As the tools, and other AI agents, gain functionality, billion-dollar startups with a single human employee–or even none–may become possible.

Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Company’s weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week here.

A Microsoft report sheds light on the myriad hurdles to productivity that office workers face on the job—and just how much the work day has stretched beyond traditional business hours.

Even as the right to disconnect movement has picked up steam, true work-life balance is still hard to come by for many employees. Fielding emails and other work-related messages after hours continues to be the norm across workplaces, despite ample evidence that it can contribute to burnout and actually decrease productivity.

The tariff landscape sometimes changes drastically on a daily basis.

Uncertainty over tariffs and an unpredictable trade war is weighing heavily on companies as they report their latest financial results and try to give investors financial forecasts.

Some tariffs remain in place against key U.S. trading partners, but others have been postponed to give nations time to negotiate. The tariff and trade picture has been shifting for months, sometimes changing drastically on a daily basis. Those shifts make it difficult for companies and investors to make a reliable assessment of any impact to costs and sales.

On Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he expects a “de-escalation” in the trade war between the U.S. and China, but cautioned that talks between the two sides had yet to formally start.

Here’s how several big companies are dealing with the tariff confusion:

As AI expands, businesses face a critical choice about the future of work—and society.

U.S. measles cases are now double what they were in all of 2024.

Texas has more than 600 known cases of measles on Tuesday as the outbreak in the western part of the state approaches the three-month mark.

The U.S. was up to 800 cases of measles nationwide on Friday. Two unvaccinated elementary school-aged children died from measles-related illnesses in the epicenter in West Texas, and an adult in New Mexico who was not vaccinated died of a measles-related illness.

Other states with active outbreaks—defined as three or more cases—include Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Oklahoma, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Mexico. The U.S. has more than double the number of measles cases it saw in all of 2024.

North America has two other outbreaks. One in Ontario, Canada, has sickened 925 from mid-October through April 16. And as of Tuesday, the Mexican state of Chihuahua state has 514 measles cases, according to data from the state health ministry. The World Health Organization has said cases in Mexico are linked to the Texas outbreak.

Measles is caused by a highly contagious virus that’s airborne and spreads easily when an infected person breathes, sneezes, or coughs. It is preventable through vaccines, and has been considered eliminated from the U.S. since 2000.

As the virus takes hold in other U.S. communities with low vaccination rates, health experts fear the virus that the spread could stretch on for a year. Here’s what else you need to know about measles in the U.S.

The tech giant’s quarterly results beat analyst estimates, but it also lost $100 million in future revenue from federal sales.

Over the past 30 days, many big-name tech giants have seen their stock prices fall hard, largely thanks to President Trump’s chaotic tariff rollout. For example, Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) has seen its shares fall 11% over the past month, while Nvidia has seen its shares fall (Nasdaq: NVDA) over 12%. But until yesterday, IBM (NYSE: IBM) was one of the big-name tech giants that rode out the tariff storm pretty well. While IBM’s stock price did tank along with the rest of the markets in early April, it has recovered nicely since then and, as of the close of bell yesterday, its shares were actually up just a bit (about 0.6%) over the past 30 days.

It was estimated that the wait in line was nearly five hours.

So many mourners lined up to see Pope Francis lying in state in a simple wooden coffin inside St. Peter’s Basilica that the Vatican kept the doors open all night due to higher-than-expected turnout, closing the basilica for just an hour Thursday morning for cleaning.

The basilica is bathed in a hushed silence as mourners from across the globe make a slow, shuffling procession up the main aisle to pay their last respects to Francis, who died Monday after a stroke.

The hours spent on line up the stately via della Conciliazione through St. Peter’s Square and through the Holy Door into the basilica has allowed mourners to find community around the Argentine pontiff’s legacy of inclusion and humble persona.

Emiliano Fernandez, a Catholic from Mexico, was waiting in line around midnight, and after two hours still had not reached the basilica.

“I don’t even care how much time I wait here. It’s just the opportunity to (show) how I admired Francisco in his life,” said Fernandez, whose admiration for the pope grew during his 2016 visit to Mexico. “I think because of the respect that I have for him and the great person he was, it’s worth the wait.”

The last numbers released by the Vatican said more than 50,000 people had paid their respects during the first 12 hours of the public viewing, starting at 11 a.m. Wednesday. The basilica closed for just one hour Thursday morning, from 6 a.m. until 7 a.m., the planned opening time.

Among the first-day mourners was a church group of 14-year-olds from near Milan who arrived for the now-suspended canonization of the first millennial saint, as well as a woman who prayed to the pope for a successful operation and an Italian family who brought their small children to see the pope’s body.

“We came because we didn’t bring them when he was alive, so we thought we would bring them for a final farewell,” said Rosa Scorpati, who was exiting the basilica Wednesday with her three children in strollers. “They were good, but I don’t think they really understood because they haven’t yet had to deal with death.”

Like many others, the Scorpati family from Calabria was in Rome on an Easter vacation, only to be met with the news of Francis’ death on Easter Monday.

Out of devotion to the pope and his message of inclusion, the grieving faithful joined the procession of mourners that wended from St. Peter’s Square through the basilica’s Holy Door, with the repentant among them winning an indulgence, a form of atonement granted during the Jubilee Holy Year. From there, the line extended down the basilica’s central aisle to the pope’s simple wooden casket.

By late Wednesday, the wait appeared to be three or four hours and growing. A person doing crowd management estimated that the wait was closer to five hours. The mourners stretched down the center of Via della Conciliazione, in a lane set aside for Jubilee pilgrims.

After three days of public viewing, a funeral Mass including heads of state will be held Saturday in St. Peter’s Square. The pope will then be buried in a niche within the St. Mary Major Basilica, near his favorite Madonna icon.

The death of Francis, who was 88, capped a 12-year pontificate characterized by his concern for the poor and his message of inclusion, but he was also criticized by some conservatives who felt alienated by his progressive outlook.

A procession of priests, bishops and cardinals accompanied Francis’ body Wednesday on its journey from a private viewing inside the Vatican to St. Peter’s Square. The pageantry contrasted with the human interactions of rank-and-file mourners at the public viewing.

Francis lay in state in an open casket, perched on a ramp facing mourners, with four Swiss Guards standing at attention. As the crowd reached the casket, many lifted their smartphones to snap a photo.

One nun accompanying an elderly woman with a cane walked away sobbing, “My pope is gone.”

Such despair was rare. The mood was more one of gratitude for a pope who had, by example, taught many people to open their minds.

“I am very devoted to the pope,” said Ivenes Bianco, who was in Rome from Brindisi, Italy, for an operation. “He was important to me because he brought many people together by encouraging coexistence.” She cited Francis’ acceptance of the gay community and his insistence on helping the poor.

Humbeline Coroy came to Rome from Perpignan, France, for the planned canonization Sunday of 15-year-old Carlo Acutis, which was suspended after the pope’s death. She stayed to pay respects to Francis, enjoying exchanges with Japanese mourners they met as they waited under the sun in St. Peter’s Square.

“For me, it is a lot of things. In my job, I work with disabled children, and I traveled to Madagascar to work with poor people. Being here, and close to the pope, is a way of integrating these experiences, and make them concrete,” she said. Coroy also brought prayers for her father, who is sick with cancer.

For Alessandra Nardi, the pope’s death brought back memories of the death three years ago of her beloved uncle Luigi, who used to call her from St. Peter’s Square when he came to see Pope Francis say Mass. He “let me hear the bells toll. It was a beautiful thing.”

Riccardo Ojedea from Colombia said his experience waiting in line for two hours to pay respects to the pope had shown him how much “humanity loves the pope.”

“He left a very important legacy for everyone,” he said, “to make this world happier.”
——
AP video journalist Isaia Montelione contributed.

Middle managers oversee 90% of the workforce and with the current economic uncertainty, they are facing high levels of dissatisfaction and burn out. Here’s how companies, leaders, and employees can help them.

We’ve all heard the familiar directive: “We’re going through another reorganization and will be cutting 20% of headcount, but priorities remain the same and, in fact, may expand.” Meanwhile, you’re being told to “just make it work” without offering additional resources, guidance, or support.

It’s a building. It’s an advertisement. It’s honestly brilliant.

On a quiet residential street lined with unassuming homes and white picket fences in Gliwice, Poland, one building is not like the rest. It’s a hulking, bright silver structure that’s covered entirely in pipes. 

President Trump is reportedly considering an executive order that would speed up permitting for deep-sea mining, which could lead to a host of problems for underwater ecosystems.

Oceans cover about 70% of the Earth’s surface, yet the ocean floor remains largely untouched by humans. But perhaps not for long. 

With Patreon’s launch of native livestreaming, the two subscription platforms look increasingly similar.

Substack and Patreon are vying to become creators’ primary revenue stream.

Governments, financial influencers, and entertainment insiders are using data center-like facilities full of phones to push narratives fabricated through fake social media engagement.

Welcome to the world of social media mind control. By amplifying free speech with fake speech, you can numb the brain into believing just about anything. Surrender your blissful ignorance and swallow the red pill. You’re about to discover how your thinking is being engineered by modern masters of deception.

Just as it’s introducing the option to use GenAI models like OpenAI, Runway, and Google, Adobe is letting creators draw a new line in the sand between their work and AI.

The ever-increasing power of generative AI has divided the graphic design community. Many are embracing the tools in their workflows, while others believe they’ve stolen from culture and commoditized a craft. 

Major League Baseball CMO Uzma Rawn Dowler outlines the league’s latest cultural swing.

As the 2025 Major League Baseball season gets into full swing, you’d expect the league to use its marketing muscle to hype the heroics of its biggest stars. But its anime-style ad campaign takes that idea to a new level.

The latest phase of the Starbucks Workers United campaign includes sit-ins at stores, where union members have been arrested. They say the escalation is necessary to call attention to their fight.

Michelle Eisen, a 15-year Starbucks veteran, is a barista for the coffee chain at a location in Buffalo—the first Starbucks store to unionize back in December 2021, in fact. But on a Tuesday in March, Eisen was at a Pittsburgh Starbucks, to participate in what Starbucks Workers United members have dubbed “sip-ins.” A spin on “sit-ins,” they involve union workers and allies hanging out for hours in a Starbucks store, ordering drinks under names like “Union Strong” and leaving tips for workers.

The watch company is moving out of its time-telling building, and demolition may be looming. Can a small but passionate group save it?

When it opened in 2001, watchmaker Timex’s new headquarters building in Middlebury, Connecticut, was an architectural wonder. Its all-glass walls and open floor plan put the entire 275-person company in one big, light-filled workspace, covered by a swooping arched roof. It was a radical embrace of the ideals of openness, collaboration, and anti-hierarchical social interaction. On top of all this, the award-winning building had one additional—and unique—feature: a hole in the top that shines sunlight down on an ancient time-marking device known as a meridian line. Covering the building at the time, Fast Company noted “the building itself is a watch.”

A new documentary, ‘Reef Builders,’ explores how coral reefs around the world have been decimated by climate change—and the work happening to bring them back.

Coral reefs are vital to the health of the oceans, but in recent years they’ve been decimated by climate change, pollution, and overfishing. While this has been widely covered, a new documentary sheds light on the groundbreaking efforts to restore these fragile ecosystems, and the scientists and communities working to bring them back to life.  

Online Ceramics and Penguin Random House team up against the ultimate culture killers.

Reading just got a whole lot cooler.

Whether or not they realize it, many artists and arts organizations today are integrating lessons from the past.

In a February 2025 Truth Social post, President Donald Trump declared a “Golden Age in Arts and Culture.”

With near-drought conditions, fire officials reduced prescribed burns this spring even as they worried about ‘quite a fire season’ ahead.

New Jersey has a million acres filled with towering pitch pines. It’s springtime and the trees stand straight, bare and bonelike, above a carpet of winter needles that worry state fire service professionals. This week, a swath of the Pine Barrens went up in flames, a stark warning of what might be a treacherous fire season.