👋 Good morning. If your screen time report is looking a little scary, you’re not alone: The 2026 World Happiness Report found that well-being among young people has dropped sharply over the last decade, with heavy social media use — especially among teenage girls — linked to the decline. On the bright side, Finland was ranked the happiest country in the world for the ninth year in a row, with other Nordic countries ranking among the top 10. Maybe log off and book that Denmark trip?
NEWS FLASH
🚀 Parlez-vous LinkedInfluencer? Search engine company Kagi launched a translator tool — similar to Google Translate — that has a feature to translate any user-generated copy into “LinkedIn Speak.” It’s one of many tools from the search engine, which promises increased privacy (it charges users rather than mining their data). The translator will come in handy for that “10 lessons my situationship taught me about B2B SaaS sales” post you’ve been noodling on.
🤖 The new, bot-filled internet: Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said he expects online bot traffic to exceed human traffic by 2027 thanks to generative AI and a bot’s ability to visit 1k times as many websites as a human when answering users’ questions. The shift will require new tech, Prince said, such as temporary “sandboxes” for AI that are created and dismissed surrounding its various tasks.
📺 Modern-day soaps: TikTok is getting into the vertical drama game, an entertainment format that initially took off in China and made $1.4B in the US in 2025. It’s testing a new feed among a small group of users with content categories like “Crime Lord” and “One-night stand.” Some videos are AI-generated and all are currently free, unlike other platforms that rope viewers in with a few free episodes, then charge to see the rest.
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
- Not a cloud in the Bluesky: The social platform with 43m+ users revealed a $100m Series B closed in 2025, which it used to expand its team.
- Knock, knock: Amazon acquired Rivr, a startup that makes a four-legged, stair-climbing robot, to experiment with doorstep delivery.
- Price check in aisle AI: Walmart secured patents for AI tools that adjust prices based on demand, price elasticity, and other data — raising concerns about potential “surveillance pricing.”
- Loose lips sink ships: A French Navy officer accidentally exposed the location of the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean after logging his run on Strava. Oops.
EMAIL SHIFTS
AI’s changing email. Here’s what you need to know
All of this (*gesturing grandly*) is never made by AI. But we use the tech for small stuff like research, segmenting lists, and optimizing send times.
Turns out us nerds are up to something. Of 300 surveyed experts, 76% said they’re applying AI “moderately or extensively” in email marketing efforts.
To answer a few burning questions:
- Early adopters started last year. But the wave is breaking right now, so paddle on in.
- Four in 10 marketers are seeing 11%-25% higher ROI with AI tools.
- Though copy remains the top use case, marketers are spending significant time editing chatbot outputs.
- Brand voice, deep thinking, and strategy? Still on you.
THE BIG IDEA
Rise of the robots (to revive Indigenous languages)
No matter how long your Duolingo streak is, learning a language is hard.
Especially if you’re trying to learn one of thousands of endangered Indigenous languages.
To help preserve disappearing languages, 25-year-old robotics designer Danielle Boyer created SkoBot, a wearable robot to teach young people Indigenous languages — beginning with her own, Anishinaabemowin.
Voiced by community members and powered by ethical AI, the robot is an extension of Boyer's efforts to make STEM education more accessible to Indigenous communities and kids, per American Indian Magazine.
You get a robot! You get a robot!
Boyer, who is Anishinaabe and a citizen of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, grew up the daughter of an electrical engineer father and an artist mother.
- Her interest in robots began early, but opportunities were financially inaccessible.
- Boyer taught herself to build robots, and began teaching STEM classes, later joining a high school robotics club.
- At 18, Boyer launched the STEAM Connection — adding "art" to STEM — a charity to make technical education accessible to youth through robotics.
STEAM's first initiative was EKGAR — Every Kid Gets a Robot — an app-controlled educational robotic car kit that costs less than $20 and goes to kids for free.
Meet SkoBot the robot
While roughly 167 Indigenous languages are spoken in the US, it’s estimated that only 20 will remain by 2050.
Within her own community, Boyer saw rapid language loss and her grandmother was the only fluent Anishinaabemowin speaker in her family.
Uniting her passion for robotics with language preservation, Boyer created the SkoBot.
- The interactive robot responds to voice commands to teach users Anishinaabe-language dialects.
- Recordings of children's voices — not synthetic ones — explain the meaning of words, and works without Wi-Fi.
- Made of recycled materials to look like woodland animals, the SkoBot perches on a user's shoulder.
- The robots are given away for free to Indigenous organizations for kids to build themselves.
- SkoBot uses internally developed ethical AI software that maintains data sovereignty and control, and minimizes environmental impact.
Through the STEAM Connection, Boyer plans to develop more initiatives to increase access to technical education for Indigenous communities.
Other language preservation projects
- Michael Running Wolf co-founded First Languages AI Reality (FLAIR), designed to reverse the loss of North American Indigenous languages through community-centered AI.
- Canada's FirstVoices enables users to share Indigenous languages.
Maybe that little green owl could learn a thing or two.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Blenders, hair tools, and TikTok gadgets… oh my. How did SharkNinja become a $6B empire spanning 37 product categories?
NEWSWORTHY NUMBER
The rate by which each stressful person in your life, or “hassler,” is increasing your pace of aging, according to a new study. That means for each passing calendar year, you’re aging 1.015 years biologically, courtesy of who might already be your least favorite person — and that’s assuming you only know one of those.
While it might sound like much of a dent, one of the study’s authors told The Washington Post those small effects can add up and lead to early onset of chronic diseases.
So, if interacting with that one annoying coworker feels like it’s draining the life out of you, well, it literally is. And also maybe consider finding a new job.
AROUND THE WEB
📅 On this day: In 1839, The Boston Morning Post printed “O.K.” — an abbreviation for “oll korrect” — as part of a joke, marking the first time the slang appeared in a newspaper.
👑 That’s interesting: A family tree for Greek deities.
👿 Game: Name the surprisingly evil historical figure.
📰 Newsletter: Subscribe to The Pipeline and Join 1m women leveling up their careers.
🐦 Aww: Copycat.
SHOWER THOUGHT
If you are an identical twin, there is a non-zero chance your parents got you confused for your sibling as an infant, so you aren't who you think you are. SOURCE
Today's email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah, Danny Jensen, and Singdhi Sokpo.
Editing by: Sara "Lost in translation" Friedman.
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