{{first_name | Hi}}, your strategic AI update is here.
Apple’s $200B drop is the market’s tax on AI mediocrity, Wall Street now shorts AI laggards, and Microsoft just reframed AI's role from assistance to attrition. These are not technology stories. They are warnings that leaders are funding a future their culture cannot build. Your AI problem is not your tech stack, it is your people.
In today's lineup:
Robots
Your people are your AI problem
Real ROI from Gen AI
Your guide to AI-powered design tools
People
How Delian Asparouhov is building factories in space
Love
Nourish minds and watch performance thrive
Transformative Reads: Radical Candor by Kim Scott
ROBOTS 🤖
How are robotics and AI changing industries? We break down the latest news, tools, and innovations for you.
Top Insights
Apple’s $200B drop is the market’s new tax on AI mediocrity.
Wall Street confirmed AI laggards are the new shorts.
Microsoft reframed AI's role from assistance to attrition.
The attack on software revealed the vendor is the new target, not the user.
Baidu’s launch signals the AI race is about distribution, not demos.
Your people are your AI problem
A full 93% of executives report that cultural issues are the biggest obstacle to AI adoption, not technology. While 99% of companies say AI is a top priority, the vast majority are failing to manage the human side of the transformation. Leaders are funding a future their organizations are not culturally equipped to build.
Your next moves:
Redesign core workflows before you automate them.
Create a clean data layer instead of slow migrations.
Kill pilot projects that don't show value in 90 days.
Tie every dollar of AI spend to a business outcome.
What is the biggest cultural barrier to AI success in your organization?
Real ROI from Gen AI
How human-centric AI delivers business results
TRIMEDX uses ServiceNow's Now Assist to cut 2-5 minutes from every work order, saving its 3,400 employees hundreds of thousands of hours on administrative tasks annually.
Sevilla FC uses IBM's Scout Advisor (powered by watsonx) to analyze over 300,000 scouting reports, giving its recruiters a data-driven edge to identify potential stars.
Morgan Stanley advisors use an internal AI to synthesize over 100,000 research reports in seconds, turning hours of research into immediate, data-backed client insights.
Tool Spotlight
Your weekly briefing on tools that create competitive leverage
Your guide to AI-powered design tools
This week, Figma published a report arguing that AI increases demand for skilled designers by automating routine tasks.
Best for: Product teams building and maintaining a design system. Figma is the standard for collaborative UI/UX work, using AI to speed up the workflow from brainstorming to production-ready designs.
Choose if you need to:
Collaborate in real-time across design, product, and engineering.
Automate component creation and layout variations.
Generate design ideas or entire screens from text prompts.
This month, Canva integrated its Brand Kit with AI assistants like ChatGPT, letting users generate on-brand designs from a simple prompt.
Best for: Marketing and business teams that need to create visual content quickly without a design background. Canva’s AI toolset is built for non-designers.
Choose if you need to:
Let non-designers create on-brand marketing assets.
Generate images, write copy, or edit photos in one place.
Automate creating full documents and presentations from a prompt.
3 other platforms to explore...
Adobe Firefly: The enterprise choice for creative workflows, built into the Adobe Suite with IP indemnification.
Beautiful.ai: Specializes in automated presentation design.
Uizard: Turns hand-drawn sketches into digital mockups.
PEOPLE 👥
Meet the innovators turning bold ideas into real-world impact.
Transformation Champion
How Delian Asparouhov is building factories in space
Manufacturing advanced pharmaceuticals and semiconductors on Earth is limited by gravity. Delian Asparouhov, co-founder of Varda Space Industries, saw this not as a terrestrial constraint but as an off-world opportunity. His company builds and launches autonomous "factories in orbit" where microgravity allows for the creation of materials impossible to produce on the ground. Varda’s successful missions are pioneering a new category of manufacturing and proving that the next industrial revolution might not be on this planet.
LOVE ❤️
Practical wisdom, growth tactics, and a must-read book that will challenge the way you think.
Nourish minds and watch performance thrive
A nutrient-deficient brain perceives collaboration as a threat.
Use this lens to fix the root cause of withdrawal:
Iron and magnesium deficiencies look exactly like burnout. If your team is irritable or foggy, no amount of coaching will fix a physiological deficit.
A weak body triggers the "behavioral immune system." This evolutionary mechanism forces employees to withdraw from social contact and risk.
Stop funding generic wellness apps. Redirect budget to tangible health services that identify and treat the nutrient gaps driving the disconnection.
Transformative Reads
One book, handpicked from my conversations with friends, industry leaders, and tech innovators:
Radical Candor by Kim Scott offers a simple framework for effective feedback: Care Personally and Challenge Directly. Scott shows how to give guidance that is both kind and clear, avoiding the common pitfalls of ruinous empathy or obnoxious aggression. It is a practical guide for creating a culture of open communication that drives results.
Perfect for: Leaders and managers who want to build trust and improve team performance.
In Culture
And you thought stakeholder alignment was your biggest challenge…
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Much Love,
Matt and the Future Works team
