Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Companys weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. Im Mark Sullivan, a senior writer at Fast Company, covering emerging tech, AI, and tech policy.
This week, Im focusing on the terms of Nvidias investment in OpenAI, in which the GPU maker gets guaranteed chip sales, an equity stake, and likely a product road map for years to come. I also look at the industrys fixation on huge models and the quiet appeal of small ones.
Sign up to receive this newsletter every week via email here. And if you have comments on this issue and/or ideas for future ones, drop me a line at sullivan@fastcompany.com, and follow me on X (formerly Twitter) @thesullivan.
Nvidia cements its power as AI infrastructure race begins
Now its all about data centers and electricity. Big Tech companies are promising that AI models and apps are about to revolutionize business, and executives like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman say the greatest barrier to that happening is a dearth of data centers to run the models that businesses will soon need to operate. Big Tech companies are also challenged to find enough new energy sources to power and cool the massive data centers. Collectively, OpenAI, Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft plan to spend more than $325 billion on data centers by the end of 2025, The New York Times reports. Anthropic said last year that it expects to spend $100 billion on these massive facilities over the next decade.
The tech companies are now racing to plan and finance the new data centers. And this is creating some unique arrangements. Nvidia announced Monday it will invest $100 billion in OpenAI, which will buy about 2% equity in the company. But OpenAI will likely use most of that money to buy Nvidia GPUs, or graphics processing units, the chips that represent the greatest single capital expenditure of building a data center. [T]hese investments might be circular and raise related party concerns, as Nvidia may own shares in a customer that will likely use such funds to buy more Nvidia gear, writes Morningstar equity analyst Brian Colello in a research brief. (OpenAI struck a similar agreement with Microsoft when it took a $10 billion investment from the software giant, then used the money to buy its Azure cloud computing services.)
Notably, the Nvidia investment will time the release of the funds according to the pace at which OpenAI buys the chips: Nvidia gets guaranteed chip sales and a 2% share of OpenAI. (As Bryn Talkington, managing partner at Requisite Capital Management, told CNBC: Nvidia invests $100 billion in OpenAI, which then OpenAI turns back and gives it back to Nvidia.). But it may be even better than that. Pitchbook AI and cybersecurity analyst Dimitri Zabelin believes Nvidia intends to plan the design of its future AI chips according to what it learns from OpenAIs infrastructure scale-up. That could be an invaluable feedback loop if all of the big AI companies follow OpenAIs lead in scaling up its infrastructure and developing compute-intensive AI products. Nvidia is consolidating control over the AI stack and reinforcing its position as the indispensable enabler of the sectors next phase, Zabelin says.
OpenAI will likely buy between 4 and 5 million of Nvidias new Vera Rubin GPUs, which will require 10 gigawatts of power to run. They will likely be installed within the five new data centers the company just announced as part of its Stargate Project (revealed at the White House with partners SoftBank, Oracle, and MGX). OpenAI now expects that Stargate will secure the full $500 billion in planned investment to build new data centers, and do so by the end of this year, ahead of schedule.
Betting big on big modelsnot smaller, safer ones
Right now, a huge portion of the total value of the stock market is held up by AI hope, the promise that AI will bring dramatic new efficiencies to the way business is done. Maybe businesses will grow more profitable by moving faster, or maybe theyll do so by sloughing off human workers. Most likely both. The massive infrastructure investments of the Big Tech companies are all about supporting that transformation. The companies building the gigantic data centers are frontier model companies; their products are huge, generalist models, like OpenAIs GPT-5 and Googles Gemini, that have trillions of parameters and are very expensive to train and operate. Generalist models are built to possess a wide array of knowledgeeven a modicum of common sense about how the world worksthat can be leveraged for all kinds of tasks. Theyre trained with massive amounts of diverse data and web content. Its these frontier models that the AI companies hope will evolve to possess artificial general intelligence (AGI), or as much intelligence as most humans bring to most tasks, and then superintelligence, in which the model is far smarter than humans at almost any task.
But many of the analysts and researchers Ive spoken to say that businesses usually need smaller models trained with a narrower set of (often proprietary) data that automate a specific set of tasks. They dont need to power their apps with a gigantic (and expensive) model that knows about 15th-century gold coins and can write poetry. Small models often dont need to run inside a dedicated data center, but are small enough to run on on-premise computers (in some cases, laptops or phones) or within a private cloud. With less exposure to wider networks, models that run on the edge devices are far less exposed to would-be hackers that might try to steal or poison corporate or personal data.
But OpenAI and Google arent selling that. They offer access to frontier models via application programming interfaces (APIs) to developers and corporations. And its the massive frontier models that carry the greatest risks for society-level harms such as aiding in the building of a bioweapon or crashing economic systems. Some have worried that putting so much intelligence and computing power together in one place could create a supercomputer smart enough to crack open every cryptocurrency wallet on the blockchainwhich would cause economic chaos. Reducing the number of large frontier models (and tightly controlling their use) may be the only rational approach to protecting against the large-scale harms they might, in theory, inflict. Currently, as the big AI companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Meta quickly and dramatically scale up their data centers and models, we are trusting them to keep the models from being used for harm. Can private, profit-driven companiessome of which are under great pressure to get to profitabilitycontrol intelligences far greater than our own? Lets hope so.
More AI coverage from Fast Company:
AI tools arent making much of a difference for companies
Are companies calling themselves AI-first helping or hurting their own brands?
This is how Gen Zers are AI-proofing their careers
I gave ChatGPT $500 of real money to invest in stocks. Its picks surprised me
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European automakers will save around 500-600 million euros ($585-700 million) a month dating back to Aug. 1 after the Trump administration implemented the U.S. end of its trade deal with the European Union, the EU’s top trade negotiator said Thursday.
Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic said that the deal establishing a 15% tariff on most EU goods took effect with publication in the U.S. Federal Register instructing customs officials what to charge. That would reduce the tariff from a painfully high 27.5% rate set earlier by Trump.
The reduction eases a major burden on EU automakers and is a chief selling point for the deal as presented by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
The deal is retroactive to Aug. 1 so “what we expect now is that the tariffs will be returned to the automakers as of the first of August, which is something like 500, 600 million euros per month,” Sefcovic said ahead of a meeting with Southeast Asian trade ministers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The 15% tariff is still much higher than tariffs from before Trump took office, which averaged in the single digits, and the trade deal has been criticized by business associations and some members of the European Parliament.
Sefcovic said most member states supported the deal and that after detailed exchanges and presentations on the details he expected lawmakers would support it as well.
He said it was “the best deal available” after difficult talks with Trump administration officials. “Any other alternative would be much worse,” he said. Trump threatened even higher rates during the talks.
Associated Press
The Barclays Center is taking its dressing rooms for touring artists to the next level, and they looked to local inspiration to decorate them.
The Brooklyn venue, which hosts concerts and is home to the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets and WNBA’s New York Liberty, has upgraded six dressing rooms that now resemble Brooklyn brownstone apartments, complete with moody tones, soft-glow lighting, and high-end fixtures and finishes.
[Photo: Barclays Center/BSE]
The makeover is part of Barclays Center parent company BSE Global’s $100 million, five-year upgrade of the venue that’s still set to include improvements like a new fan zone and a new premium membership club. Laurie Jacoby, BSE Global’s chief entertainment officer, tells Fast Company the plan for the renovations is “to elevate the guest experience at every level, whether you’re a fan attending a concert or game, or an artist bringing your talent to our stage.”
It’s especially important for artists, she says.
[Photo: Barclays Center/BSE]
“For touring artists, a dressing room is often their only connection to the city they’re performing in,” Jacoby says. “That’s why we designed our dressing rooms to capture the essence of a Brooklyn brownstone, featuring paneled walls, herringbone floors, warm lighting, and elegant finishes that create a cozy, residential atmospherea true home away from home right inside the arena.”
[Photo: Barclays Center/BSE]
BSE Global designed the dressing rooms in partnership with the Brooklyn Home Company, a real estate development and design firm that typically works on condos, townhomes, and vacation homes.
[Photo: Barclays Center/BSE]
The team designed each room to pay homage different Brooklyn neighborhoods around the stadium. Park Slope was inspired by diners and wine bars, Brooklyn Heights by red brick, Prospect by the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, and Boerum Hill by the oxidization of copper. There’s also a classic brownstone-inspired room for Clinton Hill, and a green room with plants to represent Fort Greene. Construction began following the end of the 202425 NBA season, and the dressing rooms can seat up to 56 people.
[Photo: Barclays Center/BSE]
BSE Global wants the new Barclays Center to do more than impress rock bands, rappers, DJs, and pop stars. The team also hopes the elevated space will lead to elevated performances.
[Photo: Barclays Center/BSE]
“ur hope is that these new spaces provide comfort and hospitality for artists spending long hours on the road,” Jacoby says. “We know that when performers feel at home and relaxed, they deliver their best performanceswhich is ultimately a benefit to both fans and the overall experience.”
Among the first artists who’ll use the new dressing rooms are Reneé Rapp, who’s bringing her Bite Me Tour to Brooklyn next month, and Tame Impala, who’s playing four nights there.
The crash of a small plane in southwestern Brazil killed four people including Chinese landscape architect and urban planner Yu Kongjian, Brazilian authorities said Wednesday.The accident happened late Tuesday during a landing attempt at a large farm about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the municipality of Aquidauana in Mato Grosso do Sul state, firefighters said.Yu, who was known for promoting ecologically sound development, was traveling with two Brazilian documentary makers, Luiz Fernando Feres da Cunha Ferraz and Rubens Crispim Jr., who were making a film about the Pantanal wetlands. All three were killed along with pilot Marcelo Pereira de Barros, authorities said.Yu was know for developing the concept of “sponge cities,” with infrastructure that can absorb rainwater to mitigate flood risks and improve the urban climate.“In times of climate change,” Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wrote on social media, “Yu became a global reference with his sponge cities, which unite quality of life and environmental protection.”Yu argued that by creating large spaces to hold water in city centers, such as parks and ponds, extreme rainfall can be absorbed, helping prevent floods. The idea is widely cited in Chinese urban planning, and in recent years Yu worked on projects in other countries including Saudi Arabia and Thailand.He was known for his “notable contributions to sustainable urbanism, the preservation of biodiversity, and the protection of the planet,” Brazil’s Vice President Geraldo Alckmin said on X, adding that Yu’s legacy will continue to inspire those dedicated to ecological cause.Yu founded the College of Architecture and Landscape at Peking University, one of China’s most prestigious universities. The university did not respond a request for comment.The military fire department in Aquidauana was called at around 8:10 p.m. local time on Tuesday to respond to a plane crash, firefighters said. A search and rescue operation lasted approximately nine hours.Yu and the filmmakers were part of a team producing a documentary about the world’s largest tropical wetlands. The Pantanal, fed by tributaries of the Paraguay River and mostly located in Brazil, is a biodiversity hotspot and a popular destination for tourists to see jaguars, macaws, caimans, capybaras and migratory birds in the wild.In an interview with The Associated Press in 2022, Yu criticized much of Asia’s modern infrastructure for being built on ideas imported from Europe, which he said are ill-fitted to the monsoon climate that prevails over much of the continent.
Fu Ting contributed to this report from Washington D.C. and Mauricio Savarese from Sao Paulo.
Eléonore Hughes, Associated Press
Did you buy a new pink dress to watch the Barbie movie, only to never wear it again? An Oura ring because your favorite TikTok influencer had it? A new pair of baggy jeans because ’90s fashion is making a comeback?Niche trends fueled by social media can influence your shopping decisions. Participating often brings some happiness and a sense of community, but the problem comes when you do it so often that you’re not using your money to achieve your financial goals, or worse, you get into debt, said Erika Rasure, chief financial wellness advisor for Beyond Finance, a financial services company.Whether it’s coastal grandma or clean girl aesthetic, microtrends can take a significant toll on already-strained budgets as prices rise and Gen Z struggles to pay off debt.If you find yourself overspending to participate in microtrends, here are some expert recommendations:
Pause before purchasing
Before you click “buy” on TikTok Shop, it’s best if you take some time to reflect, said Jennifer Seitz, head of education for Greenlight, a financial literacy app for families. Pausing before a purchase can help you discern if the item is something you really want or a fleeting craving.“Think if you want to put it in a schedule pause, whether it’s 24 hours or even a couple of days if it’s a larger expense,” Seitz said.Participating in personal challenges can be a good way to get in the habit of making purchases more deliberate. Back in 2022, Alyssa Barber participated in the no-buy year challenge, where she pledged to stop buying non-essential items for a year.Barber shares sustainable practices with over 370,000 followers on TikTok, where one of her recurrent themes is how to stop impulse buying. Barber said the challenge gave her perspective on how much she was spending on things she didn’t need. Since then, she has changed her spending habits, focusing mainly on experiences.
Know your spending values
Taking a value-based spending approach can help you decide if you should participate in a trend you see online, Rasure said.If, for example, you want to build an emergency fund, having this goal in mind while shopping can help avoid unnecessary spending.Quynh Van, a 27-year-old UX designer from Minneapolis, was surprised by the number of ads on TikTok when she created an account after a four-year break from social media. And while being influenced by the ads is inevitable, she believes overspending comes in part from users not having defined goals.“When you don’t know who you are or what you like, you’re so driven by over-consumerism and lifestyle creep because you don’t have your values in order,” Van said.Rasure recommends using your financial values as a guiding principle for your spending decisions. If you’re not sure of your values, allocate some time to map them out according to your life goals.
Create barriers to spending
If a purchase is one click away, it can make it easier to spend large amounts of money. If you consciously make it a little harder to pay for an item, you can spend more mindfully, Seitz said.“Just that action of needing to input your payment information rather than just that simple click can help you give to really stop and think about purchases before moving ahead with them,” she added.To add barriers, you can remove your credit card details from your computer browser or social media and disable Apple Pay on your phone.
Think of it as an act of self-care
Finances are closely tied to emotions, and often, they evoke negative feelings such as shame or guilt. However, reframing them as an act of self-care can help you spend mindfully, Rasure said.“It can help you create boundaries around what you value spending money on, helps you choose intentionally and it feels more like freedom instead of restriction,” she said.Your spending habits in the present can help your future financial situation. This mindset can inspire you when you’re tempted to overspend on the newest trending electronic or fashion item.
Engage with trends with moderation
It can be OK to engage with trends if they bring you positive feelings, Rasure said.Van decided to participate in the matcha trend, but with moderation. For Barber, physical media, such as old records, DVDs, and cassettes, is on her list of non-negotiable expenses, as she loves collecting these items.“Trends and engaging them, engaging in them really should spark that happiness or contentment, not the debt that can go with them,” Rasure said.
The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.
Adriana Morga, Associated Press
Remember when former Try Guy Ned Fulmer was caught in a public cheating scandal that broke the internet? Hes back, this time with a new podcast called Rock Bottom with Ned Fulmer. Or as one commenter called it: One of the most painful watches in YouTube history.
The podcast is meant to explore, people’s lowest, most embarrassing, and challenging moments. Fulmer’s first guest: his wife, Ariel.
The first question many have asked is why would they do this? Was this a humiliation ritual for him? one TikTok user asked. According to Ariel, it was mostly for their children, aged 7 and 5, who they are currently coparenting, and as a way to move on and put the past in the past by bringing it all up again.
In case you were living under a rock in 2022 and have no idea what a Try Guy is or what happened, let us catch you up to speed.
The Try Guys were four former BuzzFeed employees, Keith Habersberger, Ned Fulmer, Zach Kornfeld, and Eugene Lee Yang, who made content based around the simple premise of trying various things. In late 2022, their YouTube channel had close to 8 million subscribers, with their empire extending to TV shows, books, and podcasts.
In 2022, it all came crashing down after internet sleuths uncovered Fulmers extramarital affair with a Try Guys producer. The scandal broke the internet and Fulmer was fired from the group after an internal investigation.
Fast forward three years and on the debut episode of his new podcast (because there arent enough men with podcasts), Ned and Ariel reconstructed the timeline of the scandal and shared that they are no longer together romantically, much to the internets delight and relief.
Ariel also revealed, for the first time, that she found out about her husbands affair from a fans message. When asked if she’s forgiven Ned, Ariel responded, Absolutely not. How can you forgive somebody for lying to you, for cheating on you? No.”
Neither has the internet, it seems.
Him calling it the scandal and her calling it your affair is all we needed to know, one person commented beneath the YouTube video, which currently has more than 100,000 dislikes compared to just over 7,000 likes.
I can’t believe he’s really interviewing her about him traumatizing her, another wrote.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Ariel revealed the podcast episode was, in fact, her idea. Some have speculated Ariel predicted exactly how badly Ned would come across and that was part of her motivation to do the episode in the first place.
I love that she lets silence hang in the air after he says something horrible or stupid and just fully lets him feel uncomfortable, one commented.
Another added: Oh to be a fly on the wall in the Try Guys office today.
Starbucks will end the year with fewer stores and fewer employees. But the brand maintains that its all part of a greater turnaround still in the mix.
Today, the company announced that its North American store locations will be reduced by 1% for fiscal 2025landing the coffee chain at 18,300 stores total.
And it will be eliminating 900 jobs outside of its coffee houses (in other words, corporate and other functions).
The company claims it will attempt to place affected baristas into new stores, but Starbucks says, “For those we cant immediately place, were focused on partner care including comprehensive severance packages. We also hope to welcome many of these partners back to Starbucks in the future as new coffeehouses open and the number of partners in each location grows.
CEO Brian Niccol has been at the helm for a year now, where hes been unable to break a six-quarter streak of same-store sales declines. Hes promised a Back to Starbucks turnaround centered on better store design, operations, and customer experience.
But as he faces the scrutiny of an impatient Wall Street, the former Chipotle chief appears to be reallocating spending to drive the companys growth while offsetting overhead.
Closures today; growth tomorrow
A closer examination of the details around this restructuring spot a somewhat finer narrative than sheer cost-cuttingand Starbucks insists that Niccols aggressive growth plan, in which hell add to store count in 2026 and imagines reaching 100,000 stores globally one day, is still intact.
Speaking just last week at the Fast Company Innovation Festival, he promised to add hundreds of thousands of seats back to Starbucks stores. The company will have actually closed hundreds of stores over the course of 2025, but its been opening enough new stores to offset the figure significantly for this final announced tally.
In a public letter published to the Starbucks website on Thursday, Niccol argues that its the sort of fine tuning required to improve the brand.
Our goal is for every coffeehouse to deliver a warm and welcoming space with a great atmosphere and a seat for every occasion, he wrote. During the review, we identified coffeehouses where were unable to create the physical environment our customers and partners expect, or where we dont see a path to financial performance, and these locations will be closed.
When asked if store closures were disproportionately focused on union locations, Starbucks told Fast Company that union represented status was not a factor in the decision.
In any case, the larger restructuring does support Niccols greater thesisthat in offering higher touchpoint service, it will continue to raise the bar of expectations from its stores and employees.
As Niccol mentioned during Q3 earnings, We plan to complete an evaluation of our North American portfolio by the end of this fiscal year to ensure we have the right coffeehouses in the right locations to drive profitability and deliver the Starbucks experience.
So now that this is done . . . can we finally get back to Starbucks?
The H&M group is entering the fall season with style. On Wednesday, September 24, the retailer released its third-quarter earnings and reported an operating profit of 4.9 billion Swedish krona ($521 million). The H&M group owns brands including H&M, COS, Monki, and Arket.
Its operating profit marked a 40% increase year-over-year (YOY) and beat analysts predicted 3.7 billion Swedish krona ($393 million), according to consensus estimates cited by CNBC.
The figures also marked consecutive quarterly successes for the H&M group, which also beat estimated operating profits in quarter-two. However, the H&M group now predicts that 2025s quarter-four will yield less positive results due to the increased impact of tariffs.
Stock price rises despite tariff warning
Despite the concerning forecast, investors responded positively to H&M groups current earnings. Trading on the Stockholm Stock Exchange, the companys share price (STO:HM-B) jumped 10% through after-hours and into premarket trading Thursday morning.
Other factors could have contributed to the boost in share prices. The H&M group reported that sales in local currencies had increased by 2% during the quarter.
However, the company notably reduced its store count over the previous nine months.
As of August 31, the H&M group had 4,118 stores, compared to 4,298 at the same point last year.
The company closed 135, or 4%, of its store locations over the first nine months of the fiscal year, 48 in quarter-three alone.
A majority of the closures were H&M and Monki stores in Europe, Asia, Oceania, and Africa. Only five stores shut down throughout North and South America.
These closures dont necessarily point to a planned consolidation. The company pointed to a newly opened store, its first in Brazil, as being well received.
There’s no clearer sign of animes cultural ascendance than the box office haul of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle. The film, which hit U.S. theaters two weeks ago, has pulled in more than $555 million globally, including more than $104 million in North America, making it a bonafide hit for Sony Pictures, which distributed it outside of Japan through its anime streaming arm, Crunchyroll.
The movie’s success reflects audiences’ growing interest in anime. A survey from market research firm Dentsu found that, 31% of people worldwide said they consumed anime at least weekly, with a full 50% of Gen Z reporting they watch it. That’s translated into a boom in Crunchyroll subscriptions. The anime streaming service, which is home to more than 2,000 titles (including Demon Slayer), counted 17 million paid subscribers worldwide in May 2025more than triple the number it had in 2021.
[Screenshot: courtesy Crunchyroll]
Crunchyroll will soon offer those subscribers a way to go even deeper on the source material of some of their favorite shows, with the debut a manga reader app. The company shared a first look exclusively with Fast Company.
Set to launch October 9 on mobile and October 15 on web in the United States and Canada, Crunchyroll Manga will debut with hundreds of titles, including the manga behind some of Crunchyrolls top series, including Jujutsu Kaisen, Kaiju No. 8, and Apothecary Diaries.
For subscribers to Crunchyrolls $15.99-per-month Ultimate tier, access to Crunchyroll Manga will be free. It will be available as a $3.50 add-on for the $11.99 Mega Fan tier, and a $4 add-on to the $7.99 Fan tier.
Its a feature that users have been asking for, says chief content officer Asa Suehira. Crunchyroll has been doing a lot of surveys over the past few years and digital manga has always been the most desired feature on our platform, he says. This is compared to shorter content, video games, music, or even discounts or credits toward merchandise.
[Screenshot: courtesy Crunchyroll]
Building a bridge between anime and manga
From a user perspective, Crunchyroll Manga is designed to function much like the companys flagship streaming app, with important connections between the two.
If a title in the manga app has a corresponding anime series on Crunchyroll, users can choose to start watching the show straight from the manga app. Their device will simply switch to the streaming app if its installed. Similarly, if a Crunchyroll anime series has a corresponding manga, viewers will have the option of clicking over to start reading it.
Theres data saying that 40% of manga readers discover manga through anime, Suehira says. We want to create a new habit of discovery through manga, and being able to watch the anime as well.
Crunchyroll has been clever about how it entices anime fans who might discover the genre through other streaming services. Notably, it will license shows like Jujutsu Kaisen to Netflix, but exclusively stream the latest season on its platform.
Crunchyroll Manga offers an opportunity for it to replicate that approach in reverse. The service will include manga volumes for series that exclusively stream elsewhere, including Delicious in Dungeon and The Summer Hikaru Diedtwo anime adaptations that Netflix exclusively distributes. Fans of those series will have sign up for Crunchyroll if they they want to read the manga.
The manga and anime apps will also be linked by user profiles. Any updates made to a profiles content restrictions in one will be be mirrored in the other.
The main appeal, though, is the amount of manga fans will be able to access. Suehira says that by partnering with Link-u, which has developed digital manga infrastructure in Japan, we were able to work more closely with different publishers.
[Screenshot: courtesy Crunchyroll]
Making publishers happy
Crunchyroll Manga is actually the second time the company has offered manga. A previous offering shut down in 2023. Suehira says part of that platforms downfall was because Crunchyrolls licensing agreement with manga publishers limited how much users could read. It also limited the opportunities for us to work with the publishers, Suehira says.
Crunchyroll Manga will launch with a library of titles from publishers like Viz Media, AlphaPolis, and Square Enix. Crunchyroll says additional publishers will be added in the coming months, including Shueisha, which publishes the Demon Slayer manga.
Part of what has gotten these companies on board, Suehira says, is Crunchyroll Mangas use of a revenue-sharing model that compensates publishers based on user engagement, similar to how the anime platform pays studios.
Crunchyroll Manga also offers a legitimate way for burgeoning anime fans to read source material. Suehira says 15 of the top 20 internet piracy sites include anime and manga, and that manga represents 70% of global publishing pracy.
We want [Crunchyroll Manga] to be a solution to the privacy market and really contribute to the ecosystem in Japan, Suehira says, adding that the app includes features the prevent screenshots and screen recording.
Part of working with publishers means tracking a titles popularity, which can inform payments, but also potentially predict a future hit adaptation.
[Publishers] want to understand how the crowd is reacting to certain manga or an IP, he says. Data on consumption and fan reactions are things we could work together with our partners in Japan to expand the opportunitywhether thats turning into an anime or selling merchandise.
There’s no clearer sign of animes cultural ascendance than the box office haul of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle. The film, which hit U.S. theaters two weeks ago, has pulled in more than $555 million globally, including more than $104 million in North America, making it a bonafide hit for Sony Pictures, which distributed it outside of Japan through its anime streaming arm, Crunchyroll.
The movie’s success reflects audiences’ growing interest in anime. A survey from market research firm Dentsu found that, 31% of people worldwide said they consumed anime at least weekly, with a full 50% of Gen Z reporting they watch it. That’s translated into a boom in Crunchyroll subscriptions. The anime streaming service, which is home to more than 2,000 titles (including Demon Slayer), counted 17 million paid subscribers worldwide in May 2025more than triple the number it had in 2021.
[Screenshot: courtesy Crunchyroll]
Crunchyroll will soon offer those subscribers a way to go even deeper on the source material of some of their favorite shows, with the debut a manga reader app. The company shared a first look exclusively with Fast Company.
Set to launch October 9 on mobile and October 15 on web in the United States and Canada, Crunchyroll Manga will debut with hundreds of titles, including the manga behind some of Crunchyrolls top series, including Jujutsu Kaisen, Kaiju No. 8, and Apothecary Diaries.
For subscribers to Crunchyrolls $15.99-per-month Ultimate tier, access to Crunchyroll Manga will be free. It will be available as a $3.50 add-on for the $11.99 Mega Fan tier, and a $4 add-on to the $7.99 Fan tier.
Its a feature that users have been asking for, says chief content officer Asa Suehira. Crunchyroll has been doing a lot of surveys over the past few years and digital manga has always been the most desired feature on our platform, he says. This is compared to shorter content, video games, music, or even discounts or credits toward merchandise.
[Screenshot: courtesy Crunchyroll]
Building a bridge between anime and manga
From a user perspective, Crunchyroll Manga is designed to function much like the companys flagship streaming app, with important connections between the two.
If a title in the manga app has a corresponding anime series on Crunchyroll, users can choose to start watching the show straight from the manga app. Their device will simply switch to the streaming app if its installed. Similarly, if a Crunchyroll anime series has a corresponding manga, viewers will have the option of clicking over to start reading it.
Theres data saying that 40% of manga readers discover manga through anime, Suehira says. We want to create a new habit of discovery through manga, and being able to watch the anime as well.
Crunchyroll has been clever about how it entices anime fans who might discover the genre through other streaming services. Notably, it will license shows like Jujutsu Kaisen to Netflix, but exclusively stream the latest season on its platform.
Crunchyroll Manga offers an opportunity for it to replicate that approach in reverse. The service will include manga volumes for series that exclusively stream elsewhere, including Delicious in Dungeon and The Summer Hikaru Diedtwo anime adaptations that Netflix exclusively distributes. Fans of those series will have sign up for Crunchyroll if they they want to read the manga.
The manga and anime apps will also be linked by user profiles. Any updates made to a profiles content restrictions in one will be be mirrored in the other.
The main appeal, though, is the amount of manga fans will be able to access. Suehira says that by partnering with Link-u, which has developed digital manga infrastructure in Japan, we were able to work more closely with different publishers.
[Screenshot: courtesy Crunchyroll]
Making publishers happy
Crunchyroll Manga is actually the second time the company has offered manga. A previous offering shut down in 2023. Suehira says part of that platforms downfall was because Crunchyrolls licensing agreement with manga publishers limited how much users could read. It also limited the opportunities for us to work with the publishers, Suehira says.
Crunchyroll Manga will launch with a library of titles from publishers like Viz Media, AlphaPolis, and Square Enix. Crunchyroll says additional publishers will be added in the coming months, including Shueisha, which publishes the Demon Slayer manga.
Part of what has gotten these companies on board, Suehira says, is Crunchyroll Mangas use of a revenue-sharing model that compensates publishers based on user engagement, similar to how the anime platform pays studios.
Crunchyroll Manga also offers a legitimate way for burgeoning anime fans to read source material. Suehira says 15 of the top 20 internet piracy sites include anime and manga, an that manga represents 70% of global publishing piracy.
We want [Crunchyroll Manga] to be a solution to the privacy market and really contribute to the ecosystem in Japan, Suehira says, adding that the app includes features the prevent screenshots and screen recording.
Part of working with publishers means tracking a titles popularity, which can inform payments, but also potentially predict a future hit adaptation.
[Publishers] want to understand how the crowd is reacting to certain manga or an IP, he says. Data on consumption and fan reactions are things we could work together with our partners in Japan to expand the opportunitywhether thats turning into an anime or selling merchandise.
