs. Despite the fact that the U.S. is expected to pour over $143 billion annually into the visual content economy, teams remain locked into fragmented tools and text-first workflows. This creates a productivity bottleneck that stifles returns on massive organizational investments. Perhaps most concerning, 85% of creative leaders and 83% of Gen Z have resorted to using unapproved tools, while 82% of leaders bypass IT entirely to accomplish visual work. When talented employees consistently work around your systems, the systems need examining. An Action Plan for Future Forward Leadership For forward-thinking leaders, Gen Z’s visual fluency represents more than operational efficiencyit unlocks motivation, autonomy, and high-impact creative thinking. When we asked Gen Z what broader visual fluency across their companies would enable, their responses revealed aspirations that extend far beyond job satisfaction to be more motivated to contribute, more creatively empowered, and more confident in sharing ideas. Gen Z workers want to lead with AI, experiment with new approaches, and create visual experiences that drive results. The organizations that provide the right systems, support, and trust will unlock better work entirely. Audit your tool chaos: Task your department leads with taking inventory of their current visual tools. If it’s more than four, you have a cost center that might need consolidation. Document the inefficiency: Map all current visual tools your teams use, taking stock of overlaps and redundancies. Present the data to justify consolidation and to align Marketing, IT, and Finance on the operational cost of inefficiency. Run a 30-day pilot: Test AI-powered visual tools in real workflows with baseline KPIs: time saved, output volume, and brand consistency. Use the results to build a data-backed case for investment, focusing on performance over potential. Lead a “Visual Sprint”: Pick one legacy processonboarding, product briefs, or internal communicationsand task your teams with redesigning it using visual-first approaches. Give your team permission to break the mold and set big goals. Bridge the generation gap: Host recurring, informal office hours or workshops where everyone from interns to execs can bring new AI projects theyve been working on, showcase new visual workflows, and ask for help. This is about visual and AI literacy, and about building a new type of creative muscle memory. Four generations now share the workplace, with a fifthGen Alphaapproaching quickly. Organizations that harness the visual fluency, AI confidence, and creative instincts that Gen Z brings naturally will discover a competitive advantage. The visual communication revolution is here. Gen Z is ready to lead the visual era with intuitive platforms, visual-first communication, and freedom to experiment with AI. The companies that meet them with the right systems, support, and trust will invest in more than employee satisfactionthey̵ll invest in the future of how work gets done.
Category:
E-Commerce
When Raising Canes recently opened its first-ever location in Meridian, Idaho, it wasnt a particularly remarkable event for the restaurant chain. The fast-growing chicken purveyor also opened six other restaurants in five other states on the exact same day in November. It aims to open close to 100 new stores this year. But some Idahoans were willing to stand outside in chilly fall weather for more than 48 hours to be the first in the state to get a taste of Raising Canes, whose exceptionally narrow menu features chicken fingers, french fries, a secret proprietary dipping sauce, and simple sides like garlic toast and coleslaw. We had customers camping out since Sunday morning, AJ Kumaran, co-chief executive officer and chief operating officer of Raising Canes, tells Fast Company of the new Idaho restaurant that opened on a Tuesday. People are excited about our entry into that market. A boom in a cooling restaurant economy At a time when restaurant chains including Chipotle, Cava, and Sweetgreen are confronting a sales cooldown as Gen Z and millennial diners are pressured by inflation, high housing costs, flat income growth, and other broader macroeconomic challenges, chicken-focused restaurant chains like Raising Canes and Daves Hot Chicken have been consistently expanding across the U.S. and are posting sturdier sales and traffic growth. The fastest-growing chain in America last year by unit count was Hangry Joes Hot Chicken & Wings, according to data provider Datassential, which also reported the domestic unit total for all chicken restaurant concepts increased by 4.7% in 2024 from the prior year, far exceeding the industrys increase of 1.5%. Systemwide sales for chicken restaurants now exceed $52 billion annually. [Photo: Refrina/Adobe Stock] Total restaurant traffic for all quick-service restaurant concepts dropped 1% for the year-ending September 2025 from the comparable prior-year period, while that same metric increased 3% for the chicken concepts, David Portalatin, senior vice president and a food and foodservice industry advisor for Circana, told Fast Company. The market researcher says that traffic for the QSR restaurant industry, which was battered by shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, is still down 8% from 2019, but has increased 15% for QSR chicken. The chains defying fast-food slowdown trends Were obsessed with fried chicken, says Portalatin. He believes that more innovative twists on chicken prep and unique sauces have put a more modern twist on classic, Americana staples. Chicken, Portalatin adds, is among the very few bright spots in growth areas within the restaurant landscape. Since Raising Canes opened its first location in Louisiana in 1996, the chain has only sold chicken fingers and cooks every dish fresh to order, which Kumaran says results in efficient restaurants that are focused on making just a few menu items. There are no heat lamps or microwave ovens in the chains kitchensand no limited-time menu offers or discounts. [Photos: Raising Cane’s] We dont take shortcuts and we dont play any gimmicks, says Kumaran. You will not see us in discount mode or saying, Heres the flavor of the month. Over the past decade, Raising Canes has grown from a $350 million business to $5.1 billion in system sales in 2024. The company says it is marching toward $10 billion in annual sales from more than 1,600 locations, which would be an increase of around 600 restaurants from whats in operation today. Earlier this year, Raising Canes leapfrogged KFC to become the third most-popular chicken chain in the U.S. after Chick-fil-A and Popeyes. The chain even has a nickname for its most devoted fans, the Caniacs. That popularity has led to some increased competition from other chains outside of the chicken specialists that have added the protein to their menus. There are a lot of people jumping in, says Kumaran. Whether it’s taco players or fajita players or burger players, everybody’s got a chicken dinner option right now. The new competition crowding the chicken category Chickens soaring growth has been attributed to some yearslong trends like Chick-fil-As aggressive expansion beyond that chains initial regional focus in the south, the sandwich chicken wars that kicked off in 2019 when Popeyes debuted a new menu item that led to a social media and in-store frenzy, and the more recent perception that all proteineven fried chickenis better than other quick-service food options. Whether that’s true or not, I’m not, I’m not being the judge of that, says Portalatin. I’m not a dietitian or nutritionist, but the consumer will often perceive the chicken option as the better-for-you option. How the protein halo reshaped fast-food preferences Chickens protein halo is particularly relevant to consumers who are taking GLP-1 weight-loss drugs like Ozempic, and that connection led Daves Hot Chicken earlier this year to debut a promotional meal called the Davezempic, featuring mini sliders. It gives influencers and customers a way to engage with the brand in a funny and quirky way, says Srishti Handa, vice president of marketing at Daves. [Photo: Daves Hot Chicken] Founded in 2017, Daves Hot Chicken recently sold a majority stake for a reported $1 billion to private equity firm Roark Capital and ended 2024 with 260 locations. The chain expects to have 400 locations in operation by the end of this year and has signaled it expects to open more than 125 restaurants every year for the foreseeable future. When asked about a north star target, Daves President and COO Jim Bitticks told Fast Company the chain could easily support 1,000 domestic locations. Talk to me in 15 years and that number could be 2,000 or 3,000 restaurants, adds Bitticks. The chain serves its Nashville-style chicken tenders and sliders at seven different spice levels ranging from no spice to the reaper, the latter requiring a signed waiver promising that yes, its that hot. I dont recommend it, but you know, youve got to try everything once, says Bitticks. It definitely blows your head off. Bitticks says that Instagram and other social channels have been a big driver of traffic when Daves establishes restaurants in new markets, especially attracting Gen Z to the concept. Im not from that generation, I dont get the idea of following a brand that Ive never tried before, he added. I dont understand it, but it is a huge piece of Daves story. Slim Chickens bets on variety, content, and sauce innovation Slim Chickens, an Arkansas-based chain with 300 locations across 34 states, has a more expansive menu than its peer upstarts with tenders, wings, salads, wraps, and even chicken and waffles. The chain says that it is alluring Gen Z consumers and even Generation Alpha, children born after 2010 who are asking their parents to take them to a Slim. [Photo: Slim Chickens] Variety is a competitive advantage for us, Patrick Noone, chief marketing officer of Slim Chickens, said in an interview. To stand out in a crowded category, Slim has created an in-house recording studio so that the chain can pump out a steady drumbeat of content across social channels. Noone says that these creative assets have a short shelf life online, losing their relevance after just 10 days. Slim is also in the process of developing and debuting a new mobile app in the first quarter of 2026. The chain is also continuing to think through the physical restaurant space to make it easier for customers who place a mobile order and want to pick up their food in the store. But Noone says one top priority will always be innovation for Slims range of sauces, which today includes 14 different flavors like Korean BBQ, sweet red chili, and cayenne ranch. We spend as much time innovating around sauces as we do on tenders and the center of the plate, says Noone. Chicken is just the perfect canvas.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||