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Most companies are a long way from becoming AI-first. The power of inertia and legacy ways of working is strong, as is the need to keep the trains running.

Since the previous edition, we've reviewed hundreds of the latest agentic and gen AI best practices, case studies, and innovation insights. Here’s the top 1%...

In today’s edition:

• BCG: AI-first companies win the future.

• Capgemini shares AI transformation blueprint.

• ISG explores the state of agentic AI.

• Ericsson: Fast-tracking innovation with agentic AI.

• Transformation and technology in the news.

• Career opportunities & events.

Read time: 4 minutes.

AI-NATIVE INSIGHT

BCG: AI-first companies win the future

Brief: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) published an 18-slide executive perspective outlining how AI-first companies are rewriting the business playbook, generating tens of millions in revenue with a few dozen employees.

Breakdown:

• AI is driving down the cost of knowledge, labor, and delivery, while increasing revenue potential for companies setup for scale.

• AI-first companies are redefining competitive advantage, unlocking rapid growth with lean, highly specialized teams.

• Cursor, an AI-powered code editor, reached $100 million in annual recurring revenue within a year, with fewer than two dozen employees.

• Brand trust, direct customer relationships, proprietary IP, and unique datasets are increasingly important to AI-first success.

• AI-native firms are decentralizing technology and building lean teams; 50-70% smaller with 1.5–2x pay for specialized top talent.

Why it’s important: The rise and rapid adoption of AI is transforming how businesses operate, lowering barriers to entry, and enabling small, focused teams to scale quickly. As AI-first companies redefine cost structures and growth dynamics, those that fail to adapt risk being left behind.

BEST PRACTICE INSIGHT & CASE STUDY

Capgemini shares AI transformation blueprint

Brief: Capgemini and Everest Group released a 25-page blueprint for scaling AI transformation, outlining the journey from pilot to production, key challenges, and the value of successful enterprise-wide implementation.

Breakdown:

• Organizations such as ABN AMRO, BMW, and Eneco eMobility are leveraging AI to drive productivity and customer experience gains.

• Successful scaling demands strategic alignment, strong data, robust governance, and ongoing talent development. All deeply interconnected.

• AI must be aligned with the business value chain, with clear KPIs and responsible AI practices embedded throughout the delivery lifecycle.

• The blueprint features a use case identification framework pictured above, operating models, sourcing strategies, and an ABN AMRO case study.

• Agentic AI projects are set to grow 48% in 2025, according to a separate, newly published 100-slide Capgemini research report.

Why it’s important: Scaling AI isn’t just a technical challenge, it’s a full-scale enterprise transformation. This blueprint offers a structured, actionable starting point to help organizations move from isolated pilots to organization-wide impact, grounded in strategy, governance, and measurable value.

MARKET INSIGHT

ISG explores the state of agentic AI

Brief: Information Services Group (ISG) published a 37-slide research report on the state of agentic AI, aimed at helping businesses understand what agentic AI is, adoption challenges, and how to begin unlocking its value.

Breakdown:

• 70% of agentic AI use cases are concentrated in three sectors: banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI), retail, and manufacturing.

• Task-focused agents account for 43% of current use cases, though goal-based agents are expected to become more prominent over time.

• Only 25% of existing solutions enable agents to operate independently, while 45% position AI as advisors supporting human decision-making.

• Adoption hurdles often stem from limited skills, weak business cases, and gaps in data quality or organizational readiness.

• ISG also released a buyer’s guide for agentic and generative AI, evaluating 29 platforms including Google Vertex AI and Azure AI Foundry.

Why it’s important: This report offers a research-backed foundation for understanding the agentic AI market. It identifies where capabilities are emerging, where gaps remain, and presents deployment patterns and maturity levels, helping enterprises make informed sourcing and investment decisions.

ACCELERATOR

Ericsson: Fast-tracking innovation with agentic AI

Brief: Ericsson shared how it is leveraging agentic AI to automate and accelerate the development and deployment of AI applications, both internally and for clients, across telecom operations and service delivery.

Breakdown:

• Ericsson’s Telco Agentic AI Studio automates the creation of agentic applications for operations and business support systems.

• A set of foundational “worker agents” act as orchestrators, coordinating specialized generative AI agents to perform telecom-specific tasks.

• These LLM-driven systems possess deep telecom expertise, designed to build, test, package, and deploy domain-specific AI applications.

• The Telco Agentic AI Studio is structured around an intent, multi-agent and knowledge layer, enabling agentic AI at scale.

• It’s transforming how telecom services are sold and delivered, supporting use cases from customer personalization to network optimization.

Why it’s important: The rapid evolution of LLMs into agents, and the growing demand for automation, is accelerating the rise of agentic AI in telecom and beyond. Enterprises like Ericsson are building accelerators to enable outcome-driven AI and fuel continuous innovation.

Bain outlined how IT services companies can reignite growth by shifting to nonlinear revenue models that decouple revenue from headcount expansion.

Microsoft released its Responsible AI Transparency Report, a 35-page overview of how it's building AI systems responsibly and supporting customers.

Everest Group shared an analysis of emerging AI agent protocols like MCP, A2A, and ACP, covering how they work, use cases, and maturity.

Sequoia explored why top AI labs now resemble sports teams; compute is abundant, but elite AI talent is scarce and commanding huge compensation.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said AI will reduce corporate headcount over time, as agents take on more knowledge work.

Microsoft released a 21-page report on implementing a centre of excellence for generative AI to help scale operations responsibly and effectively.

Y Combinator shared a talk by Andrej Karpathy on Software 3.0, where natural language becomes code, and models handle the rest.

Stanford surveyed 1,500 workers on AI preferences, revealing gaps between employee desires and what tech firms are actually building.

OpenAI rolled out ChatGPT Record, enabling automatic capture, transcription, and summarization of meetings and brainstorming sessions.

Google promoted Gemini 2.5 Pro and Flash to stable production status, while also rolling out a new, hyper-efficient Flash-Lite variant.

Meta is in talks to hire AI investors Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross to join Alexandr Wang’s superintelligence division.

OpenAI's Sam Altman stated on the “Uncapped” podcast that Meta offered $100M signing bonuses in efforts to recruit OpenAI employees.

Google is reportedly planning to end its partnership with Scale AI following Meta’s investment; Microsoft, xAI, and OpenAI are also looking to move away.

Anthropic's Claude 4 Opus co-authored a paper disputing Apple’s claim that LLMs can’t reason, citing flaws in the design of the original study.

OpenAI added Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol inside the ChatGPT platform, helping users to integrate with external tools.

Wix acquired six month old vibe coding startup Base44 for $80M in cash. The founder awarded $25M in bonuses to the company’s eight employees.

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

S&P Global - Head of AI Strategy & Execution

Grant Thornton - Head of Artificial Intelligence

GSK - Enterprise AI Platform Director

EVENTS

Forrester - Agentic AI Promise - June 30, 2025

Gartner - AI Agents for CIOs - July 16, 2025

Google - SecOps with AI Agents - July 16, 2025

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