logo
Where the Dealmakers and Strivers Get Their Gossip

Where the Dealmakers and Strivers Get Their Gossip

New York Times07-02-2025
It took about three minutes for Emily Sundberg to secure an invitation to her first inauguration party in Washington this January.
She had asked for invites on X, adding, as a selling point: 'I am so funny.'
Bari Weiss answered the call. The founder of The Free Press, Ms. Weiss was co-hosting a party at a five-star hotel with Uber and Elon Musk's social media network. Her guest list included the former British prime minister Liz Truss, the Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Dr. Mehmet Oz.
Ms. Weiss and Ms. Sundberg, 30, are both stars of Substack, their shared publishing platform, though on considerably different scales. The Free Press, a center-right publication, recently reached one million subscribers. Feed Me, Ms. Sundberg's daily business newsletter combining zeitgeist analysis with link aggregation, has only about 60,000 readers.
But over the last two years, Ms. Sundberg has become an object of fascination in media and finance circles.
Though many readers are young (or youngish) worker bees, Feed Me's subscribers include high-profile venture capitalists like Kirsten Green, well-connected rising editors like Willa Bennett, and Bloomberg personalities like Matt Levine and Joe Weisenthal.
In November, Ms. Sundberg was a co-host of an off-the-record dinner along with Paul Needham, chief executive of The Infatuation, a restaurant recommendation website owned by Chase and favored among upwardly mobile city-dwellers hunting for spots for a first date. It was attended by a mix of scene-y creators and power brokers: Kareem Rahma of the web series 'Subway Takes,' Chris Black of the podcast 'How Long Gone,' Peter Lattman of Laurene Powell Jobs's Emerson Collective and Andrew Ross Sorkin of The New York Times's DealBook.
While that gathering was invitation-only, an upcoming party for Feed Me readers around Valentine's Day ('a really chic, cool singles party,' as Ms. Sundberg wrote on X) currently has a waiting list of 500.
Feed Me bills itself as being about the 'spirit of enterprise,' but its true subject is consumption: How do people make their money and spend it? In her writing, Ms. Sundberg has assumed the identity of an insider — sometimes with the bite and braggadocio of a 'Succession' character. Her bio reads: 'I write the hottest daily business newsletter.' Her newsletter reads: 'Dior's golf collection will be a flop.'
'It was first described to me as a finance newsletter,' said Janice Min, the former longtime editor of Us Weekly and The Hollywood Reporter who now runs Ankler Media. 'It is definitely not a finance newsletter.'
Until recently, almost every edition included a pouting selfie of Ms. Sundberg, even if the headline was about Goldman Sachs interns. ('There's a lot of guys,' she said of her subscriber base.) Feed Me is preoccupied with a certain slice of millennial culture in New York City. The restaurants they patronize, the media they consume, their picturesque vacations, their online shopping habits, their obsession with Gen Z.
'She's almost like a Carrie Bradshaw of her generation,' said Ms. Min, whose company also publishes its flagship newsletter, The Ankler, on Substack. On the platform's leaderboard of popular business publications, Feed Me is now at No. 4, one spot below The Ankler.
Like the divisive heroine of 'Sex and the City,' Ms. Sundberg writes in the first person, usually to place herself in a scene ('I went to dinner at The Odeon last night …') or to emphasize her connections to one ('I texted a few friends who work on Wall Street this morning …').
She is not, however, a confessional sex columnist. But that was not the point of Ms. Min's comparison: 'If 'Sex and the City' was about the search for romantic fulfillment, Emily's voyeurism is about money — and that same sense of it being possibly unattainable, frustrating and, for some, something that comes easy,' Ms. Min said.
Because of its gossipy core, Feed Me also sometimes reminds people of Gawker — written by young people in New York, self-assured in its own taste and authority. Max Read, a former editor of Gawker, said that he might not understand or occupy the 'parallel New York City' that Ms. Sundberg had built, but that he still loved to read about it.
'The exercise of creating a 'scene' like that is way more difficult than people credit,' he said, adding, 'I suspect if it were 20 years ago she could equally have been a Gawker writer or a Gawker character.'
On the Colostrum Beat
Ms. Sundberg began publishing Feed Me on a dailyish basis in November 2022, around the time she was laid off from Meta. Until then, her career was in 9-to-5 digital marketing. She worked at The Cut, Condé Nast and Great Jones — a cookware company where she saw venture capital and consumer goods collide close up for the first time.
Now, for Feed Me, she trawls job board openings to speculate about the direction of companies. She tracks trends with CNBC vernacular; in 2023, she was 'bullish' on both Ozempic and vaping. Real estate tycoons and Instagram chefs interest Ms. Sundberg equally, especially if she can reveal which spas they frequent. No observation or rumor is too minute to itemize, like a prebiotic soda brand flooding Manhattan bodegas, or Jeff Bezos' fiancée, Lauren Sánchez, dining at a private club, or 'I can't open Instagram without hearing about colostrum.'
She often includes a bulleted list of external links. Recent subjects include protein bars; return to office; plastic surgery; and Rhode, the skin care company founded by the model Hailey Bieber.
David Ulevitch, general partner at the Silicon Valley firm Andreessen Horowitz, said the newsletter enriched his professional understanding of cultural shifts. 'Plus, I'm a sucker for news that is just a degree above gossip,' he said.
Sophia Amoruso, a venture capitalist whose best-selling book, 'Girlboss,' made her a target of journalists, said that 'Emily's voice feels insidery without the overwhelming, self-important snark that so many 'in-the-know' journalists have.'
High-profile readers sometimes join what Ms. Sundberg has called her 'really fat Rolodex.' She notices when a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter begins following her on Instagram. She notices when Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News emails to say Feed Me introduced him to Ghia, a stylish nonalcoholic aperitif. When the fashion writer Derek Blasberg upgraded from a free to a paid subscription, Ms. Sundberg offered to take him out for a martini.
'Listen, I'm basically a middle-aged uptown gay dad at this point,' said Mr. Blasberg, a celebrity 'partner in crime' who attended Ms. Sundberg's dinner in November. 'I can't be in the East Village bumming Zyns from out-of-work actors at Lucien anymore.'
Outsider to Insider
Ms. Sundberg was an observer of money from a young age. She grew up in Huntington, a town on Long Island, where her parents, an artist and a public school administrator, had also been raised.
'I had neighbors who were lobster fishermen, and I had neighbors who were cleaning up on Wall Street in the '90s,' said Ms. Sundberg, who later studied advertising and marketing at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
She also liked to write. In 2021, Ms. Sundberg used her newsletter to occasionally publish short fiction, including a horror story about a female founder whose employees toiled in the basement of her brownstone. (Ms. Sundberg has, incidentally, consulted for various female founders, such as The Wing's Audrey Gelman and Outdoor Voices' Ty Haney.) After seeing 'The Nutcracker' while high on mushrooms, she wrote of the well-dressed audience, 'I wanted to suck the pearls off of all these women's ears and roll them around in my mouth like gum balls.'
In New York, her social circle had the same mix of well-off and less so that she'd grown up with in Huntington. And yet the money managers and bartenders in her group texts were equally enthusiastic about one thing, Ms. Sundberg said: business news. Not the minutiae of the market, but information about apps they used routinely, like the restaurant reservation app Resy. That sensibility formed the core of Feed Me.
'A menu change at Balthazar would get as much traction as a credit-restructuring deal at Rent the Runway,' she said. 'People wanted really fun, juicy takes.'
Feed Me's early dispatches read more as Ms. Sundberg pressing her face against the glass of an unmapped world — this moneyed junction of tech, culture and hospitality — than as her being ensconced in it. Just because you're at the party doesn't mean you're at the party. Andy Weissman, a managing partner at Union Square Ventures, described her voice as an outsider 'looking in, with one foot but not wanting to totally be in, not wanting to take it too seriously.'
Soon her writing began appearing in major outlets. A Grub Street article about 'shoppy shops' drove a surge of new subscribers to Feed Me; an article for GQ about members-only clubs landed her talent representation from WME. But as the newsletter grew, Ms. Sundberg lost her anonymity. She did not enjoy being recognized in public or the speculation on Reddit forums about matters like the size of her lips, which are not cosmetically enhanced, she said.
She cut back on selfies, which she said earned her the nickname 'thot Jim Cramer.' ('Being hot on LinkedIn and saying 'slut' on LinkedIn has been a funny experiment,' she explained to the hosts of the shock-jock fashion podcast 'Throwing Fits.') She now works from both her apartment in Brooklyn's South Slope neighborhood and the affluent private club Casa Cipriani.
While Ms. Sundberg declined to disclose her finances, she is most likely earning a minimum of $400,000 in annualized subscription revenue. (In 2024, she charged $50 for paid yearly subscriptions, of which there are nearly 10,000. Ten percent of these earnings go to Substack, along with payment processing fees to Stripe.) That estimate does not include revenue from Feed Me's advertising, sponsored posts or merchandise. She made 10 advertising deals last year, she said, which represented 'maybe a quarter' of her subscriber revenue. Those deals included various sponsored newsletters, as well as a dinner co-hosted with the wealth management app Titan and a book-club discussion of Miranda July's novel 'All Fours' at a Warby Parker glasses store.
Ms. Sundberg has since raised the price for new annual subscribers to $80. This falls somewhere between a New York magazine digital subscription ($60) and access to Puck's industry newsletters ($150).
She currently has no paid employees, although Feed Me has three paid columnists who write monthly about transit, restaurants and entertainment. The downtown publicist Kaitlin Phillips also assists Ms. Sundberg, though she works for free.
'I just believe in the cause,' said Ms. Phillips, who was recently persuaded by Ms. Sundberg to start her own newsletter on Substack. She now earns around $99,000 in annualized revenue from it.
Scoops as Currency
Why did Ms. Sundberg go to Washington? Feed Me does not cover politics.
She is, however, interested in vibe shifts. After she received The Free Press's invitation to the inauguration party, Ms. Sundberg booked a room at the Riggs, the luxury hotel where it was held. (She also tried, unsuccessfully, to score an invite to Mark Zuckerberg's black-tie reception.)
'I had a prediction that nobody else was going to cover the party in the same way, and I was right,' Ms. Sundberg said. Her report included details like 'a lot of incredible tans going on,' and a video showing Linda Yaccarino, chief executive of X, singing to Dierks Bentley.
The coverage earned her new subscribers, she said, but also new scrutiny. Days after the inauguration, Ms. Sundberg wrote in Feed Me about having a 'phone call with Tucker Carlson.' She was promoting her new feature for GQ about Zyn. The article included interviews with Feed Me readers, as well as Mr. Carlson, who owns a rival nicotine pouch company. (Ms. Sundberg, a social smoker, said she was 'trying to use Zyn less.')
On Substack, Caro Claire Burke, a writer and co-host of the podcast Diabolical Lies, called it a 'little puff piece push for Tucker Carlson and big nicotine.'
In an email, Ms. Burke said she thought Feed Me reflected a worldview of 'how a certain group' had 'become empowered to stop caring about politics altogether.' There is a centrist desire 'to enjoy wealth aspiration and conspicuous consumption again.'
To her, Feed Me was 'much less a newsletter about building and maintaining businesses, and much more about the business of sounding rich, which is probably why it's found such success,' Ms. Burke said. 'It's hard to start a company. It's much easier to learn how to speak like someone who has.'
In D.C., back at her hotel, Ms. Sundberg semi-clarified her personal politics: 'I wouldn't say I'm like a social-justice-warrior super progressive, but definitely care about people,' she said. 'There's still a Bernie poster in my apartment.' She knew her readers were more politically mixed: 'People on the right are inherently pro-business.'
Sometimes Ms. Sundberg said, she longs for the camaraderie and resources of a newsroom. She gets lonely. Yet she has decided not to work for a media company or let one acquire Feed Me.
'I don't know if any traditional media company would be able to afford it, and it's growing too fast for me to even consider,' said Ms. Sundberg, who also prefers to sell her own ads. She ended her business relationship with WME, the talent agency, last month. Her team there had recently asked if she wanted to pursue sponsorship around her wedding, and she declined. (Ms. Sundberg is engaged to a man who works in tech.)
When she first moved to this city, Ms. Sundberg learned that money bought access to the world she wanted to inhabit. But when she started building Feed Me, she learned that scoops were currency, too.
'The networks that I've developed definitely give me an edge,' Ms. Sundberg said. She referred to Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire who also financed lawsuits against Gawker: 'He really believes that secrets give people edge.'
In January, Ms. Sundberg had been the first to report on a West Village resident's application to install a tourist-deterring stoop gate; the landmark building had been used for exterior shots of Carrie Bradshaw's apartment. The story, which came from a reader tip, was picked up by dozens of news outlets, many of which credited Feed Me.
'If I don't get something, then Puck will,' she said, referring to the power-obsessed digital media site. 'And if Puck doesn't get it, Semafor does. And if Semafor doesn't, The New York Times will — eventually.'
Though she often writes about unsourced gossip in her newsletter, she said she had not yet encountered any legal challenges. Ms. Sundberg has been trying to raise her standards as the newsletter grows, such as reaching out for comment when she publishes a rumor about a company.
'A habit that I've been getting better at: Act like you might be working at real place,' she said.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

TikTok's next move has Google and Meta sweating bullets
TikTok's next move has Google and Meta sweating bullets

Miami Herald

time35 minutes ago

  • Miami Herald

TikTok's next move has Google and Meta sweating bullets

Some headlines fade, but the TikTok ban never does. Every new TikTok ban update or fresh TikTok ban date has become a litmus test for how far restrictions on TikTok in the U.S. can go. Don't miss the move: Subscribe to TheStreet's free daily newsletter President Donald Trump's push to squeeze ByteDance into a corner has had its hidden winners, though. Meta Platforms (META) and Google (GOOGL) have effectively built new moats, with TikTok still fighting to stay alive. What if the next twist doesn't go their way, though? From the looks of it, this new development could have Sundar Pichai and Mark Zuckerberg steaming. Image source: Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images TikTok's rise in the U.S. has been nothing short of extraordinary. Following ByteDance's merger with in 2018, the short-video app grew like wildfire, successfully tapping into Gen Z's appetite for bite-sized content and viral trends. A few years later, in mid-2021, TikTok had hit a jaw-dropping 1 billion global monthly active users, with the U.S. accounting for a major piece of that pie. By 2025, the platform boasts close to 118 million U.S. monthly active users - roughly 33% of Americans - pushing ahead of all major legacy social platforms. Related: Nvidia-backed stock sends a quiet shockwave through the AI world Reports suggest that the average American spends 52 minutes a day scrolling TikTok, down just 6.9% year over year, but way ahead of competition such as Instagram or Facebook. That deep engagement has made TikTok prime real estate for brands banking on performance ads driving direct sales. Advertisers aren't missing out. U.S. ad spending on TikTok is expected to jump 20% this year to $14.8 billion, up from $11.2 billion last year. More Tech Stock News: Analyst reboots IonQ stock price target for surprising reasonTop analyst revamps Nvidia price target for one surprising reasonVeteran Tesla analyst drops 4-word call Nevertheless, that momentum ran headfirst into Washington's national security worries. Since 2020, the U.S. has looked to push out TikTok over fears that its data access poses risks. President Trump first moved to ban the app, but the legal tussle kept it alive. President Biden scrapped that order in 2021 but launched a significantly wider review of foreign-owned apps. In April 2024, Congress passed PAFACA, which compelled ByteDance to sell its U.S.-based TikTok operations by January 19, 2025, or shut down completely. Since then, President Trump's return paused the hammer, giving ByteDance time with extensions through June and September 17 as talks continue to drag on. ByteDance is racing against time to keep TikTok alive in the U.S., but its next move could send shockwaves through two of the biggest ad giants. In responding to that pressure, ByteDance is putting out a brand-new "clean-room" version of TikTok for the U.S. market. This rebuilt edition of the app is set to hit U.S. app stores on September 5, roughly 12 days before President Trump's September 17 deadline for its parent to sell off TikTok's U.S. operations or face a complete ban. The stakes are sky-high, but regulators have given users a grace period in softening the blow, which means the app will stay online through March 2026. That makes this rollout a potentially shape-shifting event for rivals like Meta and Google. Meta, in particular, has feasted on TikTok's turmoil. Billions in U.S. ad spend is up for grabs, and a Business Insider report pegged Meta's potential haul at up to $3.4 billion if TikTok fades away. Related: Cathie Wood makes surprising chip bet as AI battle heats up Naturally, Meta will lean hard on Instagram Reels, which, according to an eMarketer report, make up more than half of Meta's U.S. ad sales, up 48% last year. Hence, if TikTok loses even 50% of its U.S. sales, Meta could pocket something in the ballpark of $6–9 billion. Google is also in line to win big. With advertisers looking to hedge their bets, YouTube Shorts continues to see more uploads and ad impressions, moving the needle for its CPMs. Morgan Stanley estimates that if Shorts scoops up just 10% of TikTok's user hours, it could add $1–3 billion to Google's video ad pot this year. Some analysts believe that Meta and Alphabet could rake in 90% of TikTok's displaced ad revenue. However, the new TikTok app could slam that door shut. If it's a U.S.-only version that flips the script on the TikTok ban, those ad dollars won't be migrating. Hence, TikTok's next pivot could be a game-changer, whether Google and Meta keep winning or give some of those billions in quick fashion. Related: Google's quiet AI win spells trouble for Amazon The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.

Why Did Cierra Ortega Leave 'Love Island USA'? Her Parents Break Silence
Why Did Cierra Ortega Leave 'Love Island USA'? Her Parents Break Silence

Newsweek

time41 minutes ago

  • Newsweek

Why Did Cierra Ortega Leave 'Love Island USA'? Her Parents Break Silence

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Cierra Ortega's parents have broken their silence following their daughter's sudden exit from Love Island USA. Newsweek reached out to Ortega's representative via email for comment on Monday. The Context Love Island USA is a reality television show based on the British series Love Island. The U.S. version first premiered in 2019 and is hosted by Vanderpump Rules star Ariana Madix. Per Peacock, the series is "a real-time dating competition featuring a group of sexy singles living in a tropical villa who must try to win the $100K prize by coupling up and surviving to the end." What To Know On Sunday, narrator Iain Stirling revealed during Season 7, Episode 30 that Ortega was no longer on Love Island USA. "Welcome back to Love Island USA, Cierra has left the villa due to a personal situation, leaving Nic [Vansteenberghe] officially single," Stirling said in a voice-over on July 6, Deadline reported. Vansteenberghe was Ortega's love interest on the show, and they had been dating exclusively for several episodes. In the scene following Stirling's announcement, Vansteenberghe said: "Right before Cierra had left, my mind was clear. I knew what the future would look like, and now I'm lost. I think now that my strongest connection is gone, there's like—just figure it out from here." Cierra Ortega and Nicolas "Nic" Vansteenberghe pose for a photo together on "Love Island USA." Cierra Ortega and Nicolas "Nic" Vansteenberghe pose for a photo together on "Love Island USA." Ben Symons/Peacock The news comes following backlash Ortega received over an alleged social media post that resurfaced online, in which she used a racial slur toward the Asian community. However, no official reason for her departure has been confirmed. Prior to Ortega leaving Love Island USA, a petition calling for her removal garnered over 17,000 signatures. On Wednesday, she lost over 162,800 Instagram followers, and on Thursday, she lost an additional 47,800 followers, according to statistics from Social Blade. Earlier in the season, contestant Yulissa Escobar was booted from the program for using the N-word on a podcast. "Podcast clips from years ago have recently resurfaced, and I want to address it directly," Escobar wrote in an apology on Instagram after her exit. "In those clips, I used a word I never should've used, a racial slur. I used it ignorantly, not fully understanding the weight, history, or pain behind it. I wasn't trying to be offensive or harmful, but I recognize now that intention doesn't excuse impact. And the impact of that word is real. It's tied to generations of trauma, and it is not mine to use." Cierra Ortega on "Love Island USA" Season 7. Iain Stirling announced her exit from the reality television show on July 6. Cierra Ortega on "Love Island USA" Season 7. Iain Stirling announced her exit from the reality television show on July 6. Ben Symons/Peacock What People Are Saying Cierra Ortega's parents spoke out about their daughter's Love Island USA departure via her Instagram Stories: "As Cierra's parents, this has been one of the most painful weeks of our lives. We've seen the posts, the headlines, the hurt and the hate. And while Cierra hasn't seen any of it yet, we have. And so have the people who love her." "We're not here to justify or ignore what's surfaced. We understand why people are upset, and we know accountability matters. But what's happening online right now has gone far beyond that." "The threats. The cruel messages. The attacks on her family, her friends, even her supporters, it's heartbreaking. It's uncalled for. And no one deserves that kind of hate, no matter what mistake they've made." "While Cierra is not in the villa anymore, she is still away. She hasn't had the chance to process any of this or speak for herself. But we know our daughter. We know her heart. And when she returns, we believe she'll face this with honesty, growth, and grace." "While she'll always be our little girl, she's also a woman, one who will take responsibility in her own time and her own voice. Until then, we're simply asking for compassion. For patience. For basic human decency. Not just for her, but for everyone caught in the middle of this. Thank you to those who've continued to show love, even when it's not easy. – With love, Her family." What Happens Next? Love Island USA Season 7 airs new episodes daily, except on Wednesdays, at 9 p.m. ET on Peacock.

Leveraging Gen Z For Mindful Innovation
Leveraging Gen Z For Mindful Innovation

Forbes

time2 hours ago

  • Forbes

Leveraging Gen Z For Mindful Innovation

Deepa Nagraj is the SVP - Global Head of Communications & Sparkle Innovation Ecosystem, at Mphasis. Generation Z, projected to comprise over 25% of the global workforce by 2025, is reshaping workplace dynamics with its distinct values and priorities. Unlike previous generations, Gen Z affirms diversity, sustainability and ethical innovation, expecting employers to reflect these principles in their operations and strategies. At the intersection of this generational shift is the progressive impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on business and society. The rise of tools based on advanced tech like AI tackle critical global issues, from driving sustainability efforts to reforming industries. However, these breakthroughs come with complex environmental, social and governance (ESG) implications that cannot be overlooked. As AI accelerates, its alignment with environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals becomes a business imperative. For forward-thinking companies, the challenge isn't just adopting AI but ensuring that its ESG implications resonate with Gen Z's socially conscious ethos. As Gen Z, a generation deeply rooted in values of sustainability, diversity and ethics, enters the workforce, they are not just employees but catalysts for change. Engaging Gen Zs in the workforce effectively requires strategic foresight. For businesses, the challenge lies in engaging this socially conscious cohort to understand and champion the ESG impact of AI. Doing so requires companies to embrace not just the technology but also the ideals of a generation poised to shape the future, ensuring innovation aligns with purpose and progress. As organizations reimagine corporate engagement, the focus must shift to addressing AI's ESG impact while aligning with Gen Z's values to cultivate a workforce committed to building a sustainable and equitable future. Framing AI Growth In ESG Frameworks According to recent reports, the AI market is projected to reach a phenomenal USD407 billion by 2027. The technology is expected to see an annual growth rate of a staggering 36.3% from 2022 to 2027. A significant percentage of businesses—up to 64%—think artificial intelligence will help increase their overall productivity. Be that as it may, senior leadership across industries is increasingly posed with questions and concerns about the technology's impact on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors. Companies worldwide are increasingly recognizing that incorporating ESG principles into their operations is crucial for long-term profitability, relevance and resilience. Let's take a look at a few examples of companies that have effectively adopted ESG practices and how these initiatives are poised to positively impact employee and business performance. Environmental: The Foundation Of Sustainable AI The 'E' in ESG stands for environmental factors and is used to gauge how companies conduct themselves while being mindful of their impact on the natural environment. Several companies are, for example, leveraging innovative technologies to reduce their carbon footprint to drive impactful environmental change. Consider global tech company Lenovo's cooling computer technology, a transformative method, that enhances energy efficiency in IT infrastructure. The company has committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 and is collaborating with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) to ensure its climate goals align with global standards. Similarly, American software company Salesforce demonstrates a strong commitment to environmental sustainability through its AI-powered Net Zero Cloud. The software enables businesses to track and reduce carbon footprints with the help of advanced reporting tools, which help align organizations with their environmental goals. Social: Strengthening People And Communities The 'S' in ESG represents the social dimension or the relationships that a company has with its workforce, local communities, clients and the public at large. One of the ways companies can ensure compliance with supporting social interests is by having robust diversity and inclusion practices in place. To this end, some businesses are using AI-driven tools to help monitor workplace diversity and implement unbiased hiring practices. Further, software giants like Microsoft have special strategies like its AI for Good initiative that addresses pressing social challenges, such as public safety, health and education, by deploying AI-backed tools and solutions to enhance operations, access and reach. Governance: Who Governs The Governance? The 'G' in ESG concerns governance factors and includes frameworks that companies conduct their business by, including as a result of the composition of their board, their code of conduct and their perspective on shareholders' rights. In several ways, governance encompasses the systems and processes that define and ensure transparency, fairness and compliance within organizations. As can be seen with AI's rapid advancements, governance struggles to keep pace with innovation. Firstly, multinational companies that would prefer having one uniform rule across regions and countries have to deal with varying regulations in different geographies, which often hinders quick and iterative AI deployment. Secondly, there isn't yet widespread agreement on what should be considered standard and mandatory in terms of AI regulation and what should be decided on a case-by-case basis. This leads to confusion, delays and slow execution. Finally, continuous testing and monitoring of AI tools is critical as more companies across verticals rapidly scale their AI systems. Although companies are aware of this, not all are able to keep pace. However, it is important that the rules around the technology's governance keep pace with its evolution and expansion. As policymakers highlighted recently during the COP24, there is a need to establish frameworks that anticipate tech's impact while companies self-regulate through robust policies. Bridging the gap between advocacy and innovation is going to be vital to ensure governance safeguards both progress and public trust. The paradox of advanced technology lies in its potential for both meaningful progress and unintended consequences. This duality mirrors the very human intelligence AI aspires to emulate. As a species, we thrive in reconciling contradictions—a trait we must now extend to AI. To fully harness AI as a catalyst for ESG, companies must align their capabilities with human values, those which Gen Z holds dear, ensuring its deployment is thoughtful, ethical and impactful. This means embracing its nuances, fostering mindful innovation and prioritizing its long-term societal and environmental consequences. By doing so, we can drive sustainable growth while mitigating risks, building a future where AI enhances—not undermines—shared goals for a better world. Forbes Communications Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store