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Students applying to college know they cantor at least shouldntuse AI chatbots to write their essays and personal statements. So it might come as a surprise that some schools are now using artificial intelligence to read them. AI tools are now being incorporated into how student applications are screened and analyzed, admissions directors say. It can be a delicate topic, and not all colleges are eager to talk about it, but higher education is among the many industries where artificial intelligence is rapidly taking on tasks once reserved for humans. In some cases, schools are quietly slipping AI into their evaluation process, experts say. Others are touting the technologys potential to speed up their review of applications, cut processing times, and even perform some tasks better than humans. Humans get tired; some days are better than others. The AI does not get tired. It doesnt get grumpy. It doesnt have a bad day. The AI is consistent, says Juan Espinoza, vice provost for enrollment management at Virginia Tech. This fall, Virginia Tech is debuting an AI-powered essay reader. The college expects it will be able to inform students of admissions decisions a month sooner than usual, in late January, because of the tool’s help sorting tens of thousands of applications. Colleges stress they are not relying on AI to make admissions decisions, using it primarily to review transcripts and eliminate data-entry tasks. But artificial intelligence also is playing a role in evaluating students. Some highly selective schools are adopting AI tools to vet the increasingly curated application packages that some students develop with the help of high-priced admissions consultants. The California Institute of Technology is launching an AI tool this fall to look for authenticity in students who submit research projects with their applications, admissions director Ashley Pallie said. Students upload their research to an AI chatbot that interviews them about it on video, which is then reviewed by Caltech faculty. Its a gauge of authenticity. Can you claim this research intellectually? Is there a level of joy around your project? That passion is important to us, Pallie said. The prevalence of AI usage is difficult to gauge because it is such a new trend, said Ruby Bhattacharya, chair of the admission practices committee at the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC). NACAC updated its ethics guide this fall to add a section on artificial intelligence. It urges colleges to ensure the way they use it aligns with our shared values of transparency, integrity, fairness and respect for student dignity. Some schools have faced blowback over using AI The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) faced a barrage of negative feedback from applicants, parents, and students after its student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, reported in January the school was using AI to evaluate the grammar and writing style of applicants’ essays. The university declined to comment for this article and referred to its admissions website, which it updated after the criticism. UNC uses AI programs to provide data points about students common application essay and their school transcripts, the website says. Every application is evaluated comprehensively by extensively trained human application evaluators. At Virginia Tech, Espinoza said he has been contacted by several colleges that are interested in the new technology but wary of backlash. The feedback from a lot of colleagues is, You roll this out, were watching you, and well see how everyones reacting, he said. He stressed the AI reader his school spent three years developing is being used only to confirm human readers’ essay scores. Until this fall, each of the four short-answer essays Virginia Tech applicants submit was read and scored by two people. Under the new system, one of those readers is the AI model, which has been trained on past applicant essays and the rubric for scoring, Espinoza said. A second person will step in if the AI and human reader disagree by more than 2 points on a 12-point scoring scale. Like many colleges, Virginia Tech has seen a huge increase in applications since making SATs optional. Last year, it received a record 57,622 applications for its 7,000-seat freshman class. Even with 200 essay readers, the school has struggled to keep up and found itself notifying students later and later. The AI tool can scan about 250,000 essays in under an hour, compared with a human reader who averages two minutes per essay. Based on last years application pool, Were saving at least 8,000 hours, Espinoza said. Colleges see benefits of AI tools for applicants The messaging is sensitive for colleges, many of which now have students certify that they have not used AI unethically for essays and other parts of the application. But schools say AI tools can help admissions offices eliminate errors in tasks like uploading transcripts and can simplify the process for students. Georgia Tech this fall is rolling out an AI tool to review the college transcripts of transfer students, replacing the need for staff to enter each course manually into a database. It will allow the school to inform applicants more quickly how many transfer credits they’ll receive, cutting down on uncertainty and wait times, said Richard Clark, the school’s executive director of enrollment management. Its one more layer of delay and stress and inevitable errors. AI is going to kill that, which Im so excited about, Clark said. The school hopes to expand the service soon to all high school transcripts. Georgia Tech also is testing out AI tools for other uses, including one that would identify low-income students who are eligible for federal Pell Grants but may not have realized it. Stony Brook University in New York is also using artificial intelligence to review applicants’ transcripts and testing AI tools for a variety of tasks, like summarizing student essays and letters of recommendation to highlight things an admissions officer should consider, said Richard Beatty, the schools senior associate provost for enrollment management. Maybe a student was fighting a disease sophomore year. Or maybe a parent passed away, or theyre taking care of siblings at home. All these things matter, and it allows the counselors to look at the transcript differently, Beatty said. Colleges are interested in AI summaries of transcripts, extracurricular activities nd letters of recommendation that tell human readers the students story in a more digestible way, said Emily Pacheco, founder of NACACs special interest group for AI and admission. Humans and AI working togetherthat is the key right now. Every step along the way can be greatly improved: transcript reading, essay reviews, telling us things we might be missing about the students, said Pacheco, a former assistant director of admission at Loyola University Chicago. Ten years from now, all bets are off. Im guessing AI will be admitting students. ___ The Associated Press education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. Jocelyn Gecker, AP education writer
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E-Commerce
Fatherhood used to be invisible in the conversation about entrepreneurship. The story was always the same: A founder celebrated for sacrifice, for grinding through the night, taming fortune one day at a time. The world championed the grind. But that archetype is now deeply outdated. The successful founder is no longer the one sleeping under their desk. Thats not simply dedication; its a symptom of poorly designed systems. If your company requires your constant, heroic presence, you haven’t built a businessyouve built a cage. Today, elite performance is not measured by the hours you log, but by the resilience of the organization you leave behind. The best entrepreneurs build things that thrive when they are gonesay, to simply make breakfast or see a Little League game. The new true flex is to be out of office and unreachable. THE STRESS TEST Fatherhood is the ultimate stress test for an entrepreneur’s systems. This isn’t about the impossible concept of balance. That word implies separation. This is about deep integration. Its about simply sitting on the floor with your childthe ability to be fully present for simple things. Being a father is not a distraction from ambition; it is a profound competitive advantage. The quiet moments demand tools like empathy and grace. These are the exact skills required to lead a high-trust, modern team. It forces you to operate from a position of systemic strength, not perpetual effort. The perspective is that days are long, but the years pass like a train in the night. This accelerated sense of time, which spans decades not quarters, is the masterclass both fatherhood and entrepreneurship teach. 3 PARALLELS FOR RAISING HUMANS AND A VISION The following three core disciplines run parallel between raising humans and scaling a vision. 1. Patience and long-term vision You must learn to ignore the immediate market tantrums, the noise of instant feedback, and the urge to sprint. You invest, guide, and trust the process. You build, break, and grow. 2. Nurture autonomy True leadership is not about commanding; its about creating an environment where othersyour children, your employeeslearn to lead themselves. Curiosity is the path to growth. We must empower self-sufficiency, giving room for the inevitable failure and iteration required for competence. 3. Active presence I recall a day fishing on the Harpeth River. The August downpour had left the water swollen, filled with snags and debris. Laughing turned to silence as each child found their hole. In that stillness, I learned more about patience and waiting for the right moment to guide than I did in any boardroom. The stakes were suddenly real. The humility to wait for the fish, and the willingness to let others find their footing, perfectly mirrored the trust I had to place in my leadership team during a turbulent launch. ACCEPTANCE The elite leader of the next decade is the one who accepts that lifes non-negotiable anchorslike familyforce an excellence that the constant grind never could. Fatherhood demands you delegate ruthlessly and focus only on the high-leverage work. This forces a vision for the future and its unknowns that is built for endurance, not a flash. The most successful companieslike the most resilient familiesare those built to last, not to sprint. They are sustained by presence, not absence. So I look to the horizon. We are ready for what comes next. Logan Mulvey is CEO of Cinq Music.
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E-Commerce
The world economy has proven surprisingly durable in the face of President Donald Trumps trade wars, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Tuesday, upgrading its outlook for global and U.S. economic growth this year. The 38-country OECD now forecasts that the world economy will grow 3.2% this year, down a tick from 3.3% in 2024 but an improvement on the 2.9% it had predicted for 2025 back in June. The organization, which does economic research and promotes international trade and prosperity, expects global growth to slow to 2.9% next year. The OECD also raised its forecast for U.S. growth this yearto 2%, up from the 1.6% it had forecast in June. Still, even with the upgrade, the American economythe worlds largestwould have grown considerably more slowly than it did in 2024 (2.8%). Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has overhauled U.S. trade policy, imposing taxes on imports to build a protectionist wall around the previously open American economy. The trade barriers were widely expected to slow growth and push up costs. But his tariffs have come in lower than the ones he threatened to impose in the spring. Many companies beat the levies by importing foreign goods into the United States before they took effect. And the U.S. and world economies are getting a boost from massive investments in artificial intelligence. The global economy has been resilient this year, despite concerns about a sharper slowdown in the wake of higher trade barriers and significant policy uncertainty, OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann wrote in a commentary accompanying the forecasts. Still, he added: We expect higher tariffs to gradually feed through to higher prices, reducing growth in household consumption and business investment. The OECD expects China, the worlds No. 2 economy, to grow 5% this year, the same as in 2024. It sees the 20 economies that share the euro currency collectively expanding 1.3% in 2025, lackluster but up from 0.8% in 2024. India, which has supplanted China as the worlds fastest-growing major economy, is expected to generate 6.7% growth this year, up from 6.5% in 2024. Paul Wiseman, AP economics writer
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E-Commerce
More than 1 million workers in America have been laid off so far in 2025, according to the latest tally of announced job cuts from the executive outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The jobs span nearly every major industry, but layoffs have hit tech and government jobs the hardest. Heres what you need to know, and which tech companies have had the largest round of layoffs in 2025. 2025 layoff announcements surpass 1 million Nearly every week this year, there have been headlines about layoffs hitting Americas workers. The latest report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas adds up layoff announcements from U.S. employers through the end of October. According to the report, 1,099,500 workers have lost their jobs due to layoffs. Given that those numbers dont include November layoffs, and we are only at the beginning of December, it’s a certainty that the figure will rise before the end of the year. Worse, the 1,099,500 job cuts are 65% higher than the 664,839 job cuts announced through October 2024. This year’s figure also exceeds the 761,358 full-year 2024 job cuts by 44%. And to put the 2025 figures into greater perspective, Challenger, Gray & Christmas says this years job cuts are at their highest levels since 2020, when there were 2,304,755 through that Octobermany spurred by the pandemic. Government and tech account for most layoffs While layoffs have hit nearly every industry in 2025, two sectors were impacted more than others: government and tech. Government worker layoffs account for the most job losses, many stemming from cuts made by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), then led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Challenger, Gray & Christmas calls this the DOGE Impact and states that it remains the leading reason for job cut announcements in 2025. In total, those cuts amount to 307,638 for the year through October. That figure includes 293,753 direct layoffs of federal workers and contractors, along with an additional 20,976 layoffs due to a DOGE Downstream Impact.” Challenger, Gray & Christmas says these additional layoffs are a reflection of the loss of federal funding to private and non-profit entities. After government-related layoffs, the sector next most affected by job cuts was the tech industry. Challenger, Gray & Christmas says that through October 2025, 141,159 tech workers lost their jobs due to layoffs. Overall, the top five sectors with the most job cuts in 2025 through October are: Government: 307,638 Technology: 141,159 Warehousing: 90,418 Retail: 88,664 Services: 63,580 Tech companies lead private-sector layoffs in 2025 After removing sweeping federal government job cuts from the figures, the tech industry accounted for the most layoffs so far in 2025. Thats little surprise considering that hardly a week went by this year without additional rounds of tech layoffs making the news. Meanwhile, some Big Tech companies made an outsized contribution to 2025s tech layoffs. According to data from layoff tracking website Layoffs.fyi, the largest rounds of job cuts from U.S. tech companies so far in 2025 have come from the following: Intel Amazon Microsoft HP Salesforce Meta Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Its worth noting that while any layoffs this year are devastating to the workers involved and their families, Layoffs.fyis data shows that 2025 has so far seen fewer tech layoffs than in years past. Layoffs.fyis data currently shows that 120,444 tech employees were laid off globally by 239 tech companies in 2025 so far. That compares to 152,922 tech employees laid off from 551 tech companies in 2024, and 264,220 tech employees laid off from 1,193 tech companies in 2023.
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E-Commerce
Since the launch of ChatGPT three years ago, almost everyone has used Artificial Intelligence in some fashion to help with their work and the world collectively believes AI holds potential. I have written on AI subjects three times before in this series on strategy & AI, on AI investment, and on AIs impact on entry level hiring. The third was co-authored with friends Ahmad Zaidi, co-founder and CEO of AI start-up TransforML, and Gui Loureiro, Regional CEO Walmart Canada, Central America, Chile and Mexico and co-author of Reinventing the Leader. That team returns for this Playing to Win/Practitioner Insight piece on leadership and AI. And as always, you can find all the previous PTW/PI here. Substitution vs. augmentation Every new technology that has or will come along has the potential to both substitute for humans and augment humans whether wheel, printing press, electricity, internal combustion engine, telephone or digital computer. For example, the printing press put lots of scribes out of jobs, but it also massively augmented the ability of humans to communicate their ideas, starting with the worlds first publishing mogul, Martin Luther! It is irrefutable that the printing press augmented humans to a vastly greater extent than it substituted for them. And that has been the case with every truly important technology the world has seen, including the list above. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/09\/martin.jpg","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/09\/Untitled-design-1.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"Subscribe to Roger Martin\u0027s newsletter","dek":"Want to read more from Roger Martin? See his Substack at rogerlmartin.substack.com.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Sign Up","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/rogerlmartin.substack.com","theme":{"bg":"#00b3f0","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91412496,"imageMobileId":91412493,"shareable":false,"slug":""}} The overwhelming public concern about AI is that it will become the first major technology to have its biggest impact by way of substitution. We dont know how the balance between substitution and augmentation will play out. But it is clear that the easiest path is substitution and lots of people will provide advice on that front. We sincerely hope that those with the power to influence the direction of AI wont focus their energy on spurring its substitution for humans. One way to guard against that negative outcome is to demonstrate the power of augmentation and that is our greatest interest because augmentation of humans with AI is what will really advance society and within it, business. We believe that it will take strong leadership to tilt the balance toward augmentation. To realize the potential value and make AI an augmentation superpower, modern leaders need to master each of the following five layers, each a deeper and more sophisticated augmentation that builds on the layer before. First level: How AI augments knowledge & research AI is now a common first-pass research assistant. It can map a space, surface sources, and draft a structured brief in minutes. Sophisticated deep research tools like iterative question decomposition, source triage, and synthesis passes that are incorporated into AI products help analysts quickly collect information that would have earlier taken days. That even includes the time it takes to verify sources and detect and correct the Achilles heel of AI, hallucinations. For example, a mid-level manager might prompt AI to: Size the Mexican hard-discount grocery market and identify three expansion risks. On a task like this, AI can (1) outline demand drivers and competitor set, (2) pull public data points (market sizes, growth rates, store counts), (3) generate a comparison table, (4) list interview questions for two customer segments, and (5) draft a 1-page brief with assumptions and confidence levels. The human then validates numbers, adds confidential insights, and finalizes the narrative augmented by AI. Second level: How AI augments through task automation Beyond research, AI can quietly take work off the plate of busy leaders, leveraging their time for other higher-value activities. AI can capture and crystallize notes, summarize meetings, tag decisions, extract owners and due dates, and push them to your tracker. It can cascade strategy, translating top-level objectives into team-level initiatives, propose KPIs, and keep a living single source of truth to ensure value delivery. This is the focus of the TransforML platform, which connects strategy choices to projects. It provides risks and weekly updates so leaders see progress, and accumulates blockers and deltas in one place. AI can automate routine operations such as converting emails to tickets, standardizing brief templates, generating weekly roll-ups, and pre-drafting stakeholder communications. In this layer, leaders get leverage from AI by eliminating the necessity for countless monitoring meetings thanks to more and better machine-assisted follow-through. Third level: How AI augments through skill leveling-up AI is a force multiplier for uneven skill profiles. Very few of us have completely consistent skill levels across the spectrum required in our jobs. Each of us has our stronger and weaker skill areas. AI can be used to level-up those weaker skill areas to give us a more consistent skill set through AI augmentation. For example, we have seen a front-end engineer, who is brilliant in user experience design but less confident with logic structuring, use AI o propose architecture options and trade-offs, generate scaffolded components and tests, and help with complex logical flows. As a result, the front-end engineer has been able to add a disproportionate amount of impact through her unique strengths in developing user experiences that truly delight customers, without being held back by her skill deficits. Fourth level: How AI augments through blind spot detection AI is relentless at checklisting the things we forget. Thanks to Atul Gawande and The Checklist Manifesto, we know that even highly skilled professionals need checklists to avoid blindspots. But AI can go far beyond a simple standard checklist. Point AI at a plan and ask: Whats missing? What could fail? It will probe dependencies, non-obvious stakeholders, compliance constraints, and capacity cliffs. It will test for coverage gaps. Used well, it becomes a second pair of eyes that flags risks early and attaches mitigation options with owner, time requirements, and resulting cost estimates. AIs ability to sift through innumerable documents in minutes allows it to do this at a scale and speed that augments beyond human capacity. Fifth level: How AI augments through counterbalancing groupthink Groupthink is a well-documented problem (popularized by Yale professor Irving Janis in a 1971 article and 1972 book) by which teams converge too quickly on suboptimal decisions. To counterbalance groupthink, leaders can assign AI the role of devils advocate. Prompt it to argue the strongest opposing case, quantify downside scenarios, and stress-test assumptions. Which single assumption, if wrong, breaks this plan? This keeps debate vigorous and constructive without putting the interpersonal burden on a single brave colleague. What leaders can do to move teams through the five layers of augmentation Set the strategy for AI The leader must set the overall role of AI in fulfilling the companys strategy. For example, Guis boss (Walmart corporate CEO) declared that Walmart will be people led, powered by technology. That helped Walmart employees understand that it wasnt going to be technology first and people second which would have indicated a substitution rather than augmentation agenda. As strategy evolves, it is important that people know what the company is ultimately trying to accomplish, and how. Set the bar & the ritualsBe specific on what good looks like for AI augmentation. For example, mandate AI-first drafts for research memos, require AI-generated action lists after meetings, and add a devils advocate AI check before big decisions. Make these part of the operating rituals, not optional extras. Once it becomes part of the ritual, people will quickly overcome any initial fear or hesitation. Pair tools with training & metricsThe challenge is less with intelligent use that will come quickly with practice and more with adoption. Provide training on the approved tools to ease and sped adoption. Set guardrails to help users avoids unpleasant and unproductive downsides. Set and track usage with simple metrics such as percentage of meetings with AI action summaries or percentage of projects with AI risk reviews. Celebrate wins and coach the laggards. Role-model and de-risk.As with most things in company life, this wont take root unless leaders set a positive example. That lowers the implied risk for everybody else in the company. For example, leaders should show their own AI-assisted work (redlines, drafts, risk logs) and make it safe to iterate. Create a sandbox for sensitive work, define guardrails (privacy, IP, accuracy checks), and reward teams for using AI to improve outcomes, not just for using AI. Practitioner insights Strategy is choice and as a leader (whether at the top or somewhere in the middle of your organization) in the modern era, you have the choice to focus on substitution or augmentation in your utilization of AI. It is a true strategic choice because the opposite is not stupid on its face. Some will focus more on substitution while others on augmentation. And we predict both will succeed in creating value though in very different ways with differing societal implications. That having been said, we believe the greatest upside will come setting goals focused on augmentation. That will require cleverness in defining how AI can most powerfully augment your business and then demonstrating the leadership to take advantage of all five levels of augmentation. AI can give teams superpowers, but only leaders can help unlock them. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/09\/martin.jpg","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/09\/Untitled-design-1.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"Subscribe to Roger Martin\u0027s newsletter","dek":"Want to read more from Roger Martin? See his Substack at rogerlmartin.substack.com.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Sign Up","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/rogerlmartin.substack.com","theme":{"bg":"#00b3f0","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91412496,"imageMobileId":91412493,"shareable":false,"slug":""}}
Category:
E-Commerce
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