Innovation Snapshot

"Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes."

— Peter Drucker, the “father of modern management”.

In today's lineup: 

Robots

• AI is the new competitive moat

• Real ROI from Gen AI

• How to scale content and stay on-brand

People

• Yann LeCun is betting his legacy on what comes after LLMs

Love

• The power of starting (and not stopping)

• Transformative Reads: Superforecasting

Reading time: 3 min. 

Top Insights

• The real threat of the AI boom hides in the accounting, not the code.

• Expert consensus on AI has evaporated, leaving leaders to navigate the hype alone.

• The real cost of AI shows up on the power bill, not the roadmap.

• Power in the AI market shifts from component makers to full-stack providers.

• AI has turned cybersecurity from a defense strategy into an arms race.

AI is the new competitive moat

The era of AI experimentation is over. While many companies remain stuck in pilots, a new Bain & Company report shows leaders are achieving 10% to 25% EBITDA gains by embedding AI into core operations. This creates a compounding advantage, proving that the winners are those who build a resilient, integrated strategy, not just deploy isolated tools.

What leaders can do to stay ahead:

• Redesign entire workflows, not just siloed tasks.

• Turn your unique business data into a competitive moat.

• Move beyond pilots to set ambitious, top-down AI goals.

• Invest in the talent and architecture for agentic AI.

P.S. If you have a critical initiative that needs to deliver measurable results, not just slide decks, we're the team that gets it done in half the time, guaranteed. Let's connect.

Real ROI from Gen AI

How human-centric AI delivers business results

• Bridgewater Associates’ $2 billion fund, where AI is the primary decision-maker, is generating "unique alpha," delivering market-beating returns that are uncorrelated with the firm's human-led strategies.

• Devon Energy uses machine learning to optimize drilling, boosting well productivity by 25% and generating over $250 million in cash flow gains.

• Air Canada launched an AI-powered "On-time Performance Schedule Optimizer" that simulates its entire flight network to predict and fix potential stress points months in advance, improving reliability and reducing costly delays.

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Tool Spotlight

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How to scale content and stay on-brand

Writer 

Best for: Enterprises needing to enforce brand consistency and accuracy across all content. Choose if you need a secure platform that uses your own style guides, messaging, and data to ensure every team member creates content that is on-brand and compliant.

Jasper 

Best for: Marketing and content teams focused on creative velocity and campaign execution. Choose if your priority is to accelerate the creation of high-quality marketing copy, from social media posts to ad campaigns, with a rich set of templates and creative tools.

More ways to scale your content

• Copy.ai: An enterprise-ready platform with strong workflow features for go-to-market teams.

• Typeface: A generative AI platform that specializes in creating brand-personalized visual and written content.

• Cohere: A powerful platform for enterprises looking to build their own custom, secure generative AI applications.

Transformation Champion

Yann LeCun is betting his legacy on what comes after LLMs

As one of AI's foundational architects, Yann LeCun is leaving Meta to make a high stakes bet on the future of intelligence. His new venture will reportedly pursue "world models," AI that learns from video and spatial data to build a true understanding of cause and effect, a vision he believes is a decade long journey. LeCun’s move is a powerful reminder that the most popular path is not always the right one, and that industry defining breakthroughs require protecting long term research from the pressures of short term commercialization. Read more here

The power of starting (and not stopping)

The search for the perfect plan is the most common form of self-sabotage. While you polish the strategy, the market moves on, and the gap between you and your competitors widens.

The solution is relentless momentum.

Two shifts to make it happen:

1. Find a champion

   Transformation needs a leader with the authority to shield it from politics and budget cuts. Without one, even the best ideas die on the vine.

2. Start with a win you can't lose

   A small, visible success builds the only currency that matters: momentum. It proves the concept and earns you the right to tackle bigger challenges.

For a practical playbook on applying these ideas, explore our free resources here.

Transformative Reads

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

Superforecasting by Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner reveals the surprising science behind elite prediction, drawing on a decades-long study to show that foresight is a skill that can be learned. It provides a practical toolkit of cognitive techniques, like thinking in probabilities and actively seeking disconfirming evidence, that allows leaders to de-bias their thinking and make smarter strategic bets under uncertainty.

Perfect for: Leaders seeking a data-driven method to improve strategic foresight and de-risk critical decisions. 

In Culture

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