The internet didn't calm down.

It got louder.

Six months after her original BOARD BRIEFING, Carla Hawkes revisits the question many marketers are still asking: why does social feel harder than ever?

More AI.
More platforms.
More content.
More pressure.

Yet the brands breaking through aren't creating more noise.

They're creating more joy.

If you're leading social, marketing, or content in 2026, this is your reminder that attention isn't won by shouting louder. It's earned by making people actually want to stay.

Most founders are using AI wrong.

Not because they don't care.
Not because they haven't tried.

Because nobody told them that Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini are built for fundamentally different jobs.

In this week's BOARD BRIEFING, Vix Reitano breaks down the AI decision that's quietly costing companies time, money, and better outcomes.

Everyone is using AI.

The advantage now isn't adoption.
It's knowing which tool to trust, when to use it, and when to override it.

If AI is part of your workflow, this is required reading.

The companies winning right now aren’t hiring less.

They’re hiring differently.

In this week’s BOARD BRIEFING, April Uchitel breaks down one of the biggest shifts happening across business: the move away from traditional org charts and toward a new model built on full-time talent, fractional operators, and AI.

The question isn't: "How many people do we need?"

It's: "What expertise do we need, and when?"

The future belongs to lean teams with senior judgment—not bloated teams with layers of management.

If you're still thinking about talent the way you did five years ago, it's time to rethink the model.

AI isn’t just making mistakes.
It’s making them confidently.

In this week’s BOARD BRIEFING, Jeanne Meyer breaks down the growing problem of AI hallucinations—from The New York Times publishing inaccurate AI-assisted reporting to medical research errors quietly slipping into trusted systems.

The issue isn’t that AI gets things wrong.
It’s that people stop questioning the output.

If your team is using AI for research, strategy, communications, or content creation, this is required reading.

Every fashion brand says they need more content.

They don’t.
They need a different production system.

In this week’s BOARD BRIEFING, Iwona Waluk explains why the old model—shooting, rebuilding, and reproducing assets for every touchpoint—is collapsing under modern demand.

The brands that win next won’t produce more.
They’ll build differently.

It’s probably not a hiring problem.
It’s a thinking problem.

In this week’s BOARD BRIEFING, Lesley Holmes breaks down why most companies default to filling roles instead of solving the actual problem—and how that’s costing them time, money, and momentum.

The best talent isn’t applying for your job posting.
They’re already out there, solving the exact problem you’re stuck on.

If you’re still building teams around org charts instead of opportunities, you’re leaving real value on the table.

Merchandising didn’t break.
We just tried to turn it into a spreadsheet.

In this week’s BOARD BRIEFING, Parisse Majd reframes the role of the merchant—not as a data operator, but as the bridge between creativity and commerce.

Data tells you what did sell.
Instinct tells you what should exist.

The brands that win won’t be the most optimized.
They’ll be the ones bold enough to trust the eye, the gut, and the moment.

Your brand isn’t broken.
Your ecosystem is.

In this week’s BOARD BRIEFING, Amy Demas calls out what most companies get wrong: they treat rebrands like transformation.

New logo. New palette. Same disconnected system.

The brands actually winning right now aren’t launching bigger campaigns.
They’re building living ecosystems where strategy, identity, and content reinforce each other—every single day.

If your brand still shows up in bursts instead of consistently, this is your reset.

Your best thinking isn’t happening in your inbox.
It’s happening when you step away from it.

In this week’s BOARD BRIEFING, Lesley Holmes breaks down what most performance cultures ignore: stress isn’t just exhausting you — it’s shutting down the part of your brain responsible for strategy, creativity, and decision-making.

You don’t lose intelligence under pressure.
You lose access to it.

If your calendar is full, your brain might be running at half capacity.

You left the C-suite.
But you also left your growth system.

In this week’s BOARD BRIEFING, Dr. Yi Zhang calls out the uncomfortable truth about fractional work: no one is investing in your development anymore.

No offsites.
No leadership training.
No built-in peer group.

If you’re a fractional CMO, CFO, COO, or operator still running at full speed without investing in your own evolution, the plateau is coming.

The best fractionals aren’t just executing.
They’re deliberately upgrading their thinking, networks, and perspective—because that is the product.

Burnout isn’t a personal failure.
It’s a biological and systemic signal that something is taking more than it gives back.

In this week’s BOARD BRIEFING, Lilly Liu Minkove unpacks why high-performing women are often the most vulnerable to burnout—and why so many don’t catch it until they’re already deep in it.

If you’re leading a team, raising a family, caring for parents, navigating perimenopause, or quietly carrying more than anyone sees, this one will hit hard.

This isn’t about doing less.
It’s about finally understanding what too much is costing you.

Traffic is rented.
Recall is owned.

In this week’s BOARD BRIEFING, Steph Liu breaks down what most marketers haven’t fully absorbed yet: AI doesn’t rank brands—it curates them.

And if your brand isn’t explicitly requested, you don’t exist in that moment.

This is the shift:
From search results → to shortlists
From traffic → to memory
From optimization → to salience

If your strategy still depends on clicks, you’re optimizing for a system that’s already changing.

The funnel isn’t broken.
It was never real.

In this week’s BOARD BRIEFING, Kristin Lewis calls out what most growth teams won’t admit: we’ve been optimizing against a model that doesn’t reflect how people actually buy.

Consumers don’t move in stages.
They move in loops.

If your CAC is rising, your creative is burning out, and your growth is flattening, this isn’t a channel problem.

It’s a model problem.

Women’s health isn’t “hot.”
It’s been ignored—and now it’s correcting.

In this week’s BOARD BRIEFING, Rebecca Bartlett and Taylor Hansen break down why this category is exploding—from AI and telehealth to Gen X spending power and a total collapse in institutional trust.

This isn’t a wellness trend.
It’s a power shift.

If you’re building in health, beauty, or consumer—and you’re not paying attention—you’re already behind.

Activations are finite.
Worlds accumulate.

In Part Two of her series, Lacey Norton argues that 2026 won’t belong to brands with the best events. It will belong to brands with the most coherent worlds.

Experiences are attended.
Worlds are inhabited.

If your brand strategy still revolves around launches, pop-ups, and campaign spikes, this is your wake-up call.

The question isn’t how big your next activation will be.
It’s whether you’re building something people can belong to.

Experience isn’t the activation.
It’s the architecture behind it.

In this week’s BOARD BRIEFING, Lacey Norton breaks down why brands investing in immersive experiences will fail if they only fund the moment — not the infrastructure.

Design without systems collapses.
Inspiration without training breaks.
World-building without operational rigor burns out teams.

If 2026 is the year you double down on IRL, community, and connected commerce, this is required reading.

Connected commerce isn’t about channels.
It’s about people.

In this week’s BOARD BRIEFING, Kristen Palmer Bastian challenges the way we’ve been talking about commerce for years. Shoppers don’t move in funnels anymore. They move through ecosystems—through content, creators, community, AI, and cultural moments.

The brands that win won’t just optimize conversion.
They’ll design experiences that feel cohesive, intentional, and human.

If you’re building for 2026 and still organizing around legacy silos, this one’s for you.

Creatives don’t burn out because they’re fragile.
They burn out because they’ve been holding organizations together without the structures to sustain it.

In this week’s BOARD BRIEFING, Jen Shaw shares what 50+ senior creative leaders told her in off-the-record conversations about identity loss, exhaustion, invisibility, and cultural toxicity.

This isn’t about resilience.
It’s about systems.

If you lead creative teams — or are one — this will hit close to home.

Ozempic isn’t just disrupting metabolism.
It’s disrupting culture.

In this week’s BOARD BRIEFING, Rebecca Bartlett and Erica Sakharet unpack what GLP-1s are really doing to the industry: rewiring beauty standards, polarizing identity, and forcing founders and marketers to choose sides.

Is this wellness?
A flex?
A shortcut?
A reckoning?

If your brand touches health, beauty, or body image—you can’t ignore this.

The most powerful AI tool in your company isn’t the tech.
It’s the associate who knows how to use it.

In this week’s BOARD BRIEFING, Dr. Yi Zhang breaks down how fashion and beauty brands can unlock massive upside by upskilling their customer-facing teams—turning AI into amplification, not chaos.

If you’re investing in AI but not in your workforce, you’re not transforming CX.
You’re just adding noise.