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The United States has a well-developed digital economy, encompassing about 18% of its total economy, according to several sources and research from the International Data Center Authority (IDCA). This is above the world average of 15%. But the U.S. can always do better. The IDCA defines a digital economy as representing all economic activities that are reliant on or significantly enhanced by the use of digital technologies, including digital infrastructure, AI, and digital services. Having worked with hundreds of public data sources and its own surveys to create its Digital Readiness of Nations Index, the IDCAs Global Digital Economy Report (2025) is a unique deep dive into the current development of the world’s digital economies. Digging Into Digital Economy Data This Index places the digital economies of the nations of the world into four categories: Phase III (Advanced), Phase II (Significantly Developed), Phase I (Early-Stage), and a Pre-Phase. It examines all the data sets across four broad categorieseconomy, environment, social, and governanceto rank the nations on a scale of 0 to 100. The Index considers relative progress, that is, how well each nation has developed its digital economy with respect to its economic resources and social development. Doing this shows only six nations that are currently in an advanced, Phase III stage of development. Surprisingly enough, despite its economic size and potential, the United States is not one of them. In fact, none of the world’s G7 or even G20 nations have reached this advanced status, either. Today, Phase III has been accomplished only by the small nations of Scandinavia, Finland, and Switzerland. An aggressive commitment to the use of sustainable energy, relative income parity, and strong government institutions are all characteristics of this group. The U.S. Is Not the Exemplar So far the largest nations of the world, including the United States, have not been able to match these smaller countries. The U.S. and its G7 cohort are instead ensconced among a group of a few dozen nations within the Phase II group, all of which show significantly developed digital economies. Digging into the data finds that within this group, the U.S. lags Canada, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and the U.K. in its commitment to sustainable energy, income parity, and strong government institutions. Expanding the focus to the G20 group of nations finds more diffuse progress. Because membership in the G20 club is simply based on the size of a nation’s overall economy, not its relative development or wealth, there are several still-developing nations in the G20, including Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and South Africa. There are also the troubled economies of Argentina and Russia in this group. All the nations cited here are in Phase I, still at an early stage of their digital economies. It must be noted, though, that Brazil, China, and to some degree India, continue to make considerable progress toward fully developed economies and a higher stage of digital economy development. So despite leading the world in the size of its overall economy and digital economy, having reached its status on the back of compounded historic economic dominance, the U.S. is not truly an exemplar for the world. What can the nation do to improve its standing? Create a national strategy and policies American business and government leaders pride themselves on how the U.S. has long been the world’s capital of innovation and IT development without the help of national strategies or focused policies. But ad hoc development on the scale envisioned for the AI age will end up being more chaoticand less effectivethan necessary. The U.S. does not need to reach EU levels of regulation and enforcement, but its federal government can do more to meet today’s Sputnik challenge, or watch China and the EU run away with leadership of AI and digital economies. Build more sustainable energy Renewable energy delivers 20.3% of the electricity consumed within the United States, below the world average of 30%. Nuclear energy adds another 18.2% to the U.S. grid, which technically brings it close to the world average for sustainable energy. But this is not good enough. The U.S. remains the world’s second-largest producer of greenhouse gases and lacks a true commitment to sustainable energy progress. Focus on workforce development Even though the U.S. has the world’s largest IT-skilled workforce, it needs to upskill and retrain millions of people to prepare for the skills demanded by the continued growth of AI development and AI-driven data centers. The IDCAs own report recently found a workforce deficit of over 100 million IT workers globally. There are already several hundred billion dollars worth of large, advanced AI data centers being planned in the U.S., but without a workforce adequate to the challenge, these new facilities will be underused and mismanaged. Tapping into a holistic and dynamic set of professional training programs is key here. Ensure smart buildouts More than 40% of the world’s data centers are located in the U.S., and projections show that this dominance will continue. But it will be a grave mistake to build data centers along the same old, general purpose, inefficient lines. The new data centers, whether a small 10-megawatt building or sprawling gigawatt-sized campus, must all be built to suit, with the most efficient energy management and computational efficiency available. Developers must not only be smart about building them but also focus on smart environments that support more robotic manufacturing, autonomous transportation, sensor-driven energy management, and AI-driven services to businesses and consumers. A high bar In summary, it would be unfair to say that the U.S. significantly lags the G7, or any other group of nations, in the development of its digital economy. The situation is not dire, and the U.S. has not already given away the game. In fact, we see an influx of announcements for data centers and AI investments committing to the U.S. economy. However, due to its sheer size and potential, what might be great for some countries is considered poorly accomplished by our benchmark. The world’s largest economic power needs to judge itself solely by the standards of what it can accomplish, comparisons be damned. U.S. government and business leaders must work much harder to deliver on the nation’s potential.
Category:
E-Commerce
Tom Brady’s post-football career has been as methodical as his two-minute drill, and arguably more lucrative. The seven-time Super Bowl champion has systematically built a business empire spanning wellness (TB12), apparel (Brady Brand), and media (Religion of Sports), among other things, along with ownership stakes in the Las Vegas Raiders and Birmingham City FC. And then, of course, theres the 10-year, $375 million deal he signed in 2024 to serve as lead NFL analyst for Fox Sports. Now he’s adding another vertical to his portfolio: organic snacks. GOAT Gummies, Brady’s latest venture, launched this week exclusively with instant-delivery company Gopuff. The organic, vegan gummies represent Brady’s characteristic obsession with optimizationthis time applied to what he calls “better for you” indulgences. Brady, who is also an investor in Gopuff, worked directly with the product team to refine the gummies’ flavors, perfect their textures, and ensure the product aligns with his TB12 philosophy of plant-based, organic nutrition that made him a freakishly effective athlete well into his forties. Brady sat down with Fast Company to discuss his latest venture, his new life as an investor and entrepreneur, and his strategic process for vetting new opportunities. The interview has been edited and condensed. First things first: Why gummies, and why Gopuff? How did this collaboration come about? I originally started using Gopuff when I moved to Florida and got introduced to the two guys who started the company on a Zoom call during COVID. I love what they’ve created, and now they’ve become friends. Ive learned that this business is crowded and you need things that really cut through, and I like partnering with smart, forward-thinking people, and everyone at Gopuff is that. So we said we wanted to create some products, I looked at things that I enjoy, and I enjoy gummies. I’m very intentional about what I put in my body, even in retirement. So it came down to creating a healthier option. What can my kids eat? What can their friends eat when they come over? So we started with these gummies. Hopefully, there will be other products in the future. How has your approach to evaluating business opportunities evolved, and whats your due diligence process now? I still love sports. I still love hard work and that “no take no prisoners” mindset. I love that. But I had to create that specific lifestyle because I was a professional athlete and my body was my asset. Now Ive realized that not a lot of people want to live the way I live. So now I want to make people just a little bit better. How can we make things that are a little bit better for you, that taste good, that are sustainable? If you want to be a little bit healthier, let me give you options. If you want to have a better health productwhether that’s something to drink or something to eatwe’re going to do that. What do you remember from your Merrill Lynch internships during college, and how did that early business experience shape your philosophy as a businessman and entrepreneur? I worked 10-hour days at Merrill Lynch. I’d sit in on financial product meetings and I would make mock portfolios and track them. Every day, I thought, Man, I’m going to get into business if this football thing doesn’t work out. I do believe that if I were focused on business 23 years ago, I could have been pretty good at that as well. I’m very fortunate that football worked out, but I think the same traits really apply. Youve got to work hard. You need discipline. Youve got to double down on the fundamentals. Youve got to have the right amount of EQ and IQ. You have to be resilient. Youve got to find ways to outlast the competition. That’s sports, but that’s also business. What are the biggest lessons you’ve learned about entrepreneurship from the many successful people you’ve met over 25 years? I feel like I’ve been fortunate over a long period of time to meet so many different people from so many walks of life. I love people who have visions and operate with great communication. I think all great entrepreneurs are great teachers who make things as simple as possible for people to understand. It’s easy to make things complicated. The best entrepreneurs make things simple. What’s been the most challenging part of transitioning from football to managing multiple business ventures in retirement? I think organizing the day and being very efficient with the day. When you don’t have the structure of the game, it’s a little more challenging. Being a couple of years out now from playing, I have a little bit better structure. I’m going to build out an office. Ive got a great team of people who can actualize a lot of the vision that we set forth. Whats constantly in my brain is . . . trying to make things simpler for myself, too. Because now in broadcasting, when youve got 30 million people watching, you need to be as simple as possible, but you still need to educate. The entrepreneurial mindset helps because it really comes down to, How can I explain things in the simplest way possible to get my point across? If you were starting over today as an entrepreneur, where do you see the biggest opportunity for impact? I think I can make the most impact in leadership training, mentality, overcoming adversity, teaching resilienceall the things that make people successful. How do you find success in your life? Well, first you have to visualize it and you have to create a plan. You need to have discipline around that. How can we get people with great mindsets who are resilient in whatever business they’re in to overcome whatever adversities they’re going to face so that they can actualize their potential? How can they reach their dreams, and how can I play a role in helping them do that? One of my idols was Steve Young, and he always says, “Make sure you pay it forward.” Ive been so fortunate to have people come into my life to teach me at very important times. So now it’s like, How do I take the lessons I learned and give back? How do I pay it forward? Thats what I love. Whats the message you teach when youre out there paying it forward? I have a certain standard, and it’s no bullshit. People don’t get better by doing nothing. You don’t sit around your couch, wasting your time, bitching about other people. That ain’t gonna work. Get off your ass. Go do something. Find something you love to do, and work hard at it. No excuses, no bullshit. Keep grinding. Find a way.
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E-Commerce
Herman Miller has brought a new archival piece from the founding director of its textile division back into production. The Girard Stool by Alexander Girard is a four-legged, 18.6-inch-tall stool that can be used as a footrest or seat. It comes with multiple options for geometric, patterned textile upholstery designed by Girard as well as Herman Miller’s current fabrics, fitting for a stool designed by someone who made more than 300 textile designs for Herman Miller from 1952 to 1973. [Photo: Herman Miller] First designed in 1967, the modernized Girard Stool was redesigned for sustainability, with recycled aluminum and bio-based foam, and it’s not the first archival furniture of Girard’s that Herman Miller has brought out of its vaults. In January, the furniture manufacturer brought back the Girard Flower Table, a scalloped-edge, blossom-inspired table, while the Girard Color Wheel Ottoman that the designer made comes in monochromatic color schemes. In 2023, they reintroduced a collection of original posters by Girard. Herman Miller’s Michigan-based parent company MillerKnoll reported a slight 0.4% year-over-year net sales increase on its March earnings call, and the company has found success in updating its bestsellers, like a sustainable update to its iconic Eames Lounge Chair last year. Reissuing archival pieces is a model Ikea has also played into, proving that sometimes a classic concept just needs a modern remake.
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E-Commerce
The NBA’s Orlando Magic looked to the past for inspiration for its rebrand. The team, which Forbes valued last year at $3.2 billion, unveiled a new logo, wordmarks, uniforms, and court this week, and the new look is a contemporary take on the team’s original uniforms from 1989 to 2000. It was a time when players like Shaquille O’Neal and Penny Hardaway wore pinstripes and the team made one of its two franchise appearances in the league finals. It’s also a fan-favorite era. Shaquille O’Neal (No. 32) and Penny Hardaway (No. 1) in action versus the Houston Rockets at Orlando Arena in 1995 [Photo: John W. McDonough/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images] We heard from the fans loud and clear over many years about bold pinstripes, Shelly Wilkes, EVP of marketing and social responsibility for the Magic, told In the Zone on iHeart Radio. People have such passion around our original uniforms. Orlando Magics logo progression through the years. Top, from left: 1989-2000 and 2001-2010; bottom, from left: 2011-2025 and the brand-new design unveiled this week [Images: Orlando Magic] Nostalgia sells in pro sports. The Toronto Raptors recently brought back its old Raptor mascot for a special 30th-edition logo, while in other leagues, teams like the MLB’s Milwaukee Brewers and the NFL’s New York Jets introduced their own retro-inspired logos in recent years because of the built-in brand equity from a team’s golden age. Team rebrands don’t always land, and iterating on well-known, beloved assets is a safer bet than trying something new. For NBA teams, though, it’s not as simple as bringing an old uniform out from the archives to wear again. That’s not allowed via licensing rights, Wilkes said of agreements between the team and partners like the NBA and Nike. You can’t go back. But you can modernize an old idea. The rebrand process began in 2021 with multiple agencies and many early concepts that didn’t resonate. There were 14 different logos, each with multiple variations. Out of more than 30 uniform designs, the team narrowed it down to the final three, in blue, white, and black. All of them have pinstripes and retro-inspired trim, and the new Magic and Orlando wordmarks swap out the letter A for a star designed to look like it’s in motion. One of the jerseys features Chicago Bulls great Michael Jordans Jumpman logo (Jordan Brand partnered with the NBA in 2020), and all feature the Disney logo for the team’s uniform sponsor. [Image: Orlando Magic] Wilkes said the timing of the new logo and uniforms is the result of a pivotal moment in franchise history, but the final designs were submitted to the NBA and Nike in 2023, to give you an idea of the multiyear process involved in rebranding a professional team. That’s a long lead time, but by building a new brand informed by fan feedback and team history, the Magic ensured its new era has a visual identity that feels both classic and fashion-forward and aims to stand the test of time.
Category:
E-Commerce
For the past year and a half, there’s been a simmering concern over what AI is going to do to the workforce. Last week, that concern boiled over in a big way following back-to-back news stories: First, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei set off alarm bells by predicting that AI would wipe out half of entry-level jobs and massively drive up unemployment. As if on cue, Business Insider announced it was laying off 21% of its staff. While the two obviously aren’t directly related, the one-two punch landed hard in the media business, which faces an existential threat to its business model (in a nutshell, AI answers mean less traffic than search). But like all demographics, it’s important to remember that the media isn’t a monolith. While AI summaries mean rapidly changing audience habits for all publishers, BI‘s move emphasizes that digital-native brands are particularly vulnerable. In her memo to BI staff, CEO Barbara Peng said the company was “going all-in on AI,” explaining that the layoffs were part of a broader strategic shift and that, going forward, the publication would need to reduce its dependence on traffic in general. In addition to cutting click-dependent areas like its commerce business, BI would launch live journalism events, double down on subscriptions, and encourage all its journalists to embrace AI tools. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/mediacopilot-logo-ss.png","headline":"Media CoPilot","description":"Want more about how AI is changing media? Never miss an update from Pete Pachal by signing up for Media CoPilot. To learn more visit mediacopilot.substack.com","substackDomain":"https:\/\/mediacopilot.substack.com\/","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}} This is far from the publication’s first move on this course. Not long ago, the company had ambitions to become a general interest brand, but after changing its name to Insider in 2021, it switched back to Business Insider less than three years later. Since then, the publication has been investing more in unique voices and talent instead of the volume content that fueled the company’s rise in the 2010s, when media brands like Vice, Quartz, and Buzzfeed were dominant. The old media playbook meets a new world The thing about BI, though, is that it was one of the few success stories to come out of that era. The publication sold to Axel Springer for $343 million dollars back in 2015, just before the bottom fell out of the scale media market. Perhaps that’s why it took BI so long to adapt. It’s been shedding its workforce for a couple of yearsnow roughly half the size of its 2022 peak of 1,000 people, according to Press Gazette. Now AI is forcing the issue. Peng’s memo says that 70% of BI‘s business suffers from “traffic sensitivity,” a euphemism for content designed to attract eyeballs on the open web by appearing in search, social, or feeds. Who are those people? How do you keep them coming back or transacting with your brand? In the media model BI was built for, it didn’t matterit only mattered how big the number was on any given day. Now BI is doing exactly what any media consultant would recommend: adopting tactics like paywalled subscriptions, events, newsletters, and first-party data. It’s the right strategy, but for BI the moves are reactive retreats rather than proactive bets. That doesn’t mean they’re bad ideas, but BI‘s DNA was born out of a different era. It has a brand, but is it strong enough to make the transition that AI demands? I don’t mean to pick on BI, but I do think it exemplifies why digital media companies from the 2010s are likely going to have the hardest time in the AI era. Legacy mainstream outlets like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have built moats with their strong journalism and diverse revenue streams. On the other end, smaller digital upstarts like 404 Media, The Ankler, and The Free Press are finding success by cultivating talent, getting scoops, and offering unique perspectives. It’s the brands in betweenthe ones that followed the same playbook as BInow scrambling to re-architect themselves to meet this moment. Ziff Davis (owner of PCMag, Mashable, and IGN) is similarly feeling pressure, as seen in its lawsuit against OpenAI, arguing that its strategy of publishing evergreen, free content on the internet to maximize clicks has made it particularly vulnerable to substitution by AI. Experimentation isnt transformation As evidence of the BI‘s all-in bet on AI, Peng talked about AI-powered features like its site search and dynamic paywall. She also mentioned that 75% of the staff were now using AI tools, specifically ChatGPT Enterprise, with the aim to get the figure to 100%. The note encourages “bold experimentation,” and says they’re building prompt libraries and sharing everyday AI use cases among staff. However, this description of AI initiatives, while directionally solid, sounds like it’s still in the early stages. Contrast that with an AI-forward newsroom like Reuters, which has built modular tooling tailored to newsroom workflows, under a clear “reduce, augment, transform” framework. It’s great that they’re moving forward, but without a focus on systems, transformation will be piecemeal. And while the choice of ChatGPT is expected given the company’s partnership with OpenAI, pushing a single AI model over all the others is inherently limiting. For other digital media brands who fear death or downsizing, BI‘s approach is instructive. It’s urgent to rethink dependency on traffic, and even the lens of measuring success through traffic. Certainly, ad impressions are the KPI driving all this, and it’s not going to go away overnight (or ever, really). But a long decline seems inevitable. Shifting focus from traffic to metrics that measure impact, engagement, and loyalty is step one. That’s the path to cultivating direct reader relationshipsessential to building media brands that are sustainable in the AI era. BIs shift is a step n the right direction, but survival wont come from cost-cutting or tool adoption alone. The digital media brands that make it through this next wave will be the ones that know who theyre for and what makes them worth returning to. That means being willing to rethink how things get made in the first placeand why. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/03\/mediacopilot-logo-ss.png","headline":"Media CoPilot","description":"Want more about how AI is changing media? Never miss an update from Pete Pachal by signing up for Media CoPilot. To learn more visit mediacopilot.substack.com","substackDomain":"https:\/\/mediacopilot.substack.com\/","colorTheme":"blue","redirectUrl":""}}
Category:
E-Commerce
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