#innovation

Do you think AI will be a key driver for innovation in State Street ?
I have my doubts when I see the people leading such initiatives

The very same thing Oasis does can be produced out of the box on most AI platforms.

ChatGPT / Claude premium offers numerous agents now built in click and go type that do many things that needed a manual agent build.

You literally type into chat monitor this server for Xyz and set triggers conditions and it does it for you.

DXC don’t have the resources these AI companies have…. Which bell end thought clients would pay us millions for this?

I've been here long enough to remember when we were the innovators. We set the trends. We made the products everyone wanted. Now we just make slight variations to the same old products. We spend more time on office politics than on new ideas. And we wonder why we're losing users.

Did you guys see SV’s presentation? He has figured out that physical AI technology of RemainCo is going to change the world and shoot this company to the top. Much as his career has taken off in last 30 years with only PowerPoint slides, without ever getting his hands dirty with any tech project.
Also with UOP taking over HPS management, it’s star is going to shine. Two years ago UOP took over Solstice AM management just for four months before they spun it out and the latter’s stock price has doubled in just 6 months.

This is shocking. Sounds like Cigna really isn't interested in innovation at all.

The current patent and "white paper" landscape is a farce. It has nothing to do with genuine innovation and everything to do with corporate vanity and resume padding.

Most of these filings are complete junk,technical jargon engineered specifically to game the system and bypass patent examiners. The only real "innovation" happening is in the art of writing applications that look novel on paper despite lacking any substantive value. It is a massive, expensive circus that produces nothing of merit.

It is time to be honest:

It’s pure marketing: Companies and individuals are using patents and AI-generated white papers as shallow promotional tools to project an image of expertise they don't actually possess.

The system is broken: The patent process was built for mechanical hardware, not software. Applying it to modern tech is like trying to use a horse-and-buggy manual to maintain a jet engine—it doesn't work, and it's obsolete.

The "Defensive" Reality: Major players know the system is a waste of time. Companies like Google often skip the patent process entirely, choosing to publish findings as a defensive move simply to prevent others from clogging the system with garbage patents.

We are wasting millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours on a system designed to protect ideas that aren't even worth protecting. It is time to stop pretending this serves the industry; it only serves the ego of the people writing the applications.

The Wall Street Journal evaluates how leading US corps stack up in 6 areas: AI readiness, innovation, talent readiness, financial fitness, resilience and agility.

State Street ranks #208 overall with an Overall Score of 51.3, placing it 23rd out of 41 Financial Services companies. Its best factors are Resilience Rank #170, Agility #176, and Financial Fitness #222, which are respectable but not strong. The company does not screen as a major outlier in either direction.

The weak points are AI Rank #325, Innovation #233, and Talent Readiness #292. Strategically, State Street looks like a mature financial infrastructure company with decent stability, but limited future-readiness momentum. Compared with Visa, Mastercard, Charles Schwab, and S&P Global, it lacks the same evidence of AI, innovation, and platform-style upside.

Source:

https://www.wsj.com/rankings/best-companies-for-the-future/full-rankings-2026

A major problem in today’s economy is that many companies focus more on extracting value than creating it. A truly great company should make useful products, serve its customers well, treat employees fairly, and maintain healthy relationships with suppliers. However, modern business culture often rewards companies even when they fail to do these things. When a company becomes highly valued despite offering less value to the people who depend on it, that reflects a deeper problem in society.

Business leaders should measure success by the value they provide to customers, not only by the money they return to shareholders. A successful business should constantly ask whether it is giving customers more value than it did before. The danger comes when companies decide to take value away from customers in order to increase profits. This may help the company in the short term, but it damages trust and weakens the purpose of the business.

This problem is especially visible in technology. Many services begin by offering something genuinely useful, but once they attract a large user base, they often shift toward extracting more profit from those users. Platforms may make useful features harder to find, increase prices, show more advertising, or push content that benefits the company more than the customer. This is the process Cory Doctorow calls “enshittification.” The original purpose of the product becomes weaker, while the company captures more value for itself.

The rise of artificial intelligence raises similar concerns. AI may make businesses more productive, but the benefits of that productivity do not have to belong only to shareholders or owners of capital. Greater productivity could lead to higher wages, shorter working hours, better services, or lower prices for consumers. However, if companies treat shareholder profit as the only important goal, AI could deepen inequality and reduce the role of ordinary people in the economy.

A society where only a small group of capital owners benefits from automation would be unstable and inhuman. Prosperous economies require the circulation of money and value, because businesses still need customers, workers, and communities to survive. If AI replaces human labor without creating new ways for people to participate, then the economy could become more concentrated and less inclusive. The challenge of the twenty-first century is to decide what role humans will have as more tasks become automated.

The future of the AI economy is therefore a choice. Society can allow AI to become another tool for monopoly, lock-in, and extraction, or it can design systems that allow more people to participate and benefit. The web and open source software succeeded in part because they created an “architecture of participation,” where many people could contribute and share in value creation. A humane economy should follow that model by using markets to support human flourishing rather than concentrating wealth among a few people.

Tim O'Reilly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrQu3MRSQgc

It appears Citi is only cost cutting and scaling back operations. They can’t grow and are not innovative, so the only option is to keep cutting and reduce the bottom line.

UnitedHealth Group managed to squeeze $12B in pure profit out of the healthcare system last year solely through value extraction. Like Sears, Circuit City, and other notable companies that found themselves in the trash bin of history, they are relying on their size to keep employers, providers, and members with them. At a time when healthcare costs are skyrocketing, they could be creating value in the healthcare system and — gasp! — earning some profit for themselves. Instead, they push out anyone who wants to innovate or question the dirty tactics and legally dubious actions. Hemsley was supposed to make it better. Instead, he’s made the company culture worse and is putting short term gain above not only UnitedHealth Group’s interests, but the already strained healthcare system.

Know this, there is an avoidable trajectory here; but persist down this road and some startup will eat your lunch just like Amazon — a nobody at the time — did to Sears and Circuit City. Change course before it’s too late. Hire some technology people that actually know technology. Hire ethical business leaders that will follow the law. UnitedHealth Group could be the reason the healthcare system gets better or the reason it crashed. Choose wisely.

The last Reorg is a massive failure, very poorly planned and executed, they will pay the price soon. Layoffs are being done in the wrong places. Instead of constant reorgs that don't work why don't you layoff all the sycophant leadership who created these strategic blunders to occur and leave the alone the IC, you will need them to rescue your org. Once you have done that look into the current ICs for talent who have vision and creativity that can lead to true innovation and not just sychophants who will do as they are told. Nah instead you will make one or two changes, shuffle around some people, but keep the same id--ts in place. Congratulations you have not changed.

https://presentofcoding.substack.com/p/please-switch-to-python

Stata can’t. SAS can’t. SPSS can’t. MATLAB’s answer is “call Python from MATLAB.”

even where these tools have some capability, it requires calling Python, or expensive licenses, or both.

I’ve rarely met anyone who learned Python or R after switching from Stata or SAS and said, “I wish I were still working in those.”

Probably the only way out of this mess is to make FOSS illegal or legally cripple its usage within the country and, if possible, around the globe. There are movements afoot…

The Wall Street Journal evaluates how leading US corps stack up in 6 areas: AI readiness, innovation, talent readiness, financial fitness, resilience and agility.

Cisco is one of the clearest winners in the entire table. It ranks #5 overall with an Overall Score of 78.9, and it is #1 out of 21 companies in Technology Hardware & Equipment. The profile is unusually balanced: AI #13, Innovation #13, Talent #20, Financial Fitness #57, Resilience #11, and Agility #37.

This is not a one-factor story. Cisco screens as a balanced infrastructure compounder: strong in AI readiness, strong in innovation, financially sound, resilient, and organizationally agile. The strategic implication is that the market often talks about AI in terms of chips and hyperscalers, but the WSJ model is also rewarding enterprise network infrastructure. Cisco’s ranking suggests it is viewed as a durable enabler of the AI and connectivity cycle, not merely a mature hardware incumbent.

Source:
https://www.wsj.com/rankings/best-companies-for-the-future/full-rankings-2026

The Wall Street Journal evaluates how leading US corps stack up in 6 areas: AI readiness, innovation, talent readiness, financial fitness, resilience and agility.

Optum does not appear as a standalone company in the uploaded table, so I used UnitedHealth Group as the closest listed proxy. UnitedHealth ranks #89 overall with an Overall Score of 57.7, ranking 6th out of 44 companies in Health Care Equipment & Services. Its strongest factor is Financial Fitness Rank #48, with Innovation at #85 and Agility at #130.

The weaknesses are Talent Readiness #297 and Resilience #283, which are notable for a large health-services platform. The strategic read is that UnitedHealth, and by proxy Optum, screens as a financially strong, moderately innovative healthcare infrastructure company, but not as a fully resilient or talent-leading organization. The table supports a “platform with scale advantage” thesis, but not an unqualified future-readiness leadership thesis.

Source:
https://www.wsj.com/rankings/best-companies-for-the-future/full-rankings-2026

The Wall Street Journal evaluates how leading US corps stack up in 6 areas: AI readiness, innovation, talent readiness, financial fitness, resilience and agility.

Wells Fargo ranks #187 overall with an Overall Score of 52.3, putting it above the bank-sector average of 48.7 but outside the top quartile of the full 500-company universe. The positive surprise is AI Rank #16 and Innovation Rank #66, both strong for a traditional bank. That is not a trivial finding: among large banks, Wells Fargo screens as more forward-positioned on digital and AI-related readiness than its overall rank implies.

The problem is execution culture and adaptability. Wells ranks #386 in Talent Readiness and #453 in Agility, which are severe offsets. The data reads Wells Fargo as a bank with meaningful technology potential but weak organizational velocity. Strategically, that creates a familiar incumbent-bank problem: digital investment is necessary, but not sufficient, if employee systems, operating model, and institutional agility remain behind the curve.

Source:
https://www.wsj.com/rankings/best-companies-for-the-future/full-rankings-2026

Mattel watching the MOTU train sunset Not advertising MOTU and racing an Amazon truck through a scene didn’t help anyone, including Bezos. Only difference is, Bezos still has money. Move most of your doll line to collector only. There she can flourish as she’s meant to. Open shelf space for a new way to play. It’s not just about toys anymore. Children have evolved. Toy companies need to evolve with them. The madness of creating the same pink junk over and over expecting a new outcome is just that. Madness.

In the Monday, June 8, 2026 the Wall Street Journal included a complete section listing the top 500 companies across all industry segments. Each company was ranked by AI readiness, Innovation, Talent, Resilience AI Readiness & Agility. The lower the ranking the better the company.

#1 Nvidia
#2 Alphabet
#3 Microsoft
#4 Meta Platforms

Telecommunications Services sector (only 3 companies in this sector)
#56 T-Mobile US (Agility rank 82, Innovation 283, Talent 136, AI 71)
#149 Verizon Communications (Agility rank 447, Innovation 250, Talent 155, AI 26)
#375 AT&T (Agility rank 465, Innovation 181, Talent 390, AI 33)

What do these numbers tell you? AT&T looks significantly less prepared for future success than its two major wireless competitors when all of the ranking factors are combined. The ranking appears to view AT&T as substantially weaker in attracting, retaining, developing, or positioning its workforce for future needs than its peers.

"AT&T has some innovative capabilities, but the organization is viewed as bureaucratic, slow to adapt, and less successful at developing and retaining the talent needed for future growth."

That combination can be especially damaging in a "future readiness" ranking because future performance increasingly depends on AI adoption, digital transformation, and workforce quality rather than simply owning a large network.

From an investor's perspective, the most concerning number in the table is probably not the innovation rank, it is the 390 talent rank, because that sees AT&T as having a weaker human-capital foundation than either Verizon or T-Mobile.

Does anyone has the slightest idea what whoever works in the Ai foundry are doing ? Radio Factset says we won't tell you bunch of stupid people.

Dan here. Announcing our 2026 strategy: We’re looking to globally engage end to end catalyst for change by intrinsically productizing cross-cultural channels and competently expediting seamless alignments. Artificial Intelligence. We want to rapidly create advanced dynamic customer experiences and compellingly scale user centric stories. Artificial intelligence. We’re going to be uniquely targeting low risk, yet high yield web readiness. Our exploratory research points to deconstructive relative contingencies, and now is the time to revamp and reboot our holistic asset projections, with our interactive 3rd generation paradigm shifts. Artificial intelligence. I’m sure we can make a window here to really discuss with our customers holistic, monitored innovations. Artificial intelligence.
And now’s the time to chart this opportunity and take the company forward. By now, you should be clear on the vision and purpose of the business. With this strategy and artificial intelligence, we will increase our targets 10x. Play to win. Artificial intelligence. All gas, no brakes. Artificial intelligence. Go team. AI.

Not a damn thing. No innovation. Horrible take on human capital. Stay away from these mushroom clouds

We are told we are an AI first company.

Now we are being told not to use it too much as it's costing too much money!

I have a proposal for the BOD’s I think they will enjoy. Instead of laying off staff we should layoff the entire SLT with AI in order to drive company growth, innovation, and profitability. By now, the Board can already sense they dropped the ball hiring Enrique because he does nothing except lose market cap value. So why not save the company hundreds of millions by laying off the executives? Do you actually think AI would do worse? This company’s currently at its lowest point in history. Some people will read this as a joke but the more you think they more it actually makes sense. Also, think of all the stock comp that will be saved!! Buybacks will actually mean something now.

ByJudith Magyar,Brand Contributor.

“Digital transformation often gets mistaken for an IT upgrade,” said Kurt Aerts, business venture executive at ExxonMobil. He was speaking at the ASUG Best Practices event for Oil, Gas and Energy in Houston, Texas. “Our ongoing transformation is a powerful reminder that true change means transforming the business at scale. It’s not about implementing new systems — it’s about fundamentally changing how an enterprise operates and creates value.”

Not just another systems project
This philosophy underpins the company’s multi-year transformation that integrates people, processes, systems, and data across an organization with $350 billion in annual revenue, about 60,000 employees, and operations spanning upstream, chemicals, fuels, lubricants, and low-carbon solutions.

One of the key steps in ExxonMobil’s journey, which began in 2017, was to reframe the mindset. “We don’t want to optimize, we want to transform,” said Aerts.

Process transformation requires challenging deeply ingrained ways of working and prioritizing adoption of industry standards for each process area and service offering such as Record-to-Report, Source-to-Pay or Order-to-Cash, to drive globally consistent execution. This takes a governance model designed for clarity and speed of decision making — two prerequisites for meaningful transformation and to prevent the common trap of consensus-driven optimization.

Transforming the core
Aerts went on to describe ExxonMobil’s three core pillars of transformation:

Processes are now harmonized to industry standards enterprise-wide versus being executed differently by business or geography.

Systems are modernized from 12 heavily customized ERPs to a unified, cloud-based platform on SAP S/4HANA.

Data is being turned from fragmented, trapped information into harmonized consistently defined enterprise assets.

In the past, answering a simple question such as ‘how much do we sell to Walmart’ required hours of aggregating and reconciling across 12 ERPs. Real-time, enterprise-wide visibility will speed up the process considerably. “Harmonized data is becoming ExxonMobil’s new gold standard — the foundation for predictive analytics, AI, and faster decision-making,” Aerts explained.

Managing scale and risk
Large-scale transformation requires effective risk management. ExxonMobil’s approach balances value capture and risk mitigation.

Deployments are phased by the existing ERP ecosystem, not geography or function, to manage complexity and provide business continuity. A layered governance structure — from a sponsor committee of senior executives to operational design boards — supports accountability, transparency, and alignment at every level.

Aerts shared some lessons from the frontline, stressing the importance of foundational principles. When challenges arise, these principles help keep decisions aligned with strategic intent. Next, he reiterated that data matters most, because clean, consistent data is the real enabler of transformation. And finally, the team learned early on that an out-of-the-box approach really works. Industry-standard configurations deliver agility and prevent the drift toward customization that burdens future upgrades.

“We were able to achieve significant simplification,” he said. “For instance, we reduced about 1,400 company codes to under 1,000, and profit centers from more than 15,000 to fewer than 500. This has eliminated significant complexity while increasing transparency across financial reporting.”

ExxonMobil’s key metrics reflect the disciplined execution of the transformation, and is exceeding its targets on its two principal objectives:

80% target on Fit to Standard: a testament to the commitment to adopt industry standard processes.

90% target on Clean Core: enabling instant upgradeability and system resilience.

Ultimately, ExxonMobil’s enterprise transformation is about creating competitive advantage. By harmonizing data, simplifying systems, and standardizing processes across business lines and geographies, the company is positioning itself for faster innovation and improved experiences for employees, suppliers and customers.

Shaping the future
Transformation is also about visionary leadership in an industry that is adapting to societal needs on how energy is produced, distributed, and consumed. ExxonMobil has a long history of collaboration with SAP to address functionality gaps and ensure the solution is optimized for the oil and gas industry. In essence, ExxonMobil’s journey offers a blueprint for global organizations facing the same challenges, especially lack of agility caused by legacy systems, fragmented data, and decentralized processes.

Aerts concluded: “A successful transformation isn’t about replacing tools; it’s about redesigning processes, data and systems to deliver industry leading performance in efficiency, effectiveness and the experience of our employees and customers, while ensuring agility for adjustments required due to changes in the market.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2025/11/04/exxonmobil-is-rewiring-its-enterprise-for-the-energy-future/

Here are some new words for our friends at Corporate CommsGPT:

• Macroeconomic atmospheric turbulence
• Strategic velocity dampening
• Opportunity realization drag coefficients
• Enterprise momentum asymmetry
• Dynamic value-capture friction
• Market digestion oscillations
• Revenue-adjacent gravitational forces
• Go-to-market viscosity

Feel free to add your own.

Link --> https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/ibm-ceo-commits-to-reaching-quantum-computing-milestone-by-2029/ar-AA24GHxd?ocid=msedgntp&pc=W099&cvid=6a2049f56af74598af51294d8ec381d8&ei=9

If you believe this stuff will be available in 2029, then you'll believe anything and... I have bridge to sell you in London. No mention of Arvind's golden boy, Dario in this article.
BUT...
What happens if the fabled quantum computers fail to materialize in 2029 ? Where will Arvind and Dario be ? Basking in the sun somewhere in the Caribbean or hiding from the Italian Mafia underground ? After all, a billion dollars is a lot of $$$. ($10 billion is even more). LOL.

The cure is not in cutting costs. The cure is to innovate its way out of the current
predicament. Fiserv seems to be missing that point. Sure you can increase EPS by buying back stock and laying off employees, but thats not going to grow top line revenue. No one is impressed with management’s plans, and the stock price is reflecting that.

Innovation - the process of creating, improving, or applying ideas, products, services, technologies, methods, or business models in a way that produces meaningful value.

If you have time, this is a great interview on the issue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXiOO-nKqpw&t=1s

I have been thinking a lot about ai and sw eng. work.... been doing it now for almost 3 decades... the productvity gains are real. code moves faster - test cases are easier, documenting takes less effort... and research that used to take hrs happens more quickly.

at the same time, engineering has never been just about producing code. at least for me and folks around me... a lot of the value comes from debugging, arch discussions, mistakes, tradeoffs. learning the system deeply enough to shape it yourself. if ai starts solving too much of that for us, we will lose some of the judgment and ownership that made work meaningful.

Anyhow I do not think the answer is to reject ai. It is way too useful for that... the question is how we use it without replacing the curiosity... craftsmanship... collaboration and mentoring that make good engineers, and good teams even better...

At the same time I do that my wishes will come true, the economics are against it. So, yea times have changed...

Fancy Name Tags ( especially as if I invented the AI ) doesn't add ANY value to the corporation..

IBM's targeted version of Mythos.
Once again riding coattails and scavenging scraps.

https://www.cybersecuritydive.com/news/ibm-open-source-security-ai-project-lightwell/821348/

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2026/05/28/ibm-to-spend-5b-on-new-cybersecurity-platform-for-enterprise-customers.html

Since we are AI all in lets replace the Board & Ceo with AI. Lets lead by example instead of always being a follower.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/05/uss-big-bet-on-quantum-computing-may-not-be-entirely-legal/

It clearly falls outside the confines of the CHIP Act intent.

Article also points out how utterly ridiculous the idea of a "quantum chip foundry" is in 2026.

From my experience at Oracle...

Stop sharing your big ideas or new project concepts with management. Most of them honestly don’t understand the real technical depth behind the work.

They rarely join brainstorming sessions or real idea discussions. They only show up when the final result is ready. They don’t want the struggle or hard part of building something. They just want the finished product handed to them so they can approve it, sign the document, and take the credit.

If you suggest new ideas or projects before having complete results, management might even start seeing you negatively. And honestly, a lot of these managers can’t even get proper resources or support for their own teams. They have just something called Managerial EGO.

They love starting trendy discussions around hackathons, POCs, innovation, learning sessions, and all that. But most of the time, they only know the buzzwords because they heard them from someone else. They build vocabulary, not actual understanding.

At the end of the day, you’re there to finish the work assigned to you.Not to help management look smarter using your ideas. Some of those ideas could actually become your own startup someday and make you far more successful instead of helping useless managers climb higher.

Just a thought, maybe start chasing VAST/Weka/Qumulo before they eat all your NAS lunch?

Is ops innovation working? Another leftover appendage from Greg Smith

Why every time lay off news.. some thing do new .. better to develop new unique features that is not available in market

Ford AI: Hi, how can I help you?

Me: Show me 2026 Bronco Inventory

Ford AI: Error. I'm having trouble getting that information. You can try again or come back later.

Me: why did it take so long to say "I have trouble getting that information" :). What is my closest dealership?

Ford AI: Error. I'm having trouble getting that information. You can try again or come back later.

Me: what is my closest dealership

Ford AI: Here are some links that may be relevant to your search for the closest Ford dealership:
Locate a Dealer
Find a Dealer

Me: Just tell me the name of closest dealership

Ford AI: I can provide you with links to find your closest Ford dealership, but I cannot tell you the specific name without knowing your location. You can use these links to locate a dealer near you:

Locate a Dealer
Find a Dealer

Me: Ok...here is my zip code.
Ford AI: Please use the following link to locate a dealer:

Locate a Dealer

GEMINI:

Me: what is closest ford dealership

Gemini: You have two very convenient Ford dealerships nearby depending on which direction you are heading.

The closest options are:

1. Ken Grody Ford Carlsbad
   This is your absolute closest option, located right in Carlsbad.

Address: 5555 Paseo Del Norte, Carlsbad, CA 92008

1. North County Ford
   Located just slightly inland in Vista, this is another very close alternative.

Address: 420 N Emerald Dr, Vista, CA 92083 (Located in the Vista area)

Corporations are not necessarily pulling the plug on AI, but the initial, unbridled "gold rush" has definitely hit a wall of operational reality. The corporate approach has shifted from a frantic race to adopt any AI tool to a much more cautious, calculated, and sometimes frustrated effort to find actual business value.

The current landscape reveals why companies are reconsidering their initial "rush" strategy, pivoting toward a more structured approach:

1. The Productivity-to-ROI Disconnect

During the initial hype, the assumption was that massive individual productivity gains (like writing code or drafting copy five times faster) would automatically translate to corporate profitability. It hasn't. Recent data, including a 2026 enterprise study by Writer, shows that nearly half (48%) of C-suite executives now call their AI adoption a massive disappointment, and only about 29% are seeing a significant return on investment (ROI). Companies are realizing that adding expensive AI tools on top of messy, inefficient legacy processes just creates faster chaos, not better outcomes.

1. Strategy "For Show" vs. Reality

There is a growing, uncomfortable realization in boardrooms that early AI roadmaps were built more for investors and public relations than for actual internal execution. In fact, three-quarters of executives admit their company's AI strategy has been "more for show" than actual operational guidance. Leaders are hitting severe bottlenecks when trying to scale experimental pilot programs into production-ready enterprise workflows.

1. Culture Clashes and the "Two-Tiered" Workplace

The rush to implement AI has triggered significant internal friction.

The "AI Elite" vs. Non-Adopters:

Management is aggressively rewarding power users while planning to phase out employees who resist the technology.

Trust Deficits:

According to Cox Business research, nearly 50% of employees hide how much they rely on AI at work due to a lack of clear corporate policies, paired with a lingering fear (around 47%) that the technology will eventually eliminate their jobs.

Loss of Top Talent:

Gartner warned that companies focusing strictly on cutting payroll rather than training their people to use autonomous tools risk losing their best specialized AI talent to competitors.

1. Severe Security Gaps ("Shadow AI")

When corporate IT departments didn't move fast enough to provide official AI tools, employees took matters into their own hands. This explosion of "shadow AI"—workers dropping proprietary code, sensitive financial spreadsheets, or customer data into unapproved, public LLMs—has terrified risk officers. Two-thirds of executives believe their companies have already suffered data breaches or compliance risks due to these unmanaged tools, forcing a hard pause to establish strict governance frameworks.

The Shift to "Agentic" and People-Centric Models

Instead of backing away from AI entirely—corporate spending remains incredibly high—organizations are drastically rewriting their execution playbooks. The "rush" is being replaced by two specific trends:

Moving to Agentic Workflows:

Companies are moving away from simple prompt-and-response chatbots and focusing on specialized "AI agents" built to handle specific, cross-functional business workflows with centralized IT guardrails.

The 80/20 Rule:

Forward-thinking organizations are abandoning the idea of total human replacement. Instead, they are structuring roles around an 80/20 model:

80% of roles are "human-led, AI-augmented" (the Ironman approach, where human judgment is non-negotiable), and 20% are "AI-led, human-supervised" (for high-volume, low-risk, repetitive tasks).

Ultimately, corporate America is learning that while adopting AI technology takes weeks, successfully restructuring a workforce to actually benefit from it takes years. The current pause isn't a retreat; it's a strategic realignment.

_

4 places you want to be…