 |
|
|
|||||
On a panel this week, U.S. secretary of education Linda McMahon, the former WWE CEO who is now charged with making sweeping decisions for 100 million American school children, repeatedly referred to AI technology as A1. For McMahon, who was speaking at the ASU+GSV Summit for educators, it was an embarrassing mistake. But for Kraft Heinzs A.1. steak sauce, it was basically free product placementand the brand didnt hesitate to take its cut. McMahons first slip-up occurred when she shared an anecdote with the audience about a school system that’s going to start making sure that first graders, or even pre-Ks, have A1 teaching in every year. Matters only got worse when she continued, Kids are sponges. They just absorb everything. It wasn’t all that long ago that it was, We’re going to have internet in our schools! Now let’s see A1 and how that can be helpful. Maybe it can make the cafeteria meatloaf tastier? A.1. was thinking along the same lines. The brand jumped on Instagram yesterday with a spoofed ad for a McMahon-inspired A.1. bottle, complete with a photoshopped version of the sauce with the label For educational purposes only accompanied by the slogan, Agree, best to start them early. The post was captioned, You heard her. Every school should have access to A.1. Heinz is no stranger to thinking up limited-edition novelty goods, from its neon pink Barbie-cue sauce to a Taylor Swift-inspired ranch and portable Velveeta packets. However, this is the first time (to Fast Companys knowledge) that the company has used its stunt marketing resumé to make a jab at a political figure. So far, A.1.s loyal fans seem to be in support of its new sauce. My husband wants a bottle for his desk, one commenter wrote under the brands post. He teaches middle school, at least until they replace him with A.1. View this post on Instagram A post shared by A.1. Original Sauce (@a1originalsauce)
Category:
E-Commerce
When people talk about how AI might reshape media, the term hyper-personalization comes up a lot. In broad terms, it means that AI can tailor the experience around your preferencesassuming it has enough data about you. To some extent, algorithms and ad tech have been doing this for years, recommending links and stories based on your clicks and browsing behavior. What generative AI brings to the table is the ability to adapt the content itself. A large language model could, in theory, understand the kinds of stories I care about and modify what Im readingmaybe by adding an angle relevant to my region. It could even offer up different lengths or even formats. If I’m about to go for a run, maybe I want that feature article as a podcast. Or if Im in a hurry, a short video in TikTok style might do. But this frames AI as a kind of Santa Claus: a magical benefactor dropping content “presents” on demand. In the AI courses I teach, I often explain that a key unlock of AI is that, once you use it enough, you start to realize the value is often more in the conversationthe questions you ask and the answers it givesthan the so-called output. {"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":""}} Verbal features such as ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode are ideal for this. If you haven’t engaged in a brainstorming session while driving or walking, you’re missing out. AI can be an excellent brainstorming partner when you need to think through something. Even better: it can be a superb writing assistant, helping you develop ideas, stay on track, and fill in the holes in your argumentswithout taking over the writing itself. Rethinking how we read the news Now apply that same idea to how we consume news. When you hit a point in the story you’re reading where you want to go deeper, you can instantly do that. If, say, you were reading a story about bringing the dire wolf back from extinction, you could ask about whether the same technique could be applied to other extinct species, how ethicists are responding, or how the news is affecting the biotech sector. The AI could bring in all that context without needing to “navigate” anything. Were already seeing early signs of this behavior. On X, for example, people often tag Groka chatbot built into the platformto ask follow-up questions about trending stories. Its a small but telling behavior: instead of passively reading the news, users are instinctively treating it as a jumping-off point for a deeper conversation. Most news stories aim to deliver the latest facts, often with only a perfunctory amount of backgroundusually tucked into a paragraph or two at the end. For exotic topics like crypto, this often leaves the subject impenetrable to casual readers. With AI, however, a news story can be a conversationone that explains things at exactly your level. In other words, the most powerful personalization tool isnt dataits your words. This is the eureka moment in Joshua Rothman’s recent New Yorker essay that contemplates how AI might improve the news. The only catch? It requires a mindset shiftfrom AI giving you things to AI helping you discover things for yourself. There needs to be some education in the use of AI on the part of the reader. AI still needs a map But for that vision of AI and news to work, context is everything: In other words, the machines still need a map. For AI to bring you the absolute best information for whatever news rabbit hole you want to go down, you need a data set that’s oriented towards news topics. The massive data sets in today’s large language models are probably overkill, since they bring noise or generic knowledge when specificity is whats needed. However, restricting the context to just the stories on the site you’re reading would be too limiting. A better idea would be something like a “general news corpus” of vetted sources that publishers could opt into, which other sites could access to bring a wide-ranging context into their AI experiences. ProRata and NewsGuard are building these kinds of products, but their best use case might not be general search engines like Perplexity or ProRata’s own Gist. Context is arguably more important when a reader has already clicked on an article and begun to go down a path. With AI, that path doesn’t have to be on railsthe reader can go in any direction, and the right context will follow. The most compelling thing about this vision of personalized news is that it doesn’t require Big Tech to be part of it, at least outside of building the large language models themselves. Journalists provide the raw information, product designers can build the experiences, and third-party content brokers assemble the context. Participation, not prediction For the past two decades, media organizations have optimized their platforms by trying to anticipate what audiences would respond to. But AI may be rendering that approach obsolete. Imagine a news experience where every reader gets the background they need, the angles they care about, and the context to go deeperall just by asking. Thats not personalization by prediction. Thats personalization by participation. {"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
Attending the Masters for the first time was a new experience for Thomas Abraham, and it wasn’t just about the golf. The 16-year-old from Houston had the rare opportunity to use a public telephone for the first time. It was kind of cool, said Abraham, who phoned a friend while attending the Masters Par 3 competition on Wednesday with his father, Sid. I’ve never used one before. I figured it out. If I had to use one of those (rotary) phones I probably would’ve had to ask my dad. Augusta National requires its patrons to leave their cellphones and other electronic devices behind. In place of those security blankets, there are several public telephone banks of those throwback devices from days gone by. They are a foreign sight for many in the younger generation who’ve never seen a phone with an attached cord. Abraham is not unlike most teenagers or adults, for that matter who are very much attached to the world through their cellphones. At some point, chances are, patrons check for their phone patting their pockets, reaching for the clip on their belts, wherever it usually is. And when they can’t find it, well… It’s kind of panic mode,” Abraham said. “We were at 18th (hole) and I went to reach in my pocket and it wasn’t there. Then I remembered it’s in the car.” He wasn’t alone. “I’ve checked my pockets for my phone no less than 10 times today,” said Ryan O’Connor from Little Rock, Arkansas. I was sitting in the bleachers on the 16th green and someone dropped a water bottle and it made a loud noise and I instinctively reached for my phone. Not there.” The line at the public phone bank can stretch up to 10 people deep at the height of the Masters. And while they provide an outlet for those looking to touch base with the world outside of Augusta National’s gates, there are some issues that come with them. Like, remembering phone numbers. Bill Kehoe, 50, from Raleigh, North Carolina came prepared. As he approached the public phones, Kehoe whipped out a sheet of paper with a handful of names and numbers written on them with a black Sharpie. He picked up the receiver on the phone, punched in the number 1 to start the call and then looked down at the paper and entered the remaining numbers to complete the free call. I cant even remember my own phone number, let alone anyone elses number, Kehoe joked. They’re all saved in my phone. One of the calls he made was to his 14-year-old son Connor, who was on a school fieldtrip to Washington. D.C. Connor had asked his dad to call at a prearranged time while he was on a bus, and his 8th grade classmates were shocked when his caller ID popped popped up as Augusta National Golf Club. You could hear all of the kids like, Oh, thats so cool!, Kehoe said with a laugh. “But then they all started asking for merchandise so I had to hang up. The reasons patrons disrupt their round of watching professional golf to make a call. One person was calling to hear about the day’s dramatic movement in the stock market. Another said he was checking in with work. And several others were simply touching base with family or loved ones. Tyler Johnson and his wife Lauren called home to Roswell, Georgia to check on their 5-year-old son, who is staying with his grandparents, “just to make sure there’s no blood, Tyler said with a laugh. As mom and dad alternated talking to their son, they took pictures of each other talking on the odd-looking black public phone. “I think the last time I used one of these was 1999, before Y2K, I think,” Tyler joked. While not having a cellphone is an inconvenience for some, others have come to relish the liberating feeling of being disconnected from the world for a little while. Fletcher Lord from Little Rock texted his wife after he arrived at the course around 6 a.m. and reminded her not to expect to hear from him all day. He then set out to enjoy a few refreshments on a sunny, 70-degree day amid the serene backdrop of blooming azaleas and tall pines. Once you get over the anxiety of not having your phone, it’s a very freeing feeling because it forces you to just be here in the moment,” Lord said. O’Connor agreed. He phoned one of his old friends from high school just to see if he’d pick up. He did. He didn’t recognize the number obviously, but when he saw Augusta National pop up he said I better pick this one up, O’Connor said. Then it was off to enjoy the day. Is not having a phone a pain?” O’Connor said. “No, I think it’s actually good for me. Those emails will be there when I get back home. Steve Reed, AP sports writer
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||