They are as short as a toothbrushing tutorial but pack the same spicy wallop as a BookTok romantasy. Theyre as bingeable as a bajillion-dollar Netflix series, but with the stripped-down aesthetics of a Hallmark movie.
Im talking, of course, about microdramasthe fast, fizzy serialized videos flooding phones worldwide. In just a few years, theyve become a full-blown phenomenon, generating billions in revenue without Hollywoods help. At least, not until now.
As studios grapple with a sluggish summer box office and another thin fall TV lineup, a growing legion of viewers is glued to stories made exclusively for their phones. Microdramasor vertical shows, as theyre often calledblend the raw emotion of K-dramas with a TikTok sensibility. Think high-intensity, telenovela-like series, unfurling in one-to-three-minute chunks across 50 to 100 mostly paywalled episodes. They may have titles such as Doctor Boss Is My Baby Daddy or Signed, Sealed, Deceived by My Billionaire Mailboy, but their massive, global fan base makes them impossible to dismiss.
A structural shift
Born in China during the early COVID years, microdramas have since ballooned into a $7 billion industry, and are projected to generate $10 to $13 billion in revenue by 2027. More than 40 dedicated apps, including Seoul-based Vigloo and Californias ReelShort, operate on a freemium model. Curious viewers can try a multi-episode taste of most series, with the option to continue by either paying to subscribe or making in-app purchases.
Although the format first gained traction in Eastern regions, the U.S. emerged last year as the largest market for microdrama apps, contributing 60% of global revenue, according to data analysis firm Sensor Tower. Apps like GoodShort and DramaBox now regularly jostle with Netflix for top slots in entertainment rankings. (To be clear, these companies remain well behind Netflix in revenue and profit.)
Now, as U.S. demand for vertical shows surges, a group of Hollywood veterans is jumping in. MicroCo, a new partnership between horror-focused studio Cineverse and Lloyd Brauns Banyan Ventures, has tapped former Showtime president Jana Winograde as CEO and ex-NBCUniversal content chief Susan Rovner as COO. The companys still-unnamed app wont launch until next spring, but its very existence suggests a massive sea change is currently underway.
Vertical viewing is not just a passing trend,” says Neil Hyuk-jae Choi, CEO of Vigloo parent company SpoonLabs, “but a structural shift.
Dont call it Quibi 2.0
To understand what microdramas are, its important to know what theyre not, which is: Quibi.
Jeffrey Katzenbergs quixotic quest to bring short-form A-list streaming content to the masses failed spectacularly, lasting all of seven months in 2020. Once it officially folded, Quibi became both a cautionary tale and an all-purpose punch line for jokes about doomed media projects.
Heres the thing, though: For all its flaws, the “quick bites” concept now seems rather prescient.
Quibi launched in April 2020, at the dawn of the pandemic, about a split-second before TikTok exploded. At the time, the average U.S. social media user had not yet internalized the habit of swiftly thumbing through a succession of vertical videos, nor had TikTok yet matured into a marketing juggernaut. (Indeed, microdrama studios now frequently seed samples on TikTok to reel in fresh viewers.)
If theyd launched two years later, we’d probably be telling a very different story now, says Cineverse president Erick Opeka, who is part of the MicroCo team.
It wasnt just the length of the clips that sank Quibi. The company banked on repackaging star-driven cable-style shows into bite-size chunks. If consumers had wanted to see so-so cable TV shows in seven-minute increments, well, there were already plenty of streaming apps aroundand all of them came equipped with pause buttons. What potential viewers seemed to want, in retrospect, was something they hadnt seen before.
Quibi was less microdrama and more micro-TV show, says Sammi Cohen, a tech and culture influencer who runs the YouTube channel and podcast Social Currency. The concept made so much sense to me, though; as people have shorter and shorter attention spans, it seemed like the obvious direction shift for the entertainment industry.
Katzenbergs venture had the right tech too early, and with the wrong content. Microdramas, however, seem to have arrived right on scheduleand many viewers are now quick to bite.
All gas, no brakes
These shows arent just TV that’s been shrunk down. They thrive on hyper-speed pacing, heightened dialogue, and Kabuki-level performances.
A conventional three-act structure in cinema requires 20 to 30 minutes spent setting up the characters and their goals, followed by another 40 to 50 minutes of compelling complications, and finally, 20 to 30 minutes of resolution. Microdramas, however, speed-run much of that process and fill it with the emerging conventions of the format, such as hidden identities, rescue moments, and love-triangle showdowns.
In effect, that means ubtlety is out, and nearly every episode ends on a cliffhanger. (Viewers will never have to question, for instance, the motives of Escaping the Bridezilla’s protagonist as she tears through one conflict after another.)
Its a format designed for a generation hyper-exposed to endless streams of content, where you must capture attention instantly and sustain it across 50 or 60 episodes,” says Mauricio Osaki, a filmmaker with several microdramas to his credit, including 2025’s Fight for Love, the most-watched English-language series on Vigloo.
Closed-captioning is standard, so viewers can keep up while watching with the sound off during downtime in a college classroom, during a Zoom meeting, or at their kids Little League game. (The latter seems more likely, too, given that 70% of Vigloos viewership is over the age of 35.)
Its not really meant to be sat down and fully engaged with, says Tristan McKenzie, a young filmmaker who has been producing microdramas, like this years Under the Hood, since 2022. It’s a new type of media, in a language that’s actively being created.
How your microdrama sausage is made
As several creators who spoke with Fast Company tell it, the all-gas-no-brakes urgency of these series carries over to production. Microdramas come together with head-spinning speed and efficiency, going from concept to streaming in a matter of months or even weeks. Budgets are tight, typically in the $100,000 to $200,000 range.
Apps like Vigloo look for creative partners who have already notched vertical hits, or those who seem most open to working in an experimental style and with limited resources. Those who deliver highly viewed shows for the app tend to come back for more, with the two sides working hand in glove to optimize the material. According to Osaki, who has made several microdramas with Vigloo, the company regularly shares data with returning collaborators.
The data may reveal patternsmoments when viewers skip ahead or exit the story,” he says. “When we see those weak points, we rework them in future scripts, whether its adding a dramatic element, shifting when a reveal happens, or strengthening a cliffhanger.”
Because microdramas are tailored for vertical viewing, they require not only the ability to work lean, but also with a vastly different approach to visual storytelling. The 9:16 aspect ratio makes for a more intimate format, with much less room in each frame to add directorial razzle-dazzle. Instead, microdrama creators tend to focus heavily on the interactions between people, and what they are doing with their facessometimes with the assistance of an inner monologue.
You can’t really do expansive vistas and big special effects, Opeka says.
The industry has already spun up its own talent ecosystem to form a kind of MicroHollywood. Actor Kasey Esser, dubbed the Brad Pitt of microdramas by The Ankler, has starred in more than 50 vertical shows and now writes and produces them as well. Beyond Esser, a growing roster of recognizable, camera-ready actors has emergedenough that, according to Choi, many Vigloo subscribers in the U.S. pick shows based largely on whos in the cast.
Given that these projects operate outside the traditional entertainment system, theyre unsurprisingly non-union productions. Many of them also rely on AI to some degree, a practice still largely frowned on in Hollywood, as evidenced by this years Oscars fracas around minor AI usage in The Brutalist.
For us, the question isnt whether to use AI, but how to apply it creatively and responsibly, Choi says.
The CEO claims that Vigloo has been testing AI in post-production, visual effects, and marketing assets. Considering how quickly Vigloos rival studios are churning out content, though, and how cookie-cutter the dialogue can get, it seems inevitable that some series are (or will be) written with AI. As for MicroCo, although Braun has signaled his intention to use AI tools to keep costs down, Opeka says the team has no plans for using them on the storytelling side.
My perception is that AI scriptwriting is just not ready for prime time, he says.
Microdramas, American-style
The shows geared toward U.S. audiences have started to develop their own identity. Romance is still the top genre everywhere, but some subgenres have especially taken off stateside. Romantasy titles, like Vigloos A Vampire in the Alphas Den, are huge in the U.S., the epicenter of BookTok, as are sports romances and high school-set dramas.
The storytelling is definitely adapting [for Western audiences,] Osaki says. Compared to Asian IP, there are fewer toxic relationships; stronger, more empowered female characters; and the narratives are beginning to reflect settings and cultural touchpoints that feel distinctly American. (One show, for example, takes place during spring break.)
Microdramas are on the verge of becoming even more Americanized as MicroCo assembles its in-house team of writers and prepares to flood the zone with fresh content. The team is wary, however, of messing too much with a winning formula.
Romance is working very well in the microdrama space, and so we want to lean into that, says MicroCo CEO Jana Winograde. But it will have the same formatted nature. We’re not trying to change what it is.
Beyond content, the fledgling company also aims to shake up the tech. Winograde says the app wont just host viewing but will add social featuresletting users like, comment, clip, share, and engage in ways the team hasnt yet disclosed.
We all wanted to make watercooler TV, she says, and now we have this thing in our hands that is both the TV and the watercooler.
Microdramas may be light-years away from Hollywood film and television, but as audiences continue flocking to the bite-size series, the industry may have little choice but to rethink what storytelling looks like in the palm of a hand.
Ultimately, humans will always crave stories, Osaki says. “Thats part of who we are. And well continue to explore new ways to tell them.
In 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom used his first State of the State address to level about the high-speed rail. The Los Angeles-to-San Francisco project would cost too much and, respectfully, take too long, he said at the time.
Newsom was taking issue with a plan first laid out in 2008 that promised a 2 hour 40 minute high-speed rail journey between S.F. and L.A., funded by a $10 billion bond. Those travel time requirements, combined with a too-low estimate for the initial funding, had made the full project practically impossible to execute.
So California came up with a solutionsort of. For the past six years, the state has focused its energy and funding on a 170-mile section in the middle of the route connecting the Central Valley cities of Merced and Bakersfield.
Now the newly instated CEO of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, Ian Choudri, is imploring Newsom and the state legislature to reverse course once again. Choudri is publicly declaring what has been intuitively obvious to anyone with the vaguest sense of the states geography: Merced to Bakersfield is not a great high-speed-rail corridor. A politically and economically viable system needs to connect the states major population centers. It needs to make good on what voters were promised in 2008 when the project was introduced.
Choudri has succeeded in one part of his mission: getting the state to extend its funding commitment to the project to the tune of $1 billion per year through 2045. But thats just the start of what he’ll need to accomplish to make high-speed rail a reality in California.
Choudri has asked the state government to consider a new plan that would expedite connections to the Bay Area and Los Angeles area using private funding. While hes at it, he has put out a laundry list of procedural reformspiggybacking off of the ascendent abundance movement popularized by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompsons best-selling bookthat could grease the wheels of a project notorious for delays.
It could be a do-or-die moment for California high-speed rail. The Trump administration is seeking to claw back more than $4 billion in grants, and Republicans in Congress have made clear that no new federal funds will be forthcoming as long as theyre in power. (The California High-Speed Rail Authority, or CHSRA, is fighting the administrations funding clawbacks in court.)
The program is now at its crossroads, Choudri said at a press conference in August. We can choose to let the challenges of the past define the program’s future, or we can meet the moment by supporting high-speed rail with the right tools and partnerships to make the kind of meaningful progress we all want to see.
A completed traffic-rail overpass in Tulare County [Photo: CHSRA]
A long time coming
Choudri has been talking about making major changes to the project since shortly after he took the CEO job a year ago. In August, the CHSRA offered the most detailed look at what those plans could entail in a published report.
The 2025 Supplemental Progress Update Report states that the current project, connecting Merced and Bakersfield, could be completed by 2032 at a cost of $37 billion. But it would be saddled by an ongoing operating deficit of at least $30 million annually, violating the terms of the 2008 ballot measure, which requires the project not to receive operating subsidies. That deficit would also make it impossible to bring in private investor partners.
A rendering of the planned Bakersfield station [Image: CHSRA]
By contrast, the report finds that a route connecting Bakersfield and Gilroy, on the rural fringes of Santa Clara County, would generate an operating surplus of roughly $300 million. Under this plan, high-speed trains would continue up to San Francisco on tracks shared with Caltrain. Construction would cost $54 billionnot including an additional $3 billion to $6 billion to electrify and improve Union Pacific-owned tracks connecting Gilroy and San Joseand be complete by 2038.
An additional connection from Bakersfield to Palmdale, where riders could transfer to local trains for Los Angeles or, potentially, to Brightline trains bound for Las Vegas, would generate an even greater operating surplus, of more than $600 million annually. Combined with the section up to Gilroy, this scheme would cost a total of $87 billion and could also be ready by 2038.
Those operating surpluses could be used to pay back investors over time, or to fund future extensions of the line.
A rendering of Brightline’s Las Vegas train [Image: Brightline West]
All of these scenarios would be value-engineered to be cheaper and more feasible to construct than previously envisioned. The railrod would be designed to handle steeper grades and sharper turns, limiting the expensive tunnels and viaducts that would be needed. Stations would be far smaller and less elaborate.
Choudri also hopes to maximize other revenue streams, like building transit-oriented development around stations, using railroad corridors for fiber-optic cables and electrical transmission lines, selling clean energy, and even building AI data centers.
To do this, and build the railroad, the CHSRA wants more power to streamline its own activities through permitting reform. These proposals build off of the abundance-inspired California Environmental Quality Act exemptions the state legislature passed in June, one of which specifically exempted high-speed rail stations and maintenance facilities from environmental review.
Another permitting reform bill that would have allowed neutral third parties to provide construction permits and capped the amount of time such permits would be allowed to take died in committee in August. A different bill that would empower the authority to capture profits from transit-oriented development is pending.
The project scored a major victory on September 10, when the state legislature and Newsom agreed to extend CHSRAs share of cap-and-trade funds through 2045, ensuring the project will receive $1 billion per year in funding. It is the single largest funding commitment the project has received in its history.
With this consistent revenue stream, Choudri believes private investors will come calling to help get the railroad out of the Central Valley. Over the summer, the authority received 31 responses to its request from private entities interested in getting involved in the project.
The part of the community that came in a strong way was the equity partners, Choudri said at the authoritys August 28 board meeting. The authority is continuing to have more detailed discussions with these groups.
Another potential model for partners is to make an up-front investment and then earn their money back by operating passenger trains, freight, or other services using the projects infrastructure. This is done in many other countries, Choudri noted at the board meeting, and many of those same firms are among those that responded to the authoritys request for expressions of interest.
However, in his statement celebrating the cap-and-trade funding, Choudri also suggested that a greater financial commitment from the state would be needed to get the project out of the Central Valley. We must also work toward securing the long-term fundingbeyond todays commitmentthat can bring high-speed rail to Californias population centers, where ridership and revenue growth will in turn support future expansions.
A rendering of the planned Merced station [Image: CHSRA]
New line, new challenges
The Bakersfield to Gilroy to San Francisco plan appears to be the authoritys favored option going forward, though Choudri insists that it would be a building block to completing the entire system. The NorCal-first phasing, leaving the project more than 100 miles and a mountain pass away from Los Angeles, has historically been an impediment to securing L.A.-area politicians support.
This plan would also require other challenging maneuvers. It would nix the city of Merced from the route after years of big promises, angering leaders there. It will also require negotiating with Union Pacific, and identifying additional funds to upgrade the stretch of track it owns between Gilroy and San Jose. (In a statement, Union Pacific said it had previously discussed sharing track with California High-Speed Rail along that segment, and is open to continued discussions.) Additionally, the plan would require a repeal of a 2022 law that limited spending outside of the Central Valley.
The pivot may even contravene the terms of the 2008 ballot initiative. As California Policy Center fellow Marc Joffe has observed, the slower travel times on that Gilroy to San Jose segment could render the total San Francisco to Los Angeles journey impossible to make in under 2 hours and 40 minutes, violating the ballot initiative language.
Joffe, a longtime critic of California High-Speed Rail, believes the best way forward is a new ballot initiative laying out a more manageable project, roughly in line with what Choudri is currently proposing. With recent polls showing Californians remain broadly supportive of the project, that could be a winning proposition.
Whats undeniably clear is that Choudri is finally leveling about the project in a way no public official has done. Hes not simply pointing out the overambitiousness and underfunding of the initial concept; hes also laying out more modest steps that could get a useful project up and running in our lifetimes, in his words. That means reckoning with the morass of procedural obstacles that have turned practically every lawsuit and permit into a delay, and the overdesigned stations and track structures that the project blithely pursued despite the escalating costs.
Instead of shooing away private-sector partners, as the CHSRA has done in the past, Choudri is welcoming them in with the humility that outside entities might know a little bit more about building high-speed rail than a state agency with no prior experience.
Perhaps the Trump administration’s threats arehaving a focusing effect for everyone involved. Newsom, hero of the anti-Trump resistance movement, would be loathe to concede defeat to the president on the states signature infrastructure project. Democrats skeptical of the project are probably going to be wary of aligning themselves with Trump.
The abundance movement has offered a new vocabulary for liberals to support cutting red tape for projects like this one. Indeed the book Abundance cites California High-Speed Rail as the epitome of liberal governance gone wrong. Choudris fixes for the project look like they came right out of the abundance playbook.
The tides have turned. The question is whether its too little, too late.
I don’t care about Starbucks.
Madrid now drowns in indie coffee shops with coffee brewed from specialty beans that are flown in by winged unicorns and roasted to perfection. In this city, the green mermaid feels as relevant as a McDonald’s next to Casa Botín (the oldest restaurant in the world, opened 51 years before the United States declared its independence), Dabiz Muozs three-Michelin-starred DiverXo, or any other of the best restaurants on the planet that reside in Madrid.
But for all my Eurotrash snobbery, I also dont hate Starbucks. In fact, I credit it as the first place in Madrid that actually offered a cup that didnt taste like it could resuscitate a fentanyl victim or kill an ironman triathlete. For a long time, Spanish coffee was strong, but not very pleasant.
[Photo: fitopardo/Getty Images
So when I learned that Starbucks planned to open a new flagship store in the troubled Santiago Bernabéu Stadiumhome of Real Madrid Club de Fútbol and host to Taylor Swifts fansI had to see it for myself. I live just around the corner from the stadium, so I took along my personal Lego architect (my son) for commentary.
His verdict? Oh boy!
And oh boy it is.
[Photo: courtesy of the author]
This isn’t your typical neighborhood Starbucks. We entered through the rather bland storefront, which looks just like every other restaurant and bar integrated in the stadium facade. But beyond the door there is a foyer with digital displays that completely cover the walls. They illustrate the journey of coffee, according to the company, in animated impressionistic sequences.
[Photo: courtesy of the author]
A destination in a destination
The cool starts when you walk into the central atrium. Concrete columnspart of the old stadium’s brutalist bonessoar toward the ceilings. Custom fixtures and plants line the walls. There is a big metal-and-wood staircase flanked by a large suspended sculpture, created by Madrid artist Cristina Mejías: a flowing ribbon that, according to the company, is an abstract Starbucks Siren that echoes the stadium’s curves. It accentuates the impression of never-ending space ahead of you.
[Photo: Starbucks]
On the bottom floor, there is your usual Starbucks counter, where you can order coffee and food. The company says the design pays homage to the original Pike Place store in Seattle and to the energy of Madrids San Miguel Market, an iconic iron fixture designed and built by Spanish architect Alfonso Dubé in 1916, now turned into a gourmet food court. To me, it feels nothing like San Miguel despite the use of metal, but whatever. Its a welcoming space that, unfortunately, was overcrowded (the stadium is Madrid’s top tourist destination, according to city officials).
[Photo: courtesy of the author]
The upper floor is what really got us going La madre que me parió! (literally, The mother who birthed me!one of Spains equivalents to Holy f%ck!). Its comprised of different lounge areasthere are small tables for small groups and large community tables, a library/reading space, and a giant mural that says MADRID. But the real attraction is the unobstructed view of the Bernabéu pitch, courtesy of floor-to-ceiling widows that stretch the entire length of the space.
[Photo: courtesy of the author]
On the right is the Reserve Bar, with a menu of delicious beverages and plates. Theres even a cheesecake created by chef Albert Adri, currently of Michelin-starred restaurant Enigma; Adri was the pastry chef at his brother Ferráns three-Michelin-starred elBulli, considered one of the world’s best restaurants before its closing in 2011. Starbucks boasts its mixology bar serves cocktails crafted by Coffee Masters who’ve competed in international championships.
[Photo: Starbucks]
I ordered a croque monsieurwhich was huge, with actual béchamel sauce, very good Emmental and Gruyre, and equally good ham on excellent sourdough breadand a Special Reserve cold brew coffee. My son got a strawberry croissant and a stracciatella (gelato) shake. The food was legitimately goodrestaurant quality, not chain store-y at all.
[Photo: Starbucks]
Can you watch games?
I wanted to know if it was possible to watch games on match days. Unfortunately, you cant. Starbucks says, “On match days, the store is closed a few hours before kickoffthis is to allow the usual security checks to take place at the Stadiumand reopens around an hour after the game concludes. The store has to be closed to allow VIP seat holders to reach their seats, but it remains closed and doesnt serve food for the duration of the game, the spokesperson says.
Starbucks says Bernabéu is among its largest coffeehouses, rivaled only, perhaps, by its other Reserve Roasteries in Chicago and Taipei, Taiwan. Superlatives don’t matter here. Spanning almost 10,000 square feet over two floors, this Starbucks feels like the biggest coffee shop I’ve ever seen.
The fact that it is integrated into an iconic location could have been a problem, but Starbucks is conscious about where it isthe city of Madrid and the Real Madrids stadium. The company built everything around those elements, rather than dropping corporate branding onto generic retail space.
The Chicago and Taipei Starbucks dont have the fundamental element that makes this the greatest Starbucks shop in the known universe: the views into the legendary pitch of the Bernabéu Stadium, home of the greatest soccer team of all time. It feels more like a destination that happens to serve coffee than a coffee shop with a nice view. I just hope there wont be a line out the door every day.
Sitting on a hillside between the mountains and the ocean in Lahaina, Hawaii, this new neighborhood of brightly-colored cottages did not exist a year ago.
The housesmost of which were built in factories in Colorado and Idaho and delivered to Maui on a bargeare temporary homes for families who lost everything in the Lahaina wildfires in 2023. Theyre also a new type of housing for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Built to meet local and international building codes, theyre very different from the cheap, toxic trailers that FEMA deployed 20 years ago, when Hurricane Katrina displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Some of those trailers had formaldehyde levels that were 75 times greater than safe levels. They were poorly insulated and never meant for long-term housing, but some families were stuck in them for years.
[Photo: Liv-Connected]
The cottages in Hawaii, by contrast, use materials chosen to maintain healthy air quality. The homes are filled with light, with huge windows and high ceilings. They were built to be durable, with the potential to be turned into affordable long-term housing after their temporary use.
They could be a model for future disaster response. But as the Trump administration pushes to dismantle FEMA, its not clear what will happen to the homes nowor what will happen during the next disaster.
[Photo: Liv-Connected]
Rethinking disaster housing
Liv-Connected, the New York City-based modular home company that designed most of the new Hawaiian cottages, didnt originally plan to build disaster housing. But the startup, founded in 2019, got attention from the disaster relief world after it made some early prototypes.
The companys first goal was to lower costs by making transportation easier for modular homes. The team saw the potential of building Lego-like homes efficiently in factories, but it also saw that other modular companies had failed in part because the homes were expensive to move, and building big factories in multiple locations was even more expensive.
We just said, all right, our modular can be differentits going to fit on a flatbed truck, says Jordan Rogove, CEO and cofounder of Liv-Connected. We worked backward from there: How do we get a really great house that fits on a standard flatbed?
[Photo: Liv-Connected]
While shipping a fully constructed volumetric modular house might require a couple of oversize trucks and cost $16 to $18 a mile, a home that fits on a flatbed truck could cost $2 to $3 per mile instead. The companys basic design includes some fully built pieces, like the kitchen and the bathroom. But most of the house can be flat-packed and then quickly assembled on-site.
The installation in Hawaii turned out to be different. Because the homes needed to travel more than 2,000 miles over the open ocean on a barge, it made sense to fully build each house and ship them in complete, watertight sealed units. (Future homes delivered to the continental U.S. could use the less expensive flat-packed version.) But there were other reasons that FEMA picked Liv-Connected to provide more than 100 homes for the site.
[Photo: Liv-Connected]
The houseswhich range from a 480-square-foot one-bedroom unit to a 980-square-foot three-bedroom homeare designed to help improve well-being, with high ceilings, wood-paneled walls, and outdoor views. “It’s just more generous and dignified,” Rogove says. “Our understanding of providing accommodations like that is that healing happens a lot faster.”
Outside, the homes are painted in different colors, both as a nod to buildings that were lost in the fire and to help the development feel more like a neighborhood. “I think the issue with those FEMA trailers is that they’re all identical, and then it starts to have this quality of barracks,” he adds. “So there isn’t a sense of neighborhood or a community.”
[Photo: Liv-Connected]
The homes are also designed to last, with fire-resistant siding and tight insulation. They could stay in good condition for decades, versus months or a few years for an old FEMA trailer. “In our discussions with FEMA, you really need to do better for people,” Rogove says. “If you are willing to spend upward of 20% to 30% more than you would for a trailer, you can have a home that could be used for up to 30 years. So it could be deployed multiple times as opposed to a single deployment and then basically tossed into the garbage.”
[Photo: Liv-Connected]
Building the neighborhood
After the wildfires in August 2023, FEMA invited developers to submit proposals for the homes the following March. In late June last year, Liv-Connected learned that it was selected to provide 109 homes in a first installment. (Two other companies provided a smaller number of houses, with 167 total in the development.) Then it worked with two manufacturing partners to begin building. One of FEMA’s requirements was that the homes would be delivered by November 2024.
“We effectively had about two months to build 109 homes,” Rogove says. “And then another two months to have all of them installed.” At the same time, engineers were preparing the site. Hawaii offered state-owned land for FEMA’s temporary use at no cost.
At a Colorado factory owned by Liv-Connected’s partner Fading West, a crew of workers spent 12-hour days on the project, building as many as 10 homes each week. Guerdon Modular Buildings, in Idaho, was contracted to build the final 25 homes, and it finished in two weeks. Then the houses were trucked to the Port of Seattle and spent three weeks on a barge to Maui. Just before Thanksgiving, families started moving in.
The process was incredibly fast, although the factories say that it could be even faster if FEMA could preapprove particular designs. “If FEMA had a library of preapproved modular plans, we could start production within seven to 10 days of a natural disaster, Tommy Rakes, CEO of Guerdon, said in one case study of the project. These homes could be shipped anywhere in the continental U.S. in three to five days, installed, and occupied within a day. In under three weeks, displaced victims could have permanent homes.
Having additional factories in some areas could also help. Fading West has talked to the Hawaiian government about the possibility of setting up a local modular housing factory to avoid long-distance transportation. The state also sees the potential for modular housing as a way to help it deal with the affordable housing crisis.
[Photo: Liv-Connected]
An uncertain future
In FEMA’s original plan, families would have up to five years to live in the homes in Lahaina, paying a fair market rent that’s limited to 30% of a household’s gross income. But the development may now close as soon as next February. FEMA would have to grant an extension to the state to keep it open later and continue providing financial assistance. The agency says that the state’s request is currently under review, but it didn’t provide more details.
It’s not clear what will happen next, or where the homes will end up when the project ends. Trump has called for eliminating FEMA and tried to cut billions in disaster funding. FEMA originally planned to build another 231 modular disaster relief homes in Lahaina, Rogove says, but that doesn’t appear to be moving forward. “It’s been absolute silence,” he adds. “So I think the likelihood of that happening seems to decrease day by day.” FEMA says that it isn’t planning another 231 homes.
In future disasters, it’s not clear how FEMA will handle housing or what role modular homes will play, though the agency says that modular homes may be considered when they’re a fit for local requirements. It’s possible that states may push the solution forward faster. In Maui, the state of Hawaii partnered with a nonprofit developer on another modular neighborhood built near the FEMA site. Texas has explored the idea of building modular housing in advance and storing the units in warehouses in key citiesready to deploy in a disaster. In California, Liv-Connected and other modular housing manufacturers are offering options to residents trying to rebuild after the Los Angeles fires.
“What we’ve seen so far is states stepping in to fill the gap, in the absence of the clear organizational order that was there before,” Rogove says. “I think that’s probably what it’s going to look like for the next several years. That fills me with hope for the states that have the capacity to do that. And I have a lot of reservations for states that don’t have those types of resources.”
In Hawaii, the state government says that FEMA’s assistance has been critical over the last several years through hurricanes, flooding, fires, and volcanic activity. “While state, local, and private resources have supported recovery, they are limited in scale and speed,” Gov. Josh Green wrote in a recent letter about the agency. “Timely federal deployment remains crucial to meeting the needs of affected communities.”
Today, a new glossy magazine called 72 hits the news stands. On the cover, you’ll find Julia Roberts gazing intensely at the camera, wearing a black button-down shirt and jacket designed by Phoebe Philo along with chunky diamond-encrusted jewelry. Inside, she’s interviewed by George Clooney, but you’ll also find stories about luminaries across fashion and entertainment, from Stella McCartney and Jonathan Anderson to Oprah Winfrey and Adwoa Aboah.
72, a quarterly fashion magazine, is the flagship product of a new media and entertainment company called EE72. It is cofounded by Edward Enninful, the former editor-in-chief of British Vogue, along with his sister, Akua Enninful, a talent agent. (The company’s name combines Edward’s initials and the year of his birth.) After more than two decades running some of the best-known fashion titles in the world, Enninful is ready to strike out on his own.
[Cover Image: Craig McDean (photograph)/courtesy EE72]
“When you are on someone else’s masthead, you have to please your bosses and advertisers,” he says. “I was ready for total creative freedom.”
Launching a new magazine in this moment is a bold move. The media industry has been on the decline for more than a decade, as people shift their attention toward streaming services and TikTok, and advertisers cut their spending on magazines and newspapers. Last year, 15,000 media jobs were cut in the United States, as places like the Washington Post and Vox Media had layoffs.
But Enninful is confident in his ability to create a profitable media business, despite these headwinds. After all, he’s done so before. In 2011, he took over W magazine when the publication was struggling and increased ad pages by 16%. Between 2017 and 2023, as editor-in-chief of British Vogue, he drove up both digital traffic and print circulation. “From the time I was in my twenties, I was always offered magazines that needed to be turned around,” he recalls. “Then I realized that turning things around is my superpower.”
New Business Models
Enninful started his career at a time when magazines were still thriving. He was scouted as a model in London as a teenager, going on to model for Arena and i-D, before pivoting to styling fashion shoots. He was eventually named fashion editor of i-D.
Until the internet and social media took off 20 years ago, magazines were a lucrative business because brands would pay top dollar to have their ads seen by large audiences. But 15 years ago, Enninful began to see the uphill battles the media industry was facing. In 2011, when he became style director at W, and then in 2017, when he became the editor in chief of British Vogue, advertising was beginning to decline.
To ensure the success of his magazines, Enninful had to think creatively about working with advertisers. Rather than just selling them banner ads or print pages, he’s been focused on finding other ways to collaborate. “The advertising system needed to be disrupted, and I’ve been doing this my whole career,” he says.
He’s bringing this same approach to 72. For the first issue, there isn’t a single page of advertising. Instead, he creates bespoke partnerships with each brand that involves things like in-person events, podcasts, videos, and even products. For instance, for the magazine’s launch party, 72 partnered with Moncler and Google Shopping, enabling these brands to get in front of some of the most influential people in fashion. “We offer our clients holistic packages that are tailored to their needs.” he says.
While Enninful is the chief creative officer of the company, he has hired a team of experts to run various parts of the business. Simone Oliver (formerly of BET and Refinery29) is the head of content, Sarah Harris (formerly of British Vogue) is the editorial director for both the magazine and website, and Lee Swillingham and Stuart Spalding (founders of the creative agency Suburbia) are co-creative directors of the magazine.
EE72 will also have another revenue stream in the form of a consulting wing that works directly with brands to advise them on how to be relevant in this cultural environment. “This takes the pressure off the magazine,” he says. “For the magazine, we can just focus on creating really excellent journalism and beautiful art rather than the needs of the advertisers.”
More Diversity
But to succeed as a magazine, you need more than just strong advertising revenue. You also need a fresh and relevant point of view. Over the course of the last two decades, Enninfulwhose family moved from Ghana to London when he was a childhas done this by bringing diversity to the notoriously exclusive fashion industry.
Throughout his career, he’s focused on highlighting the importance of inclusivity. In 2017, after President Trump was elected the first time, Enninful brought together 80 prominent members of the fashion industry to create a video called, “I Am An Immigrant.” In 2019, he used the September issue of British Vogue to spotlight 15 female trailblazers including Greta Thunberg. (The issue was guest-edited by Meghan Markle.)
Enninful says he will bring much of the same approach to 72. In many ways, the magazine will be reminiscent of other high-end fashion magazines on the market, including Vogue. We’ll see top designers’ latest collections and read interviews with cultural icons. There will be lavish photo spreads by top photographers. But Enninful will continue to focus on bringing in underrepresented voices and perspectives.
He believes it is particularly important to do this now because “diversity, equity, and inclusion” are under attack not just in the United States, but around the world. Enninful believes that promoting diversity isn’t just a moral issue: It’s good for business. “When you feature diverse people on the cover of the magazine, you attract more people into the eco-system that had previously been ignored,” he says. “Throughout my career, I’ve seen that this is great for business.”
But for all his experience in the magazine business, Enninful believes there’s still a lot to learn because the industry keeps changing. He says one of the most exciting things about starting a brand-new media company is that he has the freedom to experiment. He plans to run the magazine like a startup, instead of being bound to the traditions and systems of legacy media companies. “There’s a reason we didn’t buy an existing maazine title,” he says. “We didn’t want to be stuck with a legacy brand. We wanted something new, young, and agile. We can learn from mistakes, move quickly, and adapt.”
And ultimately, he believes that readers are also looking for something new right now. “Many people are exhausted by what they’re seeing in the media,” he says. “I think it’s a great time to be starting something new.”
When Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, it was the largest climate bill in U.S. history, with major incentives for electric vehicle production and adoption. In its wake, investment in the U.S. electric vehicle industry accelerated. But in 2025, President Donald Trumps so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act eliminated most of the incentives, and U.S. investment collapsed.
Hitting the brakes on electric vehicles will clearly mean less progress in reducing transportation emissions and less strategic U.S. leadership in a key technology of the future. But in a new study, my colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University and I find that fewer electric vehicles will also mean less investment to clean up the electricity sector.
How we got here
U.S. electric vehicle adoption lags behind the rest of the worldespecially China, which has invested heavily and strategically to dominate electric vehicle markets and supply chains and to leapfrog the historical dominance of American, European, and Japanese manufacturers of vehicles powered by internal combustion engines.
Electric vehicles are much simpler to engineer, and this opened a window for China to bet big on EVs with investment, incentives, and experimentation. As battery prices dropped dramatically, electric cars became real competition for gasoline carsespecially for the massive Chinese market, where buyers dont have strong prior preferences for gasoline. China now dominates the supply chain for battery materials, such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, and manganese, as well as the rare earth minerals used in electric motors.
In 2022, the U.S. took action to change this trend when Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act. The law encouraged EV adoption by lowering costs to manufacturers and consumers. But it also encouraged automakers to find ways to build EVs without Chinese materials by making the largest incentives conditional on avoiding China entirely.
After the law passed, investment soared across hundreds of new battery manufacturing and material processing facilities in the U.S.
But in 2025, Congress passed and Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which eliminated most of the incentives. U.S. investment in EV-related production has collapsed.
Electric vehicles are cleaner
As a scholar of electric vehicle technology, economics, environment, and policy, I have conducted numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies characterizing the benefits and costs of electric vehicles over their life cycle, from production through use and end of life. When charged with clean electricity, electric vehicles are one of the few technologies in existence that can provide transportation with near-zero emissions.
With todays electricity grid, EV emissions can vary, depending on the mix of electricity generators used in the region where they are charged, driving conditions such as weather or traffic, the specific vehicles being compared, and even the timing of charging. But EVs are generally better for the climate over their life cycle today than most gasoline vehicles, even if the most efficient gas-electric hybrids are still cleaner in some locations. EVs become cleaner as the electricity grid becomes cleaner and, importantly, it turns out that EVs can even help make the electricity grid cleaner.
This matters because transportation and electricity together make up the majority of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and the passenger cars and light trucks that we all drive produce the majority of our transportation emissions.
In its efforts to prevent the government from regulating greenhouse gas emissions, the Trump administration is now claiming that emissions from cars and trucks are not meaningful contributors to climate change. But in reality, a technology that cleans up both transportation and electricity at the same time is a big deal.
Across most of the U.S., adding electricity demand, such as from increasing the use of electric vehicles, would spark development of clean-energy power plants to meet that rising need. [Image: Michalek et al.]
An opportunity for cleaner electricity
Our research has found that turning away from electric vehicles does more than miss a chance to curb transportation emissionsit also misses an opportunity to make the nations electricity supply cleaner.
In our paper, my coauthors Lily Hanig, Corey Harper and Destenie Nock, and I looked at potential scenarios for electric vehicle adoption across the U.S. from now until 2050. We considere situations ranging from cases with no government policies supporting electric vehicles to cases with enough electric vehicle adoption to be on track with road maps targeting overall net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
In each of these scenarios, we calculated how the nations power grid and electricity generators would respond to electric vehicle charging load.
We found that when there are more electric vehicles charging, more power plants would need to be builtand because of cost competitiveness, most of those new power plants would be solar, wind, battery storage, and natural gas plants, depending on the region.
Once wind and solar plants are built, they are cheaper to operate than fossil fuel plants, because utilities dont need to buy more fuel to burn to make more electricity. That cost advantage means wind and solar energy get used first, so they can displace fossil-fuel generation even when EVs arent charging.
A virtuousor viciouscycle
Our analysis reveals that whats good for climate in the transportation sectoreliminating emissions from vehicle tailpipesis also good for climate in the power sector, supporting more investment in clean power and displacing more fossil fuel-powered generation.
As a result, encouraging electric vehicle adoption is even better for the climate than many people expected because EV charging can actually cause lower-emitting power plants to be built.
Gasoline vehicles cant last forever. The cheap oil will eventually run out. And EV batteries have gotten so cheap, with ranges now comparable to gas cars, that the global transition is already well underway. Even in the U.S., consumers are adopting more EVs as the technology improves and offers consumers more for less. The U.S. government cant single-handedly stop this transitionit can only decide how much to lead, lag, or resist. Rolling back electric vehicle incentives now means higher emissions, less clean energy investment, and weaker U.S. competitiveness in a crucial industry of the future.
Our findings show that slowing electric vehicle adoption doesnt just affect emissions from transportation. It also misses opportunities to help build a cleaner power sector, potentially locking the U.S. into higher emissions from its top two highest-emitting sectorspower generation and transportationwhile the window to avoid the worst effects of climate change is closing.
Jeremy J. Michalek is a professor of engineering & public policy, professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The aftermath of the assassination of Charlie Kirk in Orem, Utah, has been a maelstrom of misinformation and hatred, revealing how polarized social media and the past decade of digital conflict have left us. One of the most unsettling signs that something fundamental has broken in our sense of reality comes from a seemingly trivial detail: Donald Trumps pinky finger.
In a White House statement mourning Kirks death, many viewers focused less on the presidents words than on the video itself. The high-contrast footage was scrutinized for evidence that it had been manipulated by artificial intelligence, and some viewers claimed they found undeniable proof.
At one point in the clip, Trumps left pinky finger appears to merge with the others as he clasps his hands on the desk. Conspiracy theorists have seized on this, arguing it showed the president as proof that Trump didnt make the statement at all, or that it was highly doctored.
The reality is far more prosaic. A mix of the Trump White Houses preferred color tinting, combined with the low resolution and compression of digital video on social media, can cause frames to collapse or distort. Compression adds digital artifacts. Put it all together and you end up with something that makes a metaphorical mountain out of a molehill.
Before rushing to dismiss those who are crying foul, it helps to consider the broader context. Such conspiratorial thinking is easier to understand in a world awash with generative AI. When AI image and video generation tools that are capable of producing something not dissimilar to the Trump video are just a Google search away, it becomes easy to question everything.
Seeing is no longer believing. Early signs of this shift have already disrupted public discourse. When Catherine, the Princess of Wales, revealed her cancer diagnosis in a video shared on social media in March 2024, it was done so as a way to quell rumors that she had died. Even with video proof, many people insisted it was AI-generated.
At that time, the technology was not advanced enough to make such a fabrication plausible. Since then, though, tools have improved dramatically. The release of Googles Gemini AI image generator (nicknamed Nano Banana during its development) made it possible to create images nearly indistinguishable from reality. Paired with new video-generation systems, it is now entirely feasible to replicate the look of Trumps official White House video. In fact, it could be done quickly and cheaply.
These powerful tools have been a gift in many respects. Yet they are also unraveling our shared sense of reality. Add them to the toxicity of our modern discourse, and the cracks in public trust deepen into fractures. What counts as real is no longer obvious even to the most attentive observer. And that should alarm us all.
Dr. Natalie Nixon is the CEO of Figure 8 Thinking, a creativity and foresight strategy firm. As an advisor, she helps leaders connect the dots between creativity and business results. She was listed on the Top 50 Keynote Speakers In The World list for 2022 by Real Leaders.
Whats the big idea?
What if our most productive selves arent when were on Zoom calls or churning through emails, but when we give ourselves the space and the time to move, think, and rest? Move. Think. Rest. outlines a compelling new framework for work in the 21st century. One that replaces slowly dying of burnout at your desk with a productivity routine that makes downtime a must-have.
Below, Natalie shares five key insights from her new book, Move. Think. Rest.: Redefining Productivity & Our Relationship with Time. Listen to the audio versionread by Natalie herselfbelow, or in the Next Big Idea App.
1. The MTR framework gets you to your new human operating system
The MTR frameworkpronounced motoris an acronym for move, think, and rest. It isnt just another productivity hack; its a research-backed philosophy that serves as a powerful antidote to hustle culture and unprecedented burnout.
The MTR framework fundamentally challenges the outdated belief that movement, reflection, and rest are counterproductive to getting work done. Instead, it positions the incorporation of all three as essential ingredients for strategic creativity and sustainable success. When you move, think, and rest, you activate the two most fundamental elements of creativity: wonder and rigor.
I interviewed over 60 people for this book, including Ivy Ross, Chief Design Officer at Google. Ivy told me about a practice that perfectly embodies MTR in the thinking dimension. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when her team was overwhelmed by uncertainty, she facilitated an exercise where team members created fairy tales about the future. This helped them suspend judgment about how heavy and burdensome the pandemic felt.
This is MTR in action: using creative thinking (curiosity, imagination, dreaming, discipline, and technique) to move beyond traditional problem-solving. Ivy also organizes off-site trips where her team leaves their job titles back at the corporate office and, for example, visits a farm where they become beekeepers or flower pickers for the day. Time seems to stand still, and when they return to the office, they bring fresh perspective and renewed energy back to their work.
The MTR framework emphasizes that true productivity comes from allowing space to reset and nurture the workplaces most vital assets of mental health, imagination, and capacity to grow. This integrated approach enables flourishing in our modern world.
2. Shift focus from productivity to cultivation
MTR provokes a fundamental shift from traditional, quantitative productivity metrics that focus solely on outputs and speed to one of cultivation. This isnt just semantic wordplayits a complete reframing of how we approach work and success. Cultivation embraces a both/and paradigm:
It values both the individual and the collective.
It honors both quick growth spurts and slow, steady shifts.
It acknowledges both the work output, which is dormant and percolating beneath the surface, and the work outputs we can visibly measure.
Angela Val, CEO of Visit Philadelphia, told me, I would rather be a company that does a few things really well than 100 things kind of so-so. That means we have to make room for other new projects, new ideas. The only way to do that is to evaluate both the new ideas that people are suggesting and also evaluate the work that we currently do every so often.
This cultivation approach values what is emerging beyond tangible products, encompassing financial, social, experiential, and cultural value. Its about bringing the entirety of human potential to work, where productivity becomes a byproduct of a more expansive state of well-being.
Flourishing is a distinctive way to think about what comes from cultivating our work. It means blooming and blossoming in bold, colorful directions, and sometimes retreating into bud form when necessary. Think of it like a garden, where sometimes plants need to go dormant or be pruned in order to emerge stronger in the next season.
Ive seen this play out in organizations that have implemented new KPIs for what I call the Imagination Era. Instead of just measuring inventory turnover or cost per lead, theyre also adding indicators like time allocated for strategic thinking, frequency of cross-departmental collaboration, and employee engagement in prototyping and creative problem-solving activities.
3. Embrace play and liminal spaces as catalysts for innovation
Play is the original MTR activity, a powerful energy generator that fuels creativity, resilience, and connection. As part of my research, I visited Brendan Boyles class on play at Stanford Universitys d.school. Brendan is a toy designer and consults companies on the business advantages of integrating play. He defines play as engagement that is intrinsically motivated, purposeless, enjoyable, and involves a suspension of self-consciousness. Play is a vital tool for dealing with uncertainty and stimulating innovation.
But heres whats fascinating: Play often happens in liminal spaces, meaning those ambiguous, in-between times and environments where creativity thrives. These are undefined, transitional periods, such as daydreaming, micro-retreats, or those moments when youre half-awake in the morning.
Observations during my ‘procrastination’ moments often led to the most insightful passages in my book.
2023 research from MIT on Targeted Dream Incubation underscores the power of these liminal states. The study found that participants who received specific task prompts before napping produced more creative stories and performed better on divergent thinking tasks, compared to those who napped without receiving prompts or who stayed awake. I experienced this firsthand during my writing sabbatical in Miami Beach to write this very book. I was observing a young woman giving a Pilates class from her laptop while sitting cross-legged, outside under palm treesa perfect example of how the boundaries between work and life are blurring in creative ways. These observations during my procrastination moments often led to the most insightful passages in my book.
Companies are beginning to recognize this. Take Flown, an online community that creates virtual coworking sessions designed to minimize distractions and maximize deep work. Theyve found that by intentionally creating liminal spacesquiet, focused environmentspeople achieve breakthrough thinking that wouldnt happen in traditional office settings.
4. Activate MTR in your life and organization
The beauty of MTR is that its scalable. Whether youre an individual contributor, team leader, or running an organization, these principles can be integrated at every level.
For individuals, it might be as simple as taking walking meetings, practicing what I call micro-dosing movement throughout your day, or protecting time for 90-second daydream breaks for what appears to be unproductive thinking but actually seeds an innovative idea.
For teams, consider regularly implementing creative breaks where groups step away from their immediate tasks to engage in seemingly unrelated activities. Spotify does this through their squad model, where teams regularly rotate members and share learnings across different projects. And Publicis Le Truc, an internal creativity catalyst, has designed its physical space to enable teams to meet in diverse areas, with serendipity in mind, to spark new thinking.
For organizations, its about creating systematic support for MTR activities. This might include offering sabbaticals. Tech companies like Meta provide these extended breaks after five years of service. Or implementing what I call apprenticeship models where knowledge flows both up and down the organizational hierarchy.
AI can serve as a thinking partner, helping us frame more effective questions and explore ideas from new perspectives.
Now heres something crucial: MTR is not anti-technology. Its about developing a more intentional relationship with the tech tools that surround us to enhance our thinking processes. AI can serve as a thinking partner, helping us frame more effective questions and explore ideas from new perspectives. Apps like Freedom or Forest can help minimize distractions during focused work periods. Digital mind-mapping tools can help us organize thoughts more effectively.
The key is remembering that the I in AI stands for intelligencebut youre still in charge of your own imagination. We need not only big datathe birds eye viewbut also what I call deep data: the worms eye view insights that come from exploratory observations, interpersonal interactions, and story.
5. Lets look ahead
Were at a perfect inflection point in history. We have an unprecedented opportunity to evolve the ways we view work and productivity. Were not just experiencing a technology revolution. Were in the midst of a human revolution.
The organizations and individuals who will thrive in this Imagination Era are those who understand that creativity is a must-have for navigating uncertainty, driving innovation, and creating meaningful value.
MTR gives us a framework for accessing our unique human capacity for innovation. It helps us build career resilience, prevent burnout, and create space for the strategic thinking that leads to breakthrough solutions.
The goal is to unlock your full potential and cultivate a more meaningful work life. When you move, think, and rest, youre not procrastinating. Youre accessing the most human parts of yourself that cant be automated or replicated by technology.
This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
Companies large and small are scrambling to implement AI in hopes of boosting productivity, while many are also stripping out the very leadership backbone needed to guide that change: managers. Thats a dangerous contradiction. AI adoption wont fail because of the platform a company chooses. It will fail if the people employees trust most, their managers, arent equipped to understand artificial intelligence, or if those roles disappear altogether.
In todays climate of employee disengagement, burnout, and change fatigue, employees are resistant to yet another transformation. Thirty-one percent admit theyre actively working against their companys AI initiatives. No platform, no matter how powerful, can overcome that level of pushback without leaders stepping in to bridge the gap.
Enter the middle manager. Whether you call them people leaders or frontline supervisors, they are the best (and often only) individuals to help employees understand the why and the whats in it for me. Yet only 34% of managers feel prepared to support AI adoption.
Its clear that managers have the promise and power to help employees navigate changebut context is key. Our research at Zeno Group, Middle Managers at Risk: Companies Overlook the Communications Imperative, shows nearly three-quarters of middle managers (73%) believe its important to be able to explain the “why” behind company decisions in order to be a successful manager.
However, when it comes to AI, nearly three-quarters of executives claim their AI approach is strategicyet fewer than half of employees agree. That disconnect underscores the need for trusted messengers. Managers, valued for their communication and empathy, are best positioned to close the gap. With the right support, they can help employees move from resistance to resilience.
Here are five ways managers can turn anxious employees into AI champions.
1. Communicate the companys AI Vision
Managers cant communicate what they dont understand. Only 22% of employees say their company has communicated a clear AI plan. That leaves many managers guessing or giving up.
When theyre given the trust and tools to lead, managers can be powerful catalysts for change. Sitting at the intersection of strategy and execution, theyre the ones who turn lofty vision into daily action, earn credibility with employees, and translate ambitious AI transformations into something real and usable on the ground.
Give them training, FAQs, and talking points that tie AI implementation back to company goals. Create forums where managers can ask questions. When theyre included early, they become credible messengers. Left in the dark, they add to the skepticism.
2. Acknowledge Change Fatigue and Keep Dialogue Open
While more change is coming, the workforce is exhausted. Even back in 2022, the average employee experienced 10 planned enterprise changes, compared with just two in 2016. Their ability to cope has fallen sharply, from 74% to 43%. Add shifting RTO rules and fears of job loss, and resistance is natural.
Managers can ease resistance by acknowledging the environment were in, sharing their own experiences, and inviting honest dialogue. Use team meetings to bust myths, answer questions, and show where AI supports (not replaces) human contributions. Concerns voiced arent threats; theyre opportunities to build trust.
3. Answer the Whats in it for Me?
If employees cant see the personal benefit, AI feels like a mandate. Show how AI can save time, automate repetitive tasks, and free up space for creativity and growth.
Managers are closest to the employees and the work, so they are best positioned to share examples of how AI can genuinely improve day-to-day tasks and experiences.
4. Walk the Talk
Employees wont embrace tools their managers dont understand or use. The old show and tell approach can spark curiosity and normalize AI use in the workplace.
Encourage managers to experiment with AI in their workflows and share results, including how it enhanced or sped up a project. Then invite employees to do the same. Consider adding an AI spotlight segment at team meetings and recognizing team members who are using AI.
5. Measure Readiness and Seek Feedback
Research shows 75% of employees report low confidence in using AI, and 40% struggle to understand how it applies to their roles.
Managers can help by finding out where their teams feel uncertain. They can gather insights through quick pulse surveys, one-on-ones, or informal conversations, and then advocate for the right training, mentoring, and reskilling programs. Confidence grows when people feel capable, heard, and backed by their leaders.
The Bottom Line
AI isnt the future of work. Its here now. And its success will hinge less on code and more on conversationsongoing conversations that managers have with their teams. Dont sideline managers. Equip them to be the heroes of your organizations AI adoption journey, turning anxiety into confidence and momentum.
When incoming freshman Matt Cooper first set his eyes out for a coveted sousaphone position for the L row at The Ohio State University Marching Band, he prepared for auditions like anyone else would: practicing, playing, asking for help.
Except help came not from a coach, but from ChatGPT.
For many college students like Cooper, artificial intelligence has become a part of daily life.
This widespread everyday adoption marks a stark contrast from even a couple years ago, though: When OpenAI first introduced its chatbot to the public in 2022, the idea of AI in school settings ignited a heated debate on how the technology belonged in the classroom, if at all.
Just three years later, its adoption has spread rapidly. A recent nationwide study by Grammarly found that 87% of higher ed students use AI for school, and 90% use it in daily life spending 10 hours on average each week using AI. (Another study by the Digital Education Council had similar insights, finding that 86% of students around the world use AI for their studies.)
Yet colleges still have a patch quilt of standards for what constitutes acceptable AI use and what’s verboten. Across majors and universities in the US, Grammarly also discovered that while 78% of students say their schools have an AI policy, 32% say the policy is to not use AI. Nearly 46% of students said they worried about getting in trouble for using AI.
For instance, using AI to break down complex topics covered in class might be generally accepted, but using ChatGPT to edit an essay might raise some eyebrows.
Meanwhile, as students engage with the real world and consider their career options, they feel like theyre going to be left behind if they dont develop AI expertise, especially as they complete internships, where theyre told as much to their faces. AI literacy has been called the most in-demand skill for workers in 2025.
That’s creating mixed emotions among college students, who are caught in between trying to follow two different sets of rules simultaneously.
To understand just how much AI has transformed young peoples lives, Fast Company reached out to undergraduates nationwide to find out how they’re navigating these conflicting mandates. What we found is that as the new technology continues to evolve, its carving a spot into the lives of college students whether adults (or the students themselves) like it or not.
In this Premium story, youll learn:
The creative ways Gen Z students are incorporating AI into their lives to become AI fluent, even if they can’t use it in their studies
Why AI’s popularity as a coding assistant is starting to change how colleges think about AI in the classroom
How current and recent students are striking a balance between “old school” and “new school” ways of learning
An everyday companion
As Ohio States Cooper practiced all summer for auditions, he found new ways to include technology into his life. AI has actually helped a fairly decent amount with it, in ways that people wouldn’t normally expect,” he says.
From generating music sheets, or helping him memorize major scales and read key signatures, ChatGPT became Coopers trusted virtual coach. In a matter of 20 seconds, it can come up with a full sheet of music to practice on any difficulty, he says. (On top of that, the chatbot does it all for free.)
When Caitlin Conway, a senior at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, returned to school after a full-time internship in marketing, she found university life to be a bit of reverse culture shock after being out in the workforce. But shes found easy-to-use chatbots like ChatGPT useful for adding more structure to her days.
I found that you have so much time that sometimes you don’t really know what to do with it, Conway says. I use ChatGPT to make a schedule. Like: I want to have this amount of time to do studying, to do my homework, and do a yoga class, and it’ll come up with an easy schedule for me to follow.
Maliha Mahmud, a rising senior in business and advertising at the University of Florida, uses AI to streamline daily tasks outside of class. Shell ask ChatGPT to craft a series of recipes with leftover ingredients in her fridge (as opposed to relying on instant ramen like generations of college kids before her). For school, Mahmud relies on AI as a sort of private instructor, willing to answer questions at any time. I’ll tell AI to break a concept down to me as if they’re talking to a middle schooler to understand it more, she says.
Many students also mentioned Googles Notebook LM, an AI tool that helps analyze sources you upload, rather than searching the web for answers. Students can upload their notes, required readings, and journals to the platform, and ask Notebook LM to make custom audio summaries with human-like voices.
Still, the value of AI was oftentimes taught outside the classroom, in the workforce. Many students saying they were not only allowed, but encouraged to use AI during their internships. At her first internship at a tech PR company, New York University senior Anyka Chakravarty says that she felt that to be a successful person, you need to become AI fluent, so there’s a tension there as well.
Mahmud echoes Chakravartys experience. During my internship, it was encouraged to be utilizing AI, she says. At first I thought it was a replacement, or that it was not letting us critically think. [But] it has been such a time saver. Mahmud used Microsofts Copilot to automatically transcribe meetings, take notes, and send them to participants tasks an intern would have done manually in the past.
All this is a far cry from how college students have been conditioned to think about AI as potential grounds for expulsion.
A checkered past (and present)
Todays college generation was raised on plagiarism anxiety. Their pre-GPT world involved rechecking citations and resorting to online plagiarism checkers.
I was just like, I don’t want to touch this, because I don’t want to be ever accused of plagiarism. It definitely could be seen as very taboo, says Grant Dutro, a recent economics and communications graduate from Wheaton College in Illinois.
Although more than half of students now use AI routinely, it wasnt always welcomed with open arms particularly for students who started college without it. Most students interviewed expressed an initial hesitation towardsAI, because of that all-too-well known fear of getting flagged for plagiarism.
For decades, students were told that they could face severe repercussions for turning to the internet to download pre-written essays, copying material from books or blogs, and more. As technology advanced, so did the opportunities to plagiarize, particularly with the rise of services like TurnItIn, which flags copy-pasted and non-cited sources on essays.
Although colleges have managed to catch up with setting guidelines in place, the policies are oftentimes prohibitive, unclear, or left to the instructors. For many teachers, the AI policies in their classrooms are not universal, which is confusing for students and may even lead them to inadvertently getting in trouble.
For students whose policy falls to an instructor-by-instructor basis, this can sometimes mean that students taking the same course, but with different professors, could have vastly different experiences with AI, at least in the classroom.
It’s morally incomprehensible to me that a large institution would not put front and center defining what their policies are, making sure they are consistent within departments, says Jenny Maxwell, Grammarlys head of education. Because of the institution not being clear on their policy, their own students are being harmed because of that lack of communication, Maxwell added.
While AI use in school appears to be steadily destigmatized among students, it certainly is in the workplace. Some students who recently completed internships said that not only were they allowed to use AI on the job, but were encouraged to do so (Sure enough, experts recommend recent grads upskill themselves in AI literacy, while one in three managers say theyll refuse to hire candidates with no AI skills.)
A new way to learn
The conflicting messages of AI gets you in trouble and AI is the future complicates the technologys presence in college students lives, be it in class, on an internship, or in the dorm. But for many, its simply shifting what learning looks like.
For instance, the framework to evaluate studentss success might have depended on essays in the past. But today, it might be more suitable to judge both the essay and the process of writing with technology, Grammarlys Maxwell says. Many students say that standards are changing to measure their learning already.
Claire Shaw, a former engineering student at the University of Toronto who graduated in 2024, explained that when she began college, she learned the basics of coding at the same time that AI piqued the interest of her instructors. She learned the old school way while being encouraged by some of her teachers to play with new technology. Still, Shaw did not start using AI for school until her fourth year. Now, she believes a balance between old school and new school can exist.
You’re allowed to use AI tools, so the standard for those kinds of coding assignments were elevated, Shaw says. It points to a big shift: In academia, where AI was (and in many cases, still does) feel taboo, its also being embraced, even in class.
But now that AI is now an expected tool, the difficulty of coding assignments has been elevated, she says, leading to more advanced projects at an earlier stage in a student’s career. And while this might be exciting, and a great prep for the future, Shaw still highlights the need to understand fundamentals skills you learn on your own without AIs help before jumping in head first.
There are certain moments where we still need to test the raw skills of somebody by setting up environments that don’t have AI tool access, she explained, referencing in-person examinations with no AI tools available.
Think of it as learning to drive stick, while automatic cars exist combining AI with traditional teaching methods may create a more holistic education. Similarly for humanities majors, some instructors are taking notes out of the old school playbook to measure these raw skills, like debating, communication, and critical thinking. We’ve turned to doing a lot more interactive stuff, like doing discussion circles, or handwriting pieces of writing, says NYUs Chakravarty, whos also a mentor in the schools writing center.
College students know AI isnt going anywhere. Even though everyone students, teachers, schools, first bosses continues to stumble their way through adoption, there will be some aspects of the college experience that may never go obsolete.
My professors brought out blue books again, says Chakravarty. Which I hadn’t had since, like, my first semester.
