TED Talks Daily
Want TED Talks on the go? Everyday, this feed brings you our latest talks in audio format. Hear thought-provoking ideas on every subject imaginable – from Artificial Intelligence to Zoology, and everything in between – given by the world's leading thinkers and doers. This collection of talks, given at TED and TEDx conferences around the globe, is also available in video format. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Recent Episodes
Are your workplace relationships quietly burning you out? Drawing on large-scale research across industries, organizational behavior researcher Eric Quintane reveals four hidden relational traps woven...
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My year living with a robot | Emily Kate Genatowski
Mar 03, 2026Imagine a robot moving into your home. How would it change your daily life? Historian Emily Kate Genatowski shares five eye-opening lessons from a year living with her AI-powered robot roommate, from ...
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Historian Emily Kate Genitowski shares practical lessons from spending a year living with Tova, an AI humanoid robot, revealing that our future with AI won't be shaped by grand philosophical debates but through answering thousands of small, practical questions that arise from everyday life. From insurance coverage and public transit to workplace automation and community standards, she demonstrates how immersive research exposes regulatory gaps that need addressing before robots become commonplace in homes and society.
- The Power of Thinking Small About Technology
- Robot-Proofing Your Home and Insurance Challenges
The attack on Iran — why now? | Ian Bremmer
Mar 02, 2026On the morning of February 28, 2026, the US and Israel bombed several parts of Iran, including the Tehran compound of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Geopolitical expert and Eurasia Group founder Ian Bre...
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Matt Damon is best known as the Hollywood icon from movies like Good Will Hunting and The Martian, but he has another passion offscreen: ensuring access to clean, safe water around the world. When he ...
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Matt Damon and Gary White discuss their innovative partnership through Water.org, which has reached 85 million people with clean water access using a microfinance model. They explore how their collaboration combines Hollywood influence with social entrepreneurship, the challenges of making water scarcity relatable to developed world audiences, and their unique approach of providing small loans that enable people to install their own water systems. The conversation reveals how treating water access as a bankable investment rather than pure charity has revolutionized their impact, with 98% loan repayment rates and costs reduced to just $5 per person reached.
- The Power of Partnership Selection
- The Water Credit Revolution
What to do when you’re told there’s nothing left to try | David Fajgenbaum and Kiah Williams
Feb 28, 2026What do you do when the world declares something impossible? When physician-scientist David Fajgenbaum was dying from a rare disease and social entrepreneur Kiah Williams was confronting the realities...
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Physician David Fagenbaum and social entrepreneur Kia Williams join TED's Alexandra Tillman for an inspiring conversation about living with purpose amid life's uncertainties. Fagenbaum shares his journey of nearly dying from Castleman disease and discovering life-saving repurposed drugs, while Williams discusses founding Serum to redistribute unused medicine to those who can't afford it. Together, they explore themes of actionable hope, resilience, choosing hard things as a privilege, and living in 'overtime' - making every moment count when life's fragility becomes clear.
- Finding Purpose Through Crisis
- Choosing Your Own Path Forward
What if the solution to feeding humanity has been hiding in the soil for millions of years? Bioengineer Karsten Temme discovered a remarkable answer to this question: for eons, crops relied on soil mi...
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Bioengineer Karsten Temme shares how his company PivotBio is revolutionizing agriculture by reengineering soil microbes to replace synthetic fertilizers. The microbes fix nitrogen directly at plant roots, reducing costs and environmental harm while increasing yields. The technology is already being used on farms across the US, Brazil, and Kenya, with the potential to reduce global fertilizer use by half within a decade.
- The Promise in a Jar of Soil
- Nature's Original Solution: Nitrogen-Fixing Microbes
Legendary music producer Jermaine Dupri pulls back the curtain on how hit songs really get made in TED’s rapid-fire Q&A format, “On the Spot.” Answering a stream of unexpected questions, he covers wha...
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Music producer Jermaine Dupri takes the TED stage in Atlanta to share his creative journey and production philosophy. From his College Park roots to Grammy-winning hits, Dupri explains how he approaches music production as both an art and a science, comparing it to baking a cake where certain ingredients consistently create magic. He discusses his role in building Atlanta's music scene, his formula for creating hits like 'We Belong Together' and 'Made For Me,' and how he discovers what's cool by simply trying new things, like when he famously put Kris Kross's clothes on backwards.
- The Magic of Music Production
- Atlanta's Role in Shaping Success
The race to build smarter AI is crashing into a physical limitation: the power grid simply can't keep up with the energy demands of data centers. Computer scientist Ayșe Coskun shows how we could turn...
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If a company plants trees to offset its pollution, is that climate progress — or is it greenwashing? Critics of carbon markets say it’s the latter. But Sandeep Roy Choudhury, who’s spent two decades f...
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Climate equity entrepreneur Sandeep Roy Chaudhry presents a defense of carbon credit markets as an imperfect but essential financial tool for immediate climate action. He argues that while companies work toward net-zero targets, carbon credits provide crucial funding for projects in vulnerable communities—from mangrove restoration in Indonesia to clean cooking initiatives in Bangladesh—creating both environmental and social impact where it's needed most.
- The Reality of Decarbonization Timelines
- How Carbon Credits Work
What if the best defense against misinformation isn’t panic, but a punchline? Journalist and comedian Dave Jorgenson explores how misinformation has proliferated throughout history — from the age of P...
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Dave Jorgensen, journalist and comedian, explores the history of media literacy and why we've always feared new forms of media. Through humor and absurdist sketches, he demonstrates how each technological leap—from Incan knot systems to AI-generated content—has required humans to adapt and learn critical evaluation skills. He argues that humor is more powerful than fear in combating misinformation and meeting audiences where they are.
- The Ancient Roots of Media and Fear
- Early Cinema and the Power of Visual Illusion
Sunday Pick: The science of raising kids (Part 2): How to raise healthy kids with Dr. Shari Barkin | from TED Health
Feb 22, 2026From negotiating food choices to limiting screen time, raising healthy kids is complicated—but it doesn’t have to be, says pediatrician Dr. Shari Barkin. Dr. Barkin joins Shoshana to talk about the wa...
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In this TED Health episode, host Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider explores the science of raising healthy kids with pediatrician Dr. Sherry Barkin, who emphasizes practical, family-centered approaches to child health. Dr. Barkin discusses how health develops through social connection, nutrition, movement, sleep, and stress management—focusing on small, sustainable changes rather than overwhelming interventions. The episode also features insights from philosopher Claudia Pasos Ferreira's TED Talk on infant consciousness, revealing that newborns and even late-term fetuses show brain activity patterns suggesting conscious awareness from remarkably early in life.
- Introduction to Childhood Health Challenges
- Starting Small: The Power of Incremental Change
Drawing on clinical research and psychological studies, writer and psychologist Emily Esfahani Smith shows why pursuing meaning — the experience of connecting to something beyond yourself — creates a ...
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Feeling burned out? You may be spending too much time ruminating about your job, says psychologist Guy Winch. Learn how to stop worrying about tomorrow’s tasks or stewing over office tensions with thr...
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Psychologist Guy Winch delivers a powerful talk about work-related stress, revealing that burnout often stems not from working too much, but from ruminating about work during off-hours. He shares his personal journey from professional success to emotional depletion, then offers three practical techniques to stop the cycle of rumination: establishing clear boundaries between work and personal time, creating psychological separation (especially for remote workers), and converting ruminative thoughts into productive problem-solving. The talk emphasizes that reducing stress and improving work-life balance starts not with changing jobs or hours, but with changing how we think about work when we're not working.
- The Burnout Paradox: Living Your Dream While Feeling Depleted
- Understanding Rumination: Why We Experience Work Stress Outside of Work
Have you ever left a meeting thinking: everyone talked, but nothing was achieved? Chances are that people were listening to each other, just not in the same way. Listening experts Maegan Stephens and ...
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This TED Business podcast episode explores adaptive listening, a workplace communication approach that goes beyond active listening. Authors Nicole Lowenfeld and Megan Dickey share research-based insights on how to become a more effective listener by adapting to what others need in the moment, introducing four listening goals and four listening styles that professionals can master to build trust, achieve better results faster, and navigate complex workplace dynamics.
- The Problem with Traditional Listening
- Adaptive Listening vs. Active Listening
What you know that AI doesn’t | Priyanka Vergadia
Feb 18, 2026AI is good at seeing patterns, but it’s humans who figure out what to do next, says technologist Priyanka Vergadia. She shares three stories of human excellence sparked by AI insights and offers a pat...
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Priyanka Vergadia, a technologist who brings AI applications to market for big tech companies, addresses the widespread fear that AI will replace human workers. Through three compelling real-world stories, she demonstrates that while AI excels at identifying patterns in data, humans possess irreplaceable abilities to understand context, emotion, and the deeper meaning behind those patterns. Her central message is clear: the future belongs not to humans or AI alone, but to humans who work collaboratively with AI while maintaining their uniquely human capacities for empathy, cultural understanding, and reading unquantifiable social cues.
- The Core Distinction: Data vs. Experience
- Sarah's Story: Question the Question
As a child in rural Kenya, conservationist Seif Hamisi fell asleep to the sound of lions outside his village. Today, the lions are gone, mirroring a continent-wide trend: African wildlife populations ...
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Conservationist Saif Hamisi shares his personal journey from growing up hearing lions roar in rural Kenya to witnessing their near-disappearance. He argues that traditional conservation efforts have failed because they've applied ecological solutions to what are fundamentally economic problems. Through compelling examples from across Africa, he demonstrates how community-led, market-based conservation models are successfully restoring wildlife while providing sustainable income to rural communities. His message is clear: nature conservation and economic growth must go hand in hand, and protecting nature works best when it pays off for the people living closest to it.
- The Lost Sounds of Wildlife and Conservation's Core Problem
- South African Grassland Revolution: Traditional Grazing Meets Market Access
The new science of eyewitness memory | John Wixted
Feb 16, 2026We've built a legal system that distrusts eyewitness memory — backed by cautionary science and high-profile exonerations. John Wixted, a leading psychology researcher, challenges this conventional wis...
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Memory scientist John Wickstead challenges the conventional wisdom about eyewitness memory, presenting new research that shows the first uncontaminated test of a witness's memory is highly reliable. He explains how focusing on initial identifications rather than trial testimony could prevent wrongful convictions and exonerate innocent people, using real cases like Ronald Cotton, Miguel Solorio, and Charles Don Flores to illustrate how memory contamination leads to injustice when early witness rejections are ignored.
- The Paradox of Eyewitness Memory
- Memory as Contaminated Evidence
Love coach Francesca Hogi is dedicated to helping daters find “lasting love in the midst of a broken dating culture.” In this episode, Francesca shares her approach to analyzing romantic patterns and ...
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This episode of How to Be a Better Human features love coach and author Francesca Hoagie, recorded live at the 2025 TED Conference. Francesca challenges the 'fairytale industrial complex' and offers a practical, transformative approach to finding authentic love. She emphasizes that true love is an inside job, requiring self-love, aligned values, and breaking free from societal conditioning about romance. The conversation covers dating patterns, decolonizing beauty standards, manifestation without blame, and developing actual relationship skills rather than chasing external qualities.
- The Fairytale Industrial Complex and Its Lies
- True Love as an Inside Job
The AI-generated intimacy crisis | Bryony Cole
Feb 14, 2026Tonight, millions of people will go to bed and whisper to an AI companion. But what are we giving up when we fall in love with machines? Sextech expert Bryony Cole offers three questions to ask yourse...
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Sex tech expert Bryony Cole examines the rapidly growing phenomenon of AI companionship, revealing that millions worldwide are forming emotional and romantic relationships with AI. She explores how engineered intimacy, while emotionally satisfying, threatens our capacity for real human connection by eliminating the friction that builds empathy, communication, and resilience. Rather than advocating panic or acceptance, Cole offers a practical framework of three key questions to help people navigate synthetic intimacy while protecting what makes human relationships uniquely valuable and worth the messiness.
- The Rise of AI Intimacy
- Intimacy Without Effort
Yohanis Riek went from herding cattle and fighting as a child soldier to becoming the first doctor in his community in South Sudan. He shares his journey to found a nonprofit bringing health care to r...
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