The LEAP Guide 4th edition is here!

We just dropped the 4th edition of "The LEAP Guide" on Amazon, and this is our best work yet.

I spent over a year working with some brilliant minds at Harvard Business School. Professor Linda A. Hill (she's basically innovation royalty) contributed incredible insights, and what we built together blew me away.

What's new:

• We rewrote huge chunks with new graphics and clearer explanations

• The LEAP framework now has extra steps that make it even more powerful

• Platform access is completely free now (no more jumping through hoops!)

• We baked in lessons from 300+ companies already using LEAP

The coolest part? Linda helped me refine the framework so it actually gets smarter each time you use it. Your innovation process literally improves itself.

Thank you so much for all your support on this journey. I couldn't have done this without you!

In today's lineup:

Robots

• Top Bites: AI's global acceleration

• 3 helpful AI advances

• AI hype mirrors '90s internet

• YouTube Shorts vs Google Photos for image-to-video AI

People

• Cristóbal Valenzuela democratizes filmmaking with AI

Love

• Start sustainable innovation in 4 simple steps

• Transformative reads: 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership by Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman, and Kaley Klemp

Reading time: 5 min. 

Top bites ⚡

• Europe’s AI supervision and sanctions starts soon

• China's humanoids will soon be playing the Hunger Games

• Apple beats Trump tariffs, slow start in AI to deliver strong quarter

• Mastercard launches conversational AI payments

• The Gulf bets big on AI as it seeks the 'new oil'

• FuriosaAI raises $125M in bid to be Nvidia's challenger

Why today's AI marketing mirrors 1990s internet hype

The '90s internet boom sold utopian dreams to consumers. Today's AI boom targets businesses with competitive fear tactics. This shift reveals crucial lessons for leaders navigating technological transformation.

Historical parallels exposed critical gaps:

• 1990s companies overcame negative internet perceptions through strategic partnerships. Today's AI faces worker displacement anxieties requiring proactive management.

• Enterprise AI implementations face cost overruns from $500 per worker to $250 million, often exceeding projections by 300%.

• AI accelerates decision-making from weeks to seconds, yet many CDOs report it hinders rather than helps data use. This reveals a gap between marketing promises and operational reality.

Do you have the strategic discipline to avoid an AI crash?

Gen AI in action 🌊

3 ways AI is creating human-centered value.

• Acentra Health's MedScribe reduces nursing hours by 11,000, cutting healthcare appeal letter time in half, saving $800K.

• Pets at Home used Microsoft Copilot Studio for fraud detection, accelerating investigations 10x faster.

• Revenue Grid deployed Microsoft Fabric, slashing infrastructure costs by 60%.

Tool Spotlight 🔧

Your weekly dose of AI-powered tools delivering real results.

YouTube shorts challenges Google Photos for image-to-video supremacy

What to consider

YouTube Shorts

• Best for: social media influencers and marketers.

• Key features: user-friendly editing tools, vast music library, direct sharing to YouTube.

Google Photos

• Best for: personal use and casual video creation.

• Key features: automatic movie creation, simple editing options, cloud storage.

3 other tools for AI image-to-video creation

• SoulGen - AI-driven storytelling for narrative videos

• Kling - Collaborative video creation platform for teams

• OpenAI Sora - High-quality video generation with minimal input

Transformation Champion 🏆

Cristóbal Valenzuela transforms filmmaking from exclusive craft to universal language

Chile's visionary co-founder built Runway into AI cinema's cornerstone, securing $200M in funding since 2018. His technology powers Oscar-winning films while democratizing video creation for millions.

After recognizing that traditional filmmaking barriers exclude countless storytellers, Valenzuela declared, "What most people get wrong about AI media is that it represents an incremental improvement to how we currently make things."

How to build predictable innovation in 12 weeks?

LEAP turns innovation from guesswork into a repeatable system. Four simple steps, 12 weeks total:

Start innovation supercycles in 3 steps

1. Locate opportunities (5 weeks)

2. Evaluate and pick your winner (1 week)

3. Action Plan your roadmap (3 weeks)

4. Progress to working prototype (3 weeks)

Harvard Business School helped us add a self-improving twist: each LEAP cycle gets smarter based on your learnings. Plus there's now an AI coach and free templates at leap.guide.

Why it works: Just 1 hour per week per person. One team spawns two, then four. Soon innovation happens everywhere. Tested with 300+ companies.

Transformative Reads 📚

One book, handpicked from my conversations with friends, industry leaders, and tech innovators:

The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership transforms fear-driven management into trust-based leadership through radical responsibility, authentic communication, and emotional intelligence.

Perfect for: Executives, managers, and emerging leaders seeking to build collaborative cultures and develop self-aware leadership approaches that prioritize learning and connection over control. 

In Culture 🤌

Here's something to laugh about this week.

THANK YOU!

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