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At the University of Texas, where I’m senior vice provost of academic affairs, our credo (coined by the head of our Office of Academic Technology, Julie Schell) is to be AI Forward and AI Responsible. In service of this, over the past few years, we launched a homegrown AI tutoring platform (UT Sage), launched a second platform to enable faculty, staff, and students to engage with building AI tools (UT Spark), provided a license for Copilot for everyone at UT, and engaged a working group called Good Systems focused on the ethical implications of AI models. Although all of the conversation about AI makes it seem like it’s taken over the world, it hasn’t. Although it appears to be growing in popularity, there’s no shame in having waited to see how the tech matures and the hype shakes out. But if you’re ready to dip your toe into the AI waters, here’s my advice. In this piece you’ll learn: The first thing you should ask AI to do for you How to get AI to perfect your tone when communicating with clients Why you actually need to read the terms of service before you start Read the fine print It is important to remember that AI/large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, and Gemini are commercial products. The dictum that if the product is free to use then youre the product holds for these tools as well. The generic versions of some LLM tools will include text you enter into the models into the training set for the model. That means you need to actually read over the End User License Agreement (that thing you usually skip through and click that you agree to the terms). If the model is going to take any text you enter and ingest it (that is, to incorporate it into the models training), then you need to make sure you want to give that text over to the system (and that you have permission to do so if youre adding either proprietary business information or text that is copyrighted by someone else). When possible, try to use a version of these models that someone has an enterprise license for. Most companies that pay for a license to one of these products stipulate that data entered by employees wont be used by the system for training. That is true for all of the tools we have launched at the University of Texas, for example. If you cant access an enterprise license and want to protect your data, you can consider purchasing an individual license that also typically protects your data. Many people have heard about concerns about the energy consumption and water usage associated with the server farms that power AI models. There is certainly a growth in the resources being consumed by the computers underlying these models, and it is important to pay attention to this. At the same time, youd have a much bigger impact on the environment by giving up eating meat than stopping your use of AI. First steps Because large language models spit out text based on something you type in (the prompt), it is natural to start by getting a system to write something for you. I dont recommend asking these models to write anything for you that you plan to send to someone else. As I have written about before, while asking an LLM to write a document may make you feel like you have improved on your own writing, it tends to make your writing sound like anyone else who has engaged with an AI tool. That said, if you have never played with an LLM, give a quick description of yourself and ask the model to pretend youre a superhero and ask it to describe your superpowers. This is a fun (and harmless) exercise that will give you a flavor of how the models work. After that, I recommend trying an exercise where you use an LLM as a partner to help you think about a problem. Find something youre struggling with at work. Describe that situation to the LLM in your prompt. Ask for suggestions for solutions, courses of action, or advice. Often, the system will suggest possibilities you hadnt considered. More importantly, the suggestions you get from the LLM may inspire you to think of other factors you hadnt considered before. AI as your tone coach While I dont recommend asking an LLM to write something for you in a professional context, it can be quite helpful in massaging something you have written to give it a different flavor. A colleague in our law school, for example, often asks students in a law clinic to draft letters to clients and then describe the client to an LLM, give it the initial text of the letter and ask the system to write a new draft tailored to that client. Often, the initial drafts of letters are brusque and clinical, and the drafts produced by the LLM have more empathy and engagement. You can do the same thing. Write a draft of a document. Then, describe your audience to the LLM as well as the purpose of the document. Paste in the text of the document, and ask the system to rewrite it so that it is tailored to the audience. I dont recommend just taking the output of the LLM verbatim. For one thing, it may actually change the meaning of things you intended. These systems dont actually understand your document, they are just word prediction engines. But, the inspiration you get from seeing a different approach to your text can make your next draft clearer and a better fit to your audience. Be specific about what you want The main thing to learn about engaging with an LLM is that it doesnt really know what you want to do. So, the more specific the prompt you give it, the more likely it is to give you a valuable output. Heres an exercise you can try to see this in action. Find a Large Language Model youre interested in using. Ask it to write you a blog entry about using AI. Youll get a response. It might even have some interesting suggestions. Now, ask it to write you a blog entry about using AI for the first time. Youll get something different. Next, ask it to write a blog entry in the style of Fast Company on using AI for the first time. Youll see a shift in tone and style. Finally, ask it to write a blog entry in the style of Art Markman writing for Fast Company. (I have a lot of text on the internet, so this prompt actually makes sense to LLMs . . .), and youll get a different shift in tone. You can add other specifics to prompts like how long you want it to be. The point is that if you try something on an LLM and you dont get quite what you want out of it, dont give up. Ask it a more specific question. Remember that the LLM is not a colleague who will naturally understand every nuance of what you want. The more clearly you describe what you want, the more likely you will be to get it.
Category:
E-Commerce
While some wonder how the chicken crosses the road, Raising Cane’s is figuring out just how chicken fingers can cross the pond. The nation’s fast-growing restaurant chain is set to open its first U.K. location next year. Arriving in London’s West End in late 2026, Raising Cane’s flagship U.K. location will mark the privately held company’s first non-franchise international expansion and its first European foray, with an undisclosed number of U.K. locations to follow. “Our vision is to grow restaurants all over the world and to be the brand that is known for craveable chicken-finger meals and be really, really good at it,” Raising Cane’s co-CEO and COO AJ Kumaran told Fast Company ahead of the announcement. Beyond just chicken fingers and the restaurant’s fan-favored limited menu, Raising Cane’s is rapidly growing, with sales upward of $5.1 billion last year, marking world domination as an understandable next step. While the company debuted franchised stores in the Middle East in 2015, the U.K. expansion marks its first fully company-operated international venture. Coop d’état This year, Raising Cane’s became the second-fastest growing restaurant chain in the United States, with plans to open nearly 100 new locations this year on top of last year’s record-breaking 118 new spots. By the end of the year, the chain expects a total of 1,000 locations to be open, with Kumaran ambitiously looking for it to become a top 10 U.S. restaurant brand by the end of the decade. In its Dallas office, the company is planning on quadrupling in size ahead of its move to a new support office in nearby Plano, Texas, next year. “We like to beat our own milestones and do better than what we’ve done before,” Kumaran, who joined the company in 2014, says. “To grow restaurants all over the world has been our vision since day one of our existence.” Chicken fingers come to London While details on the store’s design are yet to be released, Cane’s flagship U.K. location will open at 21-22 Coventry St., between Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square, in a mid-20th-century commercial building in the city’s storied theater district. Like all other Cane’s locations, the restaurant’s inside decorations will feature local graphics that represent the location’s community. For instance, in U.S. stores, restaurants tend to feature local iconography, such as the team colors of the town’s high school. For its Times Square location in New York City, the design team included homages to Elvis Presley, whose first movie premiered on-site. “We wanted to pay homage to that, and so we incorporated that into the design,” Kuraman explained. “Likewise, we are in the process of understanding what that looks like in London and specifically in these upcoming locations.” The research process to make each store design unique begins with hiring local leaders to spearhead community authenticity, developing the restaurant’s “ethos.” “We study every location that we go into,” Kuraman says. “We go to the utmost details about finding the history on what existed there, what the city is known for, what’s the relevance of the building that we’re walking into.” As part of the expansion, the chicken-finger company is looking to set up a home base in London with its own local team. It’s also hiring for executive roles in the U.S. as part of its broader expansion plans. Still, one thing is set to remain the same: the cult-favorite menu. “We want to be chicken finger experts. It is our chicken fingers, our sauce, our freshly brewed tea that is custom-formulated for us, and a freshly squeezed lemonade that is made in our restaurants by our crew members multiple times a day. It’s in the fries and the toast and the coleslaw,” Kumaran added. “This is it. We’re not planning on changing anything.”
Category:
E-Commerce
Cultivated meatmeat grown from cells, not from whole animalsisnt yet a widespread option in grocery stores or restaurants. The innovation, which involves growing meat from real animal cells without raising or slaughtering any animals, is still relatively rare. But already, Texas lawmakers have decided to ban it. Now, two cultivated meat companies are fighting back with a federal lawsuit that challenges the ban. The Institute for Justice, a nonprofit public interest law firm, along with cultivated meat startups Wildtype and Upside Foods, argue that the Texas law is an unconstitutional move to protect the agriculture industry from competition. This law has nothing to do with protecting public health and safety and everything to do with protecting conventional agriculture from innovative out-of-state competition, Institute for Justice senior attorney Paul Sherman said in a press conference on Wednesday. (The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration have approved both Upside’s and Wildtypes cultivated meat as safe.) How do we know that? Sherman continued. Because the sponsors of the bill made absolutely no secret of it. Repeatedly in committee hearings and on the floor of the Texas House, they said that the purpose of this law is to protect Texas’s agricultural industry. But that is not a legitimate use of government power.” Cultivated meat has been offered in only one Texas restaurant. Otoko, a sushi restaurant in Austin, began serving Wildtype salmon this summer. But once the ban went into effect, the restaurant stopped selling it. By limiting what Texans can eat, the companies involved in the lawsuit say the ban is also a slippery slope toward handing over personal choices to the government. Lawsuits against cultivated meat Cultivated meat has faced lawsuits before. In 2024, Florida became the first state to ban cultivated meat, with Alabama quickly following suit. This year, lab-grown meat bans passed in Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, and Texas. (Cultivated meat bans have also been considered in a handful of other states, including Georgia and Wyoming.) Some bans dont bar lab-grown meat forever. The Indiana and Texas lawsuits prohibit the sale of cultivated meat for two years. The Texas bill, SB 261, was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott in June and went into effect on September 1. It imposes fines of up to $25,000 a day and even jail time for selling cultivated meat. Texas is the largest beef-producing state in the country, with some 4 million beef cattle. Sid Miller, the states agriculture commissioner, applauded the ban, saying in a statement that it was a massive win for Texas ranchers, producers, and consumers.” He added: “Its plain cowboy logic that we must safeguard our real, authentic meat industry from synthetic alternatives. Cultivated meat companies fight back To the companies that make this cultivated meat, these bans are clearly a way to protect the meat and ranching industry from competition. Cultivated meat has been a burgeoning industry for about a decade, but it only recently received regulatory approval in the U.S. Upside Foods, which makes cultivated chicken, was the first to get that approval back in 2023. Wildtype, which makes cultivated salmon, received approval in 2025. To make cultivated meat, these companies grow the cellswhether from chickens or salmonin big cultivators, usually with a blend of ingredients like amino acids and sugars. Wildtype CEO Justin Kolbeck likened the process to brewing beer. (Though cultivated meat has also been called lab-grown meat, Uma Valeti, CEO and founder of Upside Foods, has contested that label. Its not made in a lab, he has said, but in a production facility like any other food.) These companies are offering consumers a choice, they sayespecially for people who may not want to switch to plant-based meats but who still want to curb their meat consumption as a way to benefit the climate. The lawsuit filed against the Texas ban challenges it under two constitutional provisions: the Commerce Clause, which prohibits states from impairing interstate commerce, and the Supremacy Clause, which bars states from enacting laws that conflict with federal laws. The Poultry Products Inspection Act, for example, says states cannot enact requirements on ingredients in poultry products, or on the facilities and operations that produce them. For the same reason California cannot ban Texas beef in California, Texas cannot ban salmon or chicken from California, Valeti said in a statement. Texans deserve the freedom to decide for themselves what to eat without politicians choosing for them. Wildtype’s Kolbeck also noted during the press conference that when it comes to seafood, America needs more stateside production. More than 80% of seafood on Americans plates is imported, and in April, the Trump administration issued an executive order to restore American seafood competitiveness. [We] are an American small business trying to do exactly what this executive order envisions, he said. In 2024, the Institute for Justice also filed a lawsuit in Florida, with Upside Foods, challenging that states cultivated-meat ban. In April, a judge denied the state’s attempt to dismiss the lawsuit, so it will move forward to trial court. The Texas lawsuit asks the district court to issue a preliminary injunction to block the ban, which would allow Wildtype and Upside to continue to make their cultivated meat available to Texans while the case continues.
Category:
E-Commerce
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