Both my #1 bestselling books are free today!

A few years ago, my company almost died. Our predictive models failed, and we were flying blind. The system we built to survive became the playbook in my two #1 bestselling books.

Today only, I'm giving the Kindle versions away for free.

This is to celebrate the return of my book 100x after a legal fight with Amazon, but more importantly, to get these playbooks to anyone else flying blind right now.

• The LEAP Guide is the playbook for running innovation that actually works.

• 100x is the executive brief for getting real ROI from AI.

I hope these help you build great things!

In today's lineup: 

Robots

• AI ROI is no longer a myth

• Real ROI from Gen AI

• Google Cloud Vertex AI or Dataiku for your AI strategy?

People

• Mo Gawdat on raising an ethical AI

Love

• How to find your "golden thread"

• Transformative Reads: The Lean Startup

Reading time: 3 min. 

Top Insights

• AI's value is now measured on the balance sheet, not the whiteboard.

• The biggest impact of AI on the workforce isn't replacement, but reallocation.

• The AI arms race has moved from the lab to the legislature.

• The lasting value of AI will be measured in scientific breakthroughs, not app downloads.

• Wall Street's AI honeymoon is over, and the fear of a bubble is back.

AI ROI is no longer a myth

The debate over AI's return on investment is settling as tangible results replace speculation. A new Wharton survey reveals that 72% of business leaders are now actively measuring the ROI of their Gen AI initiatives, with a staggering 74% reporting a positive return. This marks a pivotal shift from experimental adoption to strategic implementation that delivers measurable business value.

What leaders can do to stay ahead:

• Move beyond isolated pilot programs to enterprise-wide AI integration.

• Focus AI initiatives on solving core business challenges for maximum impact.

• Invest in upskilling your workforce to fully leverage advanced AI tools.

• Implement robust frameworks to consistently measure and track AI ROI.

Real ROI from Gen AI

How human-centric AI delivers business results

• Zendesk builds adaptive AI service agents that cut customer setup time from days to minutes, accelerating their path to 80% automation.

• Mercado Libre scales accessibility support with an AI assistant that automates developer guidance, enriches bug tickets, and accelerates the review of fixes.

• Salesforce boosts sales and service productivity with Agentforce, its AI assistant that automates routine tasks like drafting emails and summarizing calls.

Together with Stat Significant

Strategic insights from culture-defining trends

In a world where data drives decisions, how can we get better at seeing the stories hidden in the numbers?

Stat Significant is a free weekly newsletter that masters the art of data storytelling. Each week, it dives into the data behind pop culture to uncover surprising cultural trends, answering questions like, "When do we stop finding new music?" and "How many episodes should you watch before quitting a TV show?".

For leaders looking to sharpen their analytical lens and find new ways to interpret data, this is a must-read.

Subscribe for free to find out!

Tool Spotlight

Your weekly briefing on tools that create competitive leverage

Google Cloud Vertex AI or Dataiku for your AI strategy?

Google Cloud Vertex AI 

Best for: Companies deeply integrated with the Google Cloud ecosystem needing a unified, end-to-end MLOps platform. 

Choose if you need a fully managed, scalable platform to manage the entire ML lifecycle with Google's foundation models. 

News: Google Cloud recently updated its Vertex AI Agent Builder to move AI agents from prototype to production faster.

Dataiku 

Best for: Enterprises seeking a platform-agnostic, collaborative environment for both data scientists and business analysts. 

Choose if you need a platform-agnostic solution that empowers users of all skill levels with strong governance and collaboration. 

News: Dataiku recently surpassed $350M in annual recurring revenue and is expanding globally, reflecting strong enterprise demand.

3 more enterprise AI platforms to explore...

• Amazon SageMaker: A comprehensive machine learning platform within the AWS ecosystem.

• Microsoft Azure Machine Learning: An end-to-end MLOps solution for building and deploying models on Azure.

• C3 AI: Provides a library of pre-built, industry-specific AI applications for faster deployment.

Transformation Champion

Mo Gawdat on raising an ethical AI

Mo Gawdat, former Chief Business Officer at Google X, urges us to look beyond building smarter AI and instead focus on raising it with the right values. He warns that humanity developed a superpower without the wisdom to control it, a path that could create a "super villain." To guide our choices, Gawdat offers a simple, profound test: build AI that you would trust with your own child. This ethical standard moves our focus from technological progress to human responsibility, calling on leaders to forge a future where our creations serve humanity with inherent goodness. Watch his full talk at Expo City Dubai.

How to find your "golden thread"

We mistake activity for progress, addicted to the illusion of motion. We launch new initiatives and optimize a dozen fronts, hoping a thousand small improvements create a big win. This scattered approach traps us, keeping us busy while failing to move the needle.

Instead of untangling the entire business at once, find the single "golden thread." This critical point of leverage makes everything else easier.

Two shifts to find it:

• Rethink your goal from first principles. Instead of asking how to make your current process 10% more efficient, ask, "If we were starting from scratch, what would be the absolute best way to achieve our goal?"

• Challenge your core business loop. Question whether your main value-delivery model remains the right one for a world with AI.

I break down the full framework in my latest article.

Transformative Reads

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

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries provides a capital-efficient framework to de-risk innovation. It replaces the "build it and they will come" mindset with a scientific method for navigating extreme uncertainty. The "Build-Measure-Learn" feedback loop ensures every action is geared toward validated learning, turning market risk into a strategic advantage.

Perfect for: Executives and innovation leaders launching new initiatives with maximum capital efficiency.

In Culture

If you thought your competitive landscape was brutal…

THANK YOU!

Lighthouse takes us many hours to create, and we don’t run ads or charge anything. We are dedicated to making it the best AI transformation newsletter possible.

We just ask for one thing: tell one friend about Lighthouse today!