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The creative industry has an especially tense relationship with AI, which some believe erodes human innovation and critical thinking skills, and threatens jobs. 

Yet, many designers are increasingly warming to the idea of incorporating AI in design, says Cecilia Brenner, the managing director of Design for Good, a global design charity.

AI is “a tool that helps us reduce friction, to let designers focus more on empathy and creativity,” Brenner told Fortune in a Dec. 18 interview. The tech “should serve life, and not the other way around.”

Design for Good was first founded in 2022, with the goal of bringing together the world’s top designers to work towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Today, the alliance comprises over 2,000 designers across 30 countries, who come from corporate giants like PepsiCo, Nestle and Microsoft

Brenner first joined the Design for Good alliance as a corporate designer with Philips, and later in 2024, was elected as its chief executive. 

Since taking the helm, Brenner has made it her goal to introduce more AI design tools for the alliance’s creatives. In 2025, she onboarded two Silicon Valley AI start-ups, Miro and OpenStudio, as alliance members.

Both companies offer tech expertise and collaboration tools with AI features, Brenner said, adding that she hoped they will help designers work together better across borders and time zones. “[They bring] collaboration tools, which will help us prototype and come up with multiple concepts faster.”

By designers, for designers

Koraldo Kajanaku co-founded OpenStudio in 2023, alongside his sister, Agi Kajanaku.

The idea for the AI startup first took root in 2022. Koraldo was then the senior design lead at U.S. design firm IDEO, and his sister was completing a PhD in AI and computer graphics at Harvard University. While pursuing her degree, Agi dabbled in early experiments in generative AI, creating a custom model for designers, which she let her brother test out.

“I tried it out at IDEO [on] some of the projects that I was working on, and I was moving 100 to 1,000 times faster through work that I used to do in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. And I said, ‘Okay, there’s something here,’” Koraldo told Fortune in a Dec. 19 interview.

The siblings then hunkered down at their family home over the holidays, and built the first version of OpenStudio.

The platform allows designers to create instant renders, quickly generate moodboards, and visualize concepts using AI prompts. It comes in-built with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which users can tap on “for inspiration, brainstorming, and feedback”, OpenStudio’s website reads.

Users can also switch to other AI models, including those by Gemini or other custom-made models, Koraldo adds.

When asked if he thinks AI detracts from human creativity, Koraldo said that one can still be very crafty with AI—and that it’s simply a tool which speeds up execution.

“Design is really what happens when technology is inserted into the creative world,” he says. “And I think creativity is intrinsically rewarding, so it’ll be something that we’ll always want to do as humans.”

Koraldo says that he’s optimistic that with AI, even more designers will be born.

“I think we’re going to see billions of designers in the next five to ten years, and a lot of that will be due to technology that allows us to participate closer to the design process—and [easily] go from a concept in our head to final stuff that’s ready to be produced.”

AI for good

With the inclusion of their two new AI-centric alliance members, Brenner says her team will be better equipped for the future.

Every two years, Design for Good chooses a new SDG to tackle. The team chose clean water and sanitation (SDG#6) for its 2022 cycle, and quality education (SDG #4) for its 2024 run. 

In 2026, the alliance is focusing on two SDGs: good health and well-being (SDG#3) and climate action (SDG #13). 

“Adding members to our living network is a healthy way of helping us understand that whatever we create doesn’t [bring about] harm, and instead has a positive outcome on both people and planet,” Brenner says.

And in the case of designing for human and environmental health, AI is especially useful, she adds. 

“AI can be used to predict human health or environmental outcomes before we implement something,” Brenner says. “It can identify [potential] consequences, and test run the scaling of solutions, so we know they won’t damage [humans or the environment].”



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Fortune Live: Starbucks’ Future, Holiday Shopping & Craft Beer

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We have a great lineup today for Fortune Live, our weekly business show hosted by Leigh Gallagher.

First up, we tackle some of this week’s top news. Fortune’s Brian O’Keefe and Beth Kowitt join the show to talk about Donald Trump’s evolving relationship with the business community. Plus, we discuss his continued impact on the stock market. Then, we turn to Starbucks‘ plans for the future. Tune in to find out our thoughts.

Up next, we met the company that has “do-it-yourself fashion” trending on social media. Find out how the McCall Pattern Company has stayed relevant since 1863.

Then, Leigh sits down with Wealthfront founder Andy Rachleff to talk about his decision to return to the leadership position of CEO after leaving the company years ago.

And then, meet some of the women who are changing the the craft beer industry one brewer at a time. We take you on a tour inside Lineup Brewing and Local Brewing Co.

Next, forecasters have been predicting a strong holiday season for retailers. So far, shoppers seem to be spending as expected. But what does the rest of the season look like? For answers, we ask a panel of experts to join us in a game of “Fact or Fiction.” Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst and director of Adobe Digital Insights, Jeff Glueck, CEO of Foursquare, and Lila Snyder, president of global e-commerce for Pitney Bowes, give us their thoughts.

To close our show, we head to one of Amazon‘s fulfillment centers in New Jersey to talk shopping trends and learn more about the product that Amazon (AMZN) says has been its biggest seller this season.

You can go to fortune.com/fortunelive to watch the full show and individual segments on demand after the show concludes.

Join us at the Fortune Workplace Innovation Summit May 19–20, 2026, in Atlanta. The next era of workplace innovation is here—and the old playbook is being rewritten. At this exclusive, high-energy event, the world’s most innovative leaders will convene to explore how AI, humanity, and strategy converge to redefine, again, the future of work. Register now.



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The sudden shift in the industry’s landscape got me thinking about a classic tool for understanding any industry. Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter created the “Five Forces” framework in 1979, and it still stands as a brilliant way to grasp a given industry’s big picture. Note that it’s a way to characterize an industry, not an individual company

So, for example, the first force, “threat of new entrants,” means, “Is this an industry in which new entrant companies could easily compete, or not?” If the answer is, “This force is weak,” it would mean there is little threat of new entrants coming into that industry, which would be good news for incumbents. We asked expert analysts Charlie Dai of Forrester and Arun Chandrasekaran of Gartner and our own Fortune AI experts for context about how each force might affect Google Gemini and OpenAI.

Force One: Threat of new entrants. Chandrasekaran sees the industry becoming “a three-horse race” with OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic; he can’t see how a new company could “be on a par with these three.” Dai sees formidable barriers to new entrants in “compute cost, talent scarcity, and regulatory complexity.” Conclusion: This force is weak which bodes well for the incumbents. Google may be better positioned than OpenAI given how much more of the AI value chain it controls.

Force Two: Bargaining power of suppliers. Dai says suppliers of chips hold strong power because only a few companies, especially Nvidia, AMD, and Huawei, design the best chips and can’t supply them fast enough. The picture here is similar to the vast amounts of AI cloud capacity that AI providers must buy or build. Chandrasekaran notes that the major LLM companies train their models by crawling the internet and scooping up data—but some data providers are now demanding money. This force is strong. Google may be better protected by its control of its own chips, its own cloud, and nearly all its needed infrastructure.

Force Three: Bargaining power of buyers. It’s tempting to think that buyers aren’t super-strong in bargaining because over time they’ll get effectively locked into a provider’s system. “If [OpenAI’s] ChatGPT is integrated into your workflow and processes, extricating out of an application like ChatGPT is not really easy,” Chandrasekaran says. But buyers are increasingly using multiple models and finding they can be compatible. This force is moderate to strong. Google has stronger structural lock-in, but OpenAI has more brand affinity from consumers.

Force Four: Threat of substitutes. “Open-source alternatives like DeepSeek and Qwen will play a key role” in the industry, Dai says. In addition, Chandrasekaran says, “we are starting to see smaller language models challenging the larger models in very specific domains.”  This force is medium and getting stronger. Google and OpenAI are about equally able to confront it.

Force Five: Rivalry among existing firms. Our experts agree: This force is strong and getting much, much stronger. OpenAI and Google are in a virtual tie, though OpenAI has fewer defensive moats and must innovate quickly to retain its lead.

Bottom line: In what may be the most profoundly important industry yet seen, OpenAI has a fragile lead but faces an imposing foe that may benefit more as the Five Forces act on the sector. In five years, will one be the clear winner? Or will a Chinese competitor show that we grievously underestimated the “threat of new entrants”? Going through your industry’s Five Forces framework can be a demanding exercise, but it’s worthwhile for leaders in any industry. When done right, it will spark debates, insights—and possibly even a code red.—Geoff Colvin

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com

Top news

No refunds if Supreme Court strikes down tariffs, Hassett says

In an interview on CBS News’ Face the Nation on Sunday, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett predicted that the justices will rule in the White House’s favor because refunding the companies that paid them would be “very complicated,” Hassett says. Lower courts have ruled that the so-called reciprocal tariffs invoked under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act are illegal, though the Supreme Court will have a final say. “And I also think that if they didn’t find with us, that it’s going to be pretty unlikely that they’re going to call for widespread refunds, because it would be an administrative problem to get those refunds out to there,” Hassett said.

Possible successor to GM’s Barra is old foe of Musk

Sterling Anderson, 42, joined GM in June as its global product chief. He previously worked at Tesla but fell out with Elon Musk and was sued by Musk after he left, the WSJ reports. The robotics expert is a possible successor to CEO Mary Barra, 64, the paper says.

Justice Department published, deleted, and then published again some of the Epstein files

The Justice Department released a portion of the Epstein files on Friday and into Saturday, and some came with heavy redactions. At least 16 files then vanished from the DOJ’s Epstein document webpage a day after they were posted on Friday. Among them was file 468, an image showing a drawer filled with photographs, including one with President Trump alongside Jeffrey Epstein, Melania Trump, and Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Another photograph in the drawer showed Trump surrounded by women. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday there were concerns that the photos inadvertently revealed the faces of victims, to the photos were retracted before being republished again. “It has nothing to do with President Donald Trump,” he said.

Contempt charges drafted for Bondi

On Sunday, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) told Face the Nation on Sunday that they are drafting “inherent contempt” charges against Attorney General Pam Bondi for every day that the entirety of the files aren’t released. 

Apollo preparing for ‘when something bad happens’

Apollo Global—$908 billion in assets under management—is moving into cash, cutting its leverage, and derisking from certain parts of the debt market in preparation for “when something bad happens,” according to CEO Marc Rowan. He wants the company to be prepared to invest when the market goes through any upcoming turmoil, he said in private meetings at a Goldman Sachs conference, according to the FT.

Economists say any Fed Chair will clash with Trump

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett is the favorite on prediction market Kalshi to replace Jerome Powell as Fed Chair, but economists last week argued that any Fed chair will have trouble lowering rates as much as President Trump would like. Meanwhile, Hassett said over the weekend that he believes the Supreme Court will find Trump’s tariffs legal, but tariff refund checks probably won’t come even if they don’t.

AI not destroying finance jobs—yet

Experts told Fortune that AI isn’t destroying finance jobs—at least, for now. Although AI in theory can perform hours of junior-level analyst tasks in just seconds, experts agree that AI-related layoffs have been insignificant so far. “If there’s a large company that might say, ‘Well, we’re not planning to hire as much because of AI,’ or maybe ‘We’re letting people go because of AI,’ I think there’s a little bit of smoke and mirrors there,” Robert Seamans, director of New York University Stern’s Center for the Future of Management, tells Fortune

SpaceX explosion endangered three jets

The January 16 explosion of a SpaceX rocket over the Caribbean rained debris over a vast area of airspace for 50 minutes, the WSJ reports, endangering three passenger jets carrying 450 people.

The markets

S&P 500 futures are up 0.33% this morning. The last session closed up 0.88%. STOXX Europe 600 was down 0.17% in early trading. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was down 0.39% in early trading. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 1.81%. China’s CSI 300 was up 0.95%. The South Korea KOSPI was up 2.12%. India’s NIFTY 50 was up 0.79%. Bitcoin was at $89K.

Around the watercooler

Shield AI took its drones from the ‘Batcave’ to the battlefield. Now the $5.6 billion defense-tech startup’s new CEO says it’s at an inflection point by Jessica Mathews

Sam Altman says he’s ‘0%’ excited to be CEO of a public company as OpenAI drops hints about an IPO: ‘In some ways I think it’d be really annoying’ by Sasha Rogelberg

‘They’ll lose their humanity’: Dartmouth professor says he’s surprised just how scared his Gen Z students are of AI by Nick Lichtenberg

Bill Gates identifies the biggest burden being passed on to his children after seeing his daughter harassed online by Eleanor Pringle

CEO Daily is compiled and edited by Joey Abrams, Claire Zillman and Lee Clifford.



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After GOP fights about antisemitism, JD Vance rejects ‘purity tests’

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Vice President JD Vance said Sunday the conservative movement should be open to everyone as long as they “love America,” declining to condemn a streak of antisemitism that has divided the Republican Party and roiled the opening days of Turning Point USA’s annual convention.

After a long weekend of debates about whether the movement should exclude figures such as bigoted podcaster Nick Fuentes, Vance came down firmly against “purity tests.”

“I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to de-platform,” Vance said during the convention’s closing speech.

Turning Point leader Erika Kirk, who took the helm after the assassination of her husband, Charlie Kirk, has endorsed Vance as a potential successor to President Donald Trump, a helpful nod from an influential group with an army of volunteers.

But the tension on display at the four-day gathering foreshadowed the treacherous political waters that Vance, or anyone else who seeks the next Republican presidential nomination, will need to navigate in the coming years. Top voices in the “Make America Great Again” movement are jockeying for influence as Republicans begin considering a future without Trump, and there is no clear path to holding his coalition together.

Defining a post-Trump GOP

The Republican Party’s identity has been intertwined with Trump for a decade, but he’s constitutionally ineligible to run for reelection despite his musings about serving a third term. Tucker Carlson said people are wondering, “who gets the machinery when the president exits the scene?”

So far, it looks like settling that question will come with a lot of fighting among conservatives. The Turning Point conference featured arguments about antisemitism, Israel and environmental regulations, not to mention rivalries between leading commentators.

Ben Shapiro, co-founder of the conservative media outlet Daily Wire, used his speech on the conference’s opening night to denounce “charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle but actually traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty.”

“These people are frauds and they are grifters and they do not deserve your time,” Shapiro said. He specifically called out Carlson for hosting Fuentes for a friendly interview on his podcast.

Carlson brushed off the criticism when he took the stage barely an hour later, and he said the idea of a Republican “civil war” was “totally fake.”

“There are people who are mad at JD Vance, and they’re stirring up a lot of this in order to make sure he doesn’t get the nomination,” he said. Carlson described Vance as “the one person” who subscribes to the “core idea of the Trump coalition,” which Carlson said was “America first.”

Turning Point spokesperson Andrew Kolvet framed the discord as a healthy debate about the future of the movement, an uncomfortable but necessary process of finding consensus.

“We’re not hive-minded commies,” he wrote on social media. “Let it play out.”

If you love America, you’re welcome in the movement, Vance says

Vance acknowledged the controversies that dominated the Turning Point conference, but he did not define any boundaries for the conservative movement besides patriotism.

“We don’t care if you’re white or black, rich or poor, young or old, rural or urban, controversial or a little bit boring, or somewhere in between,” he said.

Vance didn’t name anyone, but his comments came in the midst of an increasingly contentious debate over whether the right should give a platform to commentators espousing antisemitic views, particularly Fuentes, whose followers see themselves as working to preserve America’s white, Christian identity. Fuentes has a growing audience, as does top-rated podcaster Candace Owens, who routinely shares antisemitic conspiracy theories.

“We have far more important work to do than canceling each other,” he said.

Vance ticked off what he said were the accomplishments of the administration as it approaches the one-year mark, noting its efforts at the border and on the economy. He emphasized efforts to end diversity, equity and inclusion policies, drawing applause by saying they had been relegated to the “dustbin of history.”

“In the United States of America, you don’t have to apologize for being white anymore,” he said.

Vance also said the U.S. “always will be a Christian nation,” adding that “Christianity is America’s creed, the shared moral language from the Revolution to the Civil War and beyond.”

Those comments resonated with Isaiah White-Diller, an 18 year-old from Yuma, Arizona, who said he would support Vance if he runs for president.

“I have my right to be Christian here, I have my right to say whatever I want,” White-Diller said.

Turning Point backs Vance for president

Vance hasn’t disclosed his future plans, but Erika Kirk said Thursday that Turning Point wanted Vance “elected for 48 in the most resounding way possible.” The next president will be the 48th in U.S. history.

Turning Point is a major force on the right, with a nationwide volunteer network that can be especially helpful in early primary states, when candidates rely on grassroots energy to build momentum. In a surprise appearance, rapper Nicki Minaj spoke effusively about Trump and Vance.

Vance was close with Charlie Kirk, and they supported each other over the years. After Kirk’s assassination on a college campus in Utah, the vice president flew out on Air Force Two to collect Kirk’s remains and bring them home to Arizona. The vice president helped uniformed service members carry the casket to the plane.

Emily Meck, 18, from Pine City, New York, said she appreciated Vance making space for a wide variety of views.

“We are free-thinkers, we’re going to have these disagreements, we’re going to have our own thoughts,” Meck said.

Trump has spoken highly of both Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as potential successors, even suggesting they could form a future Republican ticket. Rubio has said he would support Vance.

Asked in August whether Vance was the “heir apparent,” Trump said “most likely.”

“It’s too early, obviously, to talk about it, but certainly he’s doing a great job, and he would be probably favorite at this point,” he said.



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