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AI promises a smarter, faster, more efficient future, but beneath that optimism lies a quiet problem thats getting worse: the data itself. We talk a lot about algorithms, but not enough about the infrastructure that feeds them. The truth is, innovation cant outpace the quality of its inputs, and right now those inputs are showing signs of strain. When the foundation starts to crack, even the most advanced systems will falter. A decade ago, scale and accuracy could go hand-in-hand. But today, those goals often pull in opposite directions. Privacy regulations, device opt-ins, and new platform restrictions have made high-quality, first-party data harder than ever to capture. To fill the gap, the market has flooded itself with recycled, spoofed, or inferred signals that look legitimate but arent. The result is a strange new reality where a mall that closed two years ago still shows foot traffic, or a car dealership appears to be busy at midnight. These anomalies may seem like innocent glitches, but theyre actually the result of a data ecosystem that values quantity over credibility. When Volume Becomes Noise For years, the industry believed that more data meant better insights. Volume signaled strength. More inputs meant more intelligence. But abundance now equals distracting noise. To preserve scale, some suppliers have resorted to filler data or fake signals that make dashboards look healthy while eroding their reliability and authenticity. Once bad data enters the system, its nearly impossible to separate. Its like mixing a few expired Cheerios into a fresh box; you cant tell which pieces are stale, but you can taste the difference. And at scale, that difference compounds exponentially. The AI Paradox Ironically, AI is both part of the problem and part of the solution. Every model depends on training data, and if that foundation is flawed, the insights it produces will be, too. Feed it junk, and it will confidently deliver the wrong conclusions. Anyone whos used ChatGPT has probably felt this frustration firsthand. While it is an incredibly helpful tool, there are times when it still gives you an inaccurate answer or hallucination. You ask a question, and it promptly delivers a detailed answer with absolute confidence . . . except its all wrong. For a moment, it sounds convincing enough to believe. But once you catch the error, that small seed of doubt sets in. Do it a few more times, and the doubt takes over. Thats what happens when data quality breaks down: the story still looks complete, but you cant be sure whats real. At the same time, AI gives us new tools to clean up the mess it inherits by flagging inconsistencies. A restaurant showing visitors on Sundays when its closed? A shuttered mall suddenly bustling again? Those are the patterns AI can catch if trained properly. Still, no single company can solve this alone. Data integrity relies on every link in the chain, from collectors and aggregators to analysts and end users, taking responsibility for what they contribute. Progress will come not from more data, but from more transparency about the data we already have. Quality Over Quantity We can no longer assume that more data automatically means better data, and thats okay. The focus needs to shift from collecting everything to curating what counts, building high-confidence data streams that can be verified. Leaner datasets built on reliable signals consistently produce clearer, more defensible insights than mountains of questionable information. Many organizations still equate size with credibility. But the real question isnt how much data you have, its how true it is. The Human Element Changing how people think about data is harder than changing the technology itself. Teams resist new workflows. Partners worry that less means losing visibility or control. But smaller, smarter datasets often reveal more than massive ones ever could because the signals they contain are real. But once trust is lost, insights lose its value. Rebuilding that belief through transparency, validation, and collaboration has become just as critical as the algorithms themselves. AI wont erase the data problem; it will magnify it. We need to be disciplined enough to separate signals from noise and confident enough to admit that more isnt always better. Because the real advantage isn’t having endless data. Its knowing what to leave behind.
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E-Commerce
Calibri and Times New Roman have been at war for years. And now the two fonts are once again pitted against each other after the U.S. State Department declared it will be swapping its current official typeface, Calibri, for Times New Roman. It’s a full-circle moment, considering the State Department ditched Times New Roman for Calibri in just 2023. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote that switching to Calibri was “wasteful” and “achieved nothing except the degradation of the departments official correspondence” in an internal department memo obtained by Reuters and The New York Times. The type designer behind the sans-serif font Calibri calls Rubio’s decision “hilarious and regrettable.” Lucas de Groot designed Calibri in 2007 specifically for readability on computer screens. The width and curvature of its simple letterform was optimized to be easy to read, and it replaced Times New Roman as the default font in Microsoft Office in 2007 (before being replaced by Aptos in 2023). In 2023, the State Department decided to replace Times New Roman with Calibri for all official communications and memos. It was a bid for greater accessibility throughout the organization. At the time, then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Times New Roman can introduce accessibility issues for individuals with disabilities who use Optical Character Recognition technology or screen readers. Not everyone was happy about the decision, but de Groot believes it was the right choice. “There were sound reasons for moving away from Times,” de Groot tells Fast Company in an email. “Calibri performs exceptionally well at small sizes and on standard office monitors, whereas serif fonts like Times New Roman tend to appear more distorted.” [Animation: FC] A DEI typeface In the cable, sent with the subject line “Return to Tradition: Times New Roman 14-Point Font Required for All Department Paper,” Rubio called Calibri “informal” and said it “clashes” with State letterhead. He also criticized it as a “radical” diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiative. Blinken, Rubio’s predecessor, made the 2023 change to Calibri at the recommendation of the department’s office of diversity and inclusion due its accessibility and ease to read for people with disabilities. Now it’s getting swept up in Trump’s wider war on “woke.” Times New Roman (top), Calibri (bottom) Serif typefaces, with their small feet, or serifs, on the letterform, are sometimes perceived to be more conservative. Meanwhile, some believe that sans serifs read as more modern and progressive, though that’s far from a hard-and-fast rule. After all, Trump loves a sans serif font, and Sen. Bernie Sanders has leaned into serif typography for his campaign logos. “Serif fonts are often perceived as more traditional, but they are also more demanding to use effectively,” says de Groot, noting the spacing is noticeably inconsistent in all-caps Times New Roman in words like “Chicago” and the font appears too thin and sharp when printed at high quality. For many readers, though, font preference has less to do with politics than it does personal taste and what they’re used to seeing. There were inter-office complaints when the State Department switched to Calibri that sound an awful lot like normal office grumblings when one has to switch from Slack to Teams. “I think the idea that a typeface is woke is kind of ridiculous,” says type designer Jonathan Hoefler, who designed the Biden-Harris typography and is the co-author of Gotham, a typeface that’s now been used by presidential candidates of both parties. Typefaces aren’t good or bad, he says. They are simply designed to solve different problems. Times New Roman was designed for newspaper text and Calibri was designed for a screen. “None of these are bad typefaces, theyre just designed around their circumstances,” he says.
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E-Commerce
The consulting firm McKinsey and womens nonprofit Lean In just released their annual Women in the Workplace report, which examines how gender disparities are impacting womens career prospects. Unfortunately, this years results show that companies are backsliding on their commitment to workplace equityand one way thats harming women is by making it more difficult for them to work remotely. This is the 11th annual Women in the Workplace report, and its results reflect a broader pattern across corporate America: a retreat from inclusive efforts amidst a Trump administration thats gone out of its way to cut back on DEI policies. Per the study, two in 10 companies say theyre placing low or no priority on womens career advancement, a figure that rises to three in 10 for women of color. Further, almost one in six companies scaled back on formal sponsorship and discontinued or diminished career development programs with content tailored for women. This year, only half of companies are prioritizing womens career advancement, part of a trend in declining commitment to gender diversity, the report reads. One major roadblock to womens success in the workplace is that, in our modern era of flexible work, women are penalized for choosing to work remotelydespite the fact that, at the same time, theyre still expected to shoulder most of the responsibilities in the home. Flexibility stigma: How women are penalized for working remotely McKinsey and Lean In found that women who work remotely most of the time are less likely to have a sponsor (or someone championing their career advancement) and far less likely to have been promoted in the last two years than women who work mostly on-site. In contrast, men receive similar levels of sponsorship and promotions, regardless of where they work. For context, the data showed that 49% of men who worked mostly remotely received a promotion in the last two years, compared to just 37% of women. Similarly, 52% of primarily remote men had a work sponsor, while only 37% of women could say the same. Women who came into the office more often saw a major boost in these percentages, while men saw only a small increase. On top of these existing challenges, companies are now beginning to remove flexible work options entirely. The report found that one in four companies now offer fewer remote and hybrid opportunities. Thats especially detrimental to women who, despite being more penalized for working remotely, are simultaneously expected to carry more of the burden at home. In 2024, women with partners were more than three times more likely as men to be responsible for all or more housework. And, this year, almost 25% of entry or senior level women who reported not being interested in a promotion said personal obligations made it difficult to take on more work; whereas only 15% of men said the same. Flexibility stigma is one of the biggest factors holding women back at work, the report reads. When women use flexible work arrangements, coworkers often assume they are less engaged and productive, while mens commitment is taken for granted.
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E-Commerce
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