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Internet users are increasingly turning to AI tools like ChatGPT, rather than traditional search engines, as they look for information online, meaning businesses trying to reach them need to adaptquickly. “There’s this pattern that plays out on the internet, where a new sort of technology emerges that changes how consumers interact with information online,” says Alex Sherman, CEO and cofounder of startup Bluefish. Brands and marketers are always initially not quite sure how to place that and how to use it, but as consumer adoption scales, it becomes really clear that this is where the eyeballs are going.” With even search engines like Google supplementing raw search results with AI-powered summaries, showing upand receiving favorable mentionsin AI discussions is becoming as important to brands as appearing in search results or on social media. Today, that technology is generative AI. A recent Adobe survey found that more than half of U.S. consumers intend to use it for online shopping this year. Bluefish helps marketers track, measure, and optimize how their brands appear in AI discussionssimilar to how SEO experts have long worked to influence Google results. Bluefish, which works with companies like Adidas, real estate firm Tishman Speyer, and advertising giant Omnicom, sends massive numbers of queries to AI systems such as ChatGPT and Googles Gemini every day to determine what those systems are saying about its customers brands. The company then reports on brand visibility in AI results, the sentiment of those mentions, and how influential corporate content is in shaping what models have to say versus third-party discussions. Alex Sherman [Photo: Buefish] “Our technology analyzes millions of AI prompt responses every day to give marketers a really clear picture of how they’re being portrayed to consumers by those large language models, and then enable them to take action and start to actually optimize the way those models are describing their products and their services to those consumers,” Sherman says. That optimization often means adding content to corporate websites designed specifically for large-language modelssometimes in volumes far greater than what human visitors would typically consume. Useful additions include FAQs tailored to match the kinds of queries AI users might pose, Sherman explains. Because reaching the right audience is key, Bluefish recently launched a feature called Custom AI Audiences that lets customers track their performance by audience segment. For example, a bank could see how AI portrays its brand to financial advisers, retail investors, or college students. Behind the scenes, this requires sending targeted queries to AI systems crafted to elicit responses as if they were coming from those user groups. “We have a very expensive bill from the AI providers every month,” Sherman says. Bluefishwhich just announced a $20 million Series A led by NEA with participation from Salesforce Venturesfocuses primarily on large enterprises, with pricing and plans built to match their scale. Roughly 80% of its customers are Fortune 500 companies across industries such as financial services, consumer goods, and travel. Other firms in the space, sometimes calling their work generative-engine optimization (GEO), focus on different market segments. Since AI tools generate responses based on content across the internet, techniques for optimization can include AI-specific website adjustments, but also long-standing strategies like building social media presence, sparking positive forum discussions, and securing press coverage. Though the field is still young and AI tools continue to evolve, Sherman expects this area to claim a growing share of marketing budgets as consumers spend more time with AI. “It is sort of the channel that’s eating all of the other channels,” he says. “Ultimately, we basically see most online marketing as turning into AI marketing over the next few years.”
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E-Commerce
In todays world, communication is largely done through one of two methods: smartphones or social media. Young children, however, rarely have access to eitherand experts say they shouldnt have any access at all until age 13 or later. That leaves many parents as the gatekeepers of their childrens social lives, long past the days of mommy-and-me classes and playdates. But an old-school solution is giving kids more independence: the landline. Once considered obsolete (AT&T even tried to stop servicing them in California last year), the home phone is making a comeback. Seattle-based Tin Can is hoping to lead the revival with a redesigned corded phone that lets kids call their friends and arrange get-togetherswithout involving parents and without the distractions or dangers of a smartphone, such as texting, cameras, or internet access. The idea for Tin Can came when founder Chet Kittleson was talking with other parents of elementary school-aged children at a park. “Every single person around the circle was like, I totally forgot that the landline was how I operated as a kid. We remember it as a utility for an adult and forget that the kids are a massive beneficiary of it,” he told Seattle’s Child. Tin Can founders Graeme Davies, Chet Kittleson, Max Blumen [Photo: Tin Can] Tin Can phones, which retail for $75, are modeled after a familiar 1980s design. Since few households maintain a dedicated phone line, they run on VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and plug into a router or in-home ethernet port. (A Wi-Fi-enabled version is in the works.) Because theyre corded, kids cant wander too far, and parents can control when the phone is available through the Tin Can app. Instead of traditional phone numbers, each Tin Can has a unique five-digit code that kids use to call one another. There are no monthly fees. A forthcoming upgrade will allow calls to standard phone numbers (and emergency services) for $10 per month. [Photo: Tin Can] Kittleson isnt the only parent rediscovering landlines. In March, Oregon mom Britteny Mast shared on Instagram that she had installed a “home phone” for her kids. The post has received more than 137,000 likes, with dozens of parents saying they had done the same. Mast and her husband realized their children were so used to FaceTime that they didnt know how to carry a regular phone conversation. They also wanted them to be able to call family members without borrowing a parents smartphone. “My husband and I decided to just default to what we did growing up, and get a home phone. So far the kids think its awesome, and they love calling Grammy all on their own,” she wrote. Of course, landlines come with risks. More than half of all calls to them are from scammers, who often target seniors, the demographic most likely to still have a home phone. Parents today, just like those in the 1980s, need to teach kids not to answer unfamiliar numbers. What some parents are most surprised about, though, isn’t that their younger kids love the landline. Their older kids might as well. Landlines scratch the same retro itch as cassette tapes. For Gen Z, theyre a screen-free alternative that encourages conversation without emojis and builds deeper bonds. Plus, the cord is still fun to twirl. That said, the smartphone is in no danger of being overwhelmed. The most recent study from the National Center for Health Statistics found that in the second half of 2024, 78.7% of adults lived in households that did not have a landline. (Homeowners were more than twice as likely to have one.) At the end of 2014, that number was just 44.2%.
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Herman Miller is reviving an iconic Eames design that hasnt been in production for more than 30 years. The new Eames Molded Plastic Dining Chair looks identical to its archival predecessor, but it’s different in one key way: Its made of 99% recycled plastic. The original Eames Molded Plastic Dining Chair was an evolution of several design techniques pioneered by renowned design duo Ray and Charles Eames. It first went into production in 1970 and was discontinued in 1993. Now, the Herman Miller brand has collaborated with the Eames Officethe family-run foundation dedicated to preserving the married couple’s workto bring the chair into the 21st century. The sustainable twist swaps the original’s virgin plastic for a post-industrial recycled plastic. The chair is currently available online starting at $645, though customers can customize it to their liking for an added fee. Rows of Eames EC-127 chairs after production, March 1973. [Photo: 2025 Eames Office, LLC. All rights reserved.] As Herman Miller has worked with the Eames Office to revive archival designsfrom lamps to tables and coat racksit has been doing so with a focus on sustainable materials. Already, the Herman Miller team has made a 100% recycled plastic version of the Eames Molded Plastic Chair and an iteration of the Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman made with plant-based leather. The sustainable Eames reissues, family members say, mark both a continuation of Charles and Rays own core design philosophy of material experimentation. Charles and Eames Office staff member, Don Albinson, posing with Dining Chairs Metal (DCMs) outside the office building in Venice, California. [Photo: 2025 Eames Office, LLC. All rights reserved.] The Eames spirit of experimentation Charles and Ray were, first and foremost, masters of innovation. The couple viewed furniture design as primarily about solving a problem rather than achieving a certain aesthetic. To that end, they experimented constantly with how new materials could make furniture better. In 1945, Charles and Ray were the first designers to figure out how to mold plywood on two planes without it splintering. With this technique, they created the Dining Chair Metal (DCM), a sleek molded plywood chair with a distinct seat and backrest. Just a few years later, the pair began experimenting with new materials for a competition held by New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, called the International Competition for Low-Cost Furniture Design, toying with how to make their designs cheaper and easier to manufacture. The Eames House kitchen in its earliest years, featuring four DCMs that rest in the same place today. c. 1950-51. [Photo: 2025 Eames Office, LLC. All rights reserved.] At first, they tested prototype chairs made from stamped metal. Then, they moved on to fiberglass, which Eames Demetrios, director of the Eames Office and grandson of Charles and Ray, says his grandfather sourced himself from a local autobody shop. Finally, they realized that plastic could make an even more uniform, simple, and inexpensive chair. With their first-ever plastic chair prototype, the duo won second place at the MoMA competition. As they continued to experiment, the duo updated the original molded plywood DCM with a plastic construction in the late 1960sresulting in the first Molded Plastic Dining Chair. They were always trying to make things better, Demetrios says. The really radical idea was to take advantage of the plastic material, which they themselves had pioneered, to bring down the [DCM] price and also make it simpler to make. The new reissue is a continuation of that experimental ethos, he says. [Photo: Kelly Marshall / Herman Miller] Updating a classic, sustainably Like the process of creating a plastic version of the DCM was in the 60s, reviving the Molded Plastic Dining Chair in 2025 was a process of trial and error. Jennifer Nield, SVP of lifestyle product at Herman Miller’s parent company MillerKnoll, says the team knew from the beginning that they wanted to use recycled post-industrial plastic as their core material. Post-industrial plastic is a broad category describing plastic discarded by manufacturers before it actually reaches the consumer, which includes everything from defective consumer packaged goods to automotive scraps. That made finding the right mix of plastic for the job the team’s main challenge. To start, the team tried a 90% recycled resin made from two polymers. But after conducting several trials, which Nield says included dropping a ton of weight on this thing, pulling it, and pushing it in every way you can imagine, they found inconsistencies in the surface quality and durability of the chairs. [Photo: Kelly Marshall / Herman Miller] We kind of went back to the drawing board, Nield says. Ultimately, they settled on using a single polymerrecycled propylene. “[That] allowed us to meet our consistency requirements and then also deliver on those durability and safety standards. It also had a higher recycled content, so we were able to bring it up from 90% to 99% [recycled material]. Demetrios says projects like this one feel like the embodiment of the directive that he was given by Charles and Ray to continue their legacy of material experimentation. The last thing Charles and Ray wanted is to say, Well, we’re dead. No more Eames chairs.”
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