When done right, brand activations can bring real-life awareness and connect a brand with its customers. When not, these can turn sour quickly, bringing the opposite effect to a brand—as happened with activewear company Lululemon.

Get ready to break some bread in Texas this summer.

From shoes to AI to . . . Smartbird? 

When it comes to fast food, Chick-fil-A has a reputation for outstanding customer service. The chicken franchise is known for letting patrons know it’s a “pleasure” to serve them, and it’s paid off in terms of customer satisfaction: Chick-fil-A has topped the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) in the quick-service restaurant category for 11 years straight—until this year, when a new contender knocked the chain off its throne.

Earlier this year, I was in a room with a group of CEOs in Istanbul. A few weeks later, on a call with board members from a European grocery chain. A month later with investors in Australia, then another call with investors from North America. And most recently, an operating team in the U.S. Different markets, different competitive pressures, different stages of AI maturity. Same conversation every time.

Claude Design, Anthropic Lab’s AI design tool, launched in April to a crowded market of vibe coding design programs. Now, after a few months in the hands of designers, Anthropic is launching a big update to Claude Design that addresses their biggest pain points.

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Lately, I’ve seen a specific pattern emerge as organizations make AI claims. “We’re AI-first.” “We’re AI-native.” “We’re agentic.” The language is confident, forward-looking, and nearly universal.

Financial crises rarely appear overnight. The warning signs are already there, hidden in mountainous volumes of data that regulators—or really any human—struggle to interpret.

Your organization’s culture is like a six-pack. It’s hard to get, and even harder to keep.

Everyone wants culture. Most companies have posters about it, Slack emojis, and a “people-first” deck. But instead of culture being an announcement, it is a daily practice of how people are treated and empowered, especially when deadlines stack, budgets shrink, and the client’s “quick edit” turns into a rewrite.

What kind of pool-cleaning gear does $14.2 million buy? According to the Department of the Interior, who oversaw recent renovations to the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, it’ll get you “high-tech nanobubble ozone technology,” which may or may not be as impressive as it sounds.

The sustained attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs have left corporate America hesitant to speak out forcefully on LGBTQ+ issues—and that silence has not gone unnoticed. 

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang — whose work helped propel artificial intelligence — stressed in an Associated Press interview Tuesday that society needs to change with the advent of AI, arguing that a fuller embrace of the technology would improve people’s lives.

Huang has been optimistic about AI’s potential to rapidly transform society, creating faster economic growth and more scientific breakthroughs. But as the head of a computer chip company now developing AI systems, he and others are confronting a public increasingly concerned about the potential harm the technology might bring. Huang has felt obligated to respond to critics who warn of job losses and threats to humanity itself.

“We need to create new social norms,” Huang said in an interview. “I would advocate that everybody use AI. Just go engage it.”

Huang made his case as AI has emerged as a political flashpoint, with objections to plans to build more data centers and fears that the speed with which it’s being adopted could spur the layoffs of workers who might not have a safety net. Such questions have threatened public support of the technology at a time when a race has kicked off with China, a contest Huang believes can best be won by a U.S. that is open to competing globally in AI.

His close relationship with President Donald Trump also has been a source of criticism among Democrats, even as he emphasized that the computing power created by AI is vital to adding the factory jobs that have been promised for decades without much enduring success. It was an argument delivered by a 63-year-old man who has watched the technology develop and described himself as “boring” because his own life revolves mainly around work and his family.

Huang disclosed during the interview some personal details, saying his favorite movie is “Kingdom of Heaven,” the 2005 epic about the 12th century Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. He said he had watched the movie “Project Hail Mary” three or four times and “I think we might watch it again this weekend.”

Huang said the ability of AI to design a website, analyze complex documents, guide advanced research or even plan a kitchen remodeling has helped to close the technological divide in America. People can now do advanced work on computers without having to know how to program or write software, he added.

Huang contended that there is a need for some government regulation and safety standards for AI, emphasizing that national security also needed to be a priority for the technology that has been powering stock market gains and U.S. economic growth in recent years.

Huang said society will adapt to AI just as it did to automobiles. He said cars were once portrayed as killing children, but the world changed its norms by having sidewalks and crosswalks and stopping kids from playing in the streets.

The marketing pitch for enterprise AI’s autonomous agents has started to sound almost like a fairy tale: Hand one a task or objective, walk away, and it figures out the rest. It runs on its own, reasons through changing conditions, adapts as circumstances evolve, and delivers results before you think to ask. The promise of software that functions like a digital colleague has been seductive.

The Group of Seven wraps up three days of talks in the French Alps on Wednesday with discussions on the contentious future of artificial intelligence and U.S. dominance of the industry.

A rare astronomical event will make Venus briefly disappear from the sky on Wednesday—and some US states will be able to spot it.

Iran will immediately take steps to reopen the Strait of Hormuz once a tentative deal with the U.S. to end the war is signed and will be allowed to sell its oil without restrictions, according to leaked copies of an interim agreement that officials say broadly matches the document.

The accord, due to be formally signed in a ceremony in Switzerland on Friday, lays out that the U.S. would secure at least $300 billion to rebuild Iran after the war and work to end all American and United Nations sanctions imposed on Tehran if a final agreement addressing Iran’s nuclear program is reached.

The U.S. agreement to immediately allow Iran to sell its oil freely and the offer to eventually lift all sanctions represent major concessions that outstrip the terms of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from in his first term, declaring it the “worst deal ever.” This new accord likely will draw intense criticism in Washington — and appears to be a major setback for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who launched the war with Trump on Feb. 28.

The deal calls for an immediate end to all fighting in Lebanon between Israel and the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah. That is one of the most delicate parts of the agreement because Israel has maintained it will continue to defend itself and to occupy vast swaths of Lebanon. Iran has said it must withdraw under the deal, although the leaked versions make no mention of withdrawal.

The two sides are to start 60 days of negotiations over a final deal that the Trump administration insists will prevent Iran from ever developing a nuclear weapon. The U.S. offers appear aimed at enticing Iran to strike an agreement.

But in the meantime, Iran appears to be getting benefits up front while making few concessions. Much of the agreement would restore the status quo before the war, including ending hostilities and reopening the strait, which is a crucial passage for the world’s oil and natural gas and whose closure created a historic energy crisis.

Other concessions to Iran — some of which are extraordinary, including the money for rebuilding, the full lifting of sanctions and the release of frozen assets — appear dependent on the progress of further negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program.

A person who was briefed on the memorandum of understanding after it was signed and another who viewed a copy beforehand said it largely matched the text of what was published by the Saudi-owned broadcaster Al Arabiya, which reported details of the deal Tuesday. The two people spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions.

Another two officials in the Mideast, who spoke on condition of anonymity for the same reason, also said the versions published by Al Arabiya and Bloomberg broadly matched the final agreement.

The White House and other American officials have not published the terms and did not immediately respond to questions. Iran also has not published an official version of the deal. Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency, close to its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, claimed Wednesday that Bloomberg’s version had missing portions, without offering a full accounting.

Electric SUV maker Rivian Automotive (Nasdaq: RIVN) has cut hundreds of jobs as it seeks to achieve profitability, the company confirmed.

A few weeks ago, Google Gemini taught me some new graphic design skills.