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In times of uncertainty, the winners are typically those willing to take an honest look at their business, make hard decisions to right-size, evaluate where technology can create competitive advantage, and take risks.

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:

• IBM: Insights from 2,000 CEOs on AI adoption.

• Sequoia envisions the future of AI agents.

• Meta publishes new Llama success stories.

• Celonis: Processes give AI what it needs to succeed.

• Transformation and technology in the news.

• Career opportunities & events.

Read time: 4 minutes.

CEO INSIGHT

IBM: Insights from 2,000 CEOs on AI adoption

Brief: A global IBM 40-page study of 2,000 CEOs, conducted in the first quarter of 2025, found that CEOs are committed to advancing AI solutions across their organization even as they face challenges from accelerating adoption.

Breakdown:

• CEOs report that only 25% of AI initiatives met ROI expectations in the past three years, and only 16% have scaled enterprise-wide.

• Despite this, CEOs expect AI investment to more than double in the next 2 years; 61% are actively adopting AI agents and preparing for scale.

• 68% of CEOs say integrated, enterprise-wide data architecture is critical and 72% view their proprietary data as key to unlocking value.

• However, 50% of respondents admit that rapid AI investments have left their orgs with disconnected, piecemeal tech and data environments.

• 54% of CEOs say they are actively hiring for new AI-related roles that didn’t exist a year ago, reflecting fast-evolving enterprise skill demands.

Why it’s important: The question is no longer whether to use AI, but where it drives the most impact and how to redeploy talent to accelerate growth. As IBM's Vice Chairman Gary Cohn writes: “The ultimate pay-off will only come to CEOs with the courage to embrace risk as opportunity."

VENTURE INSIGHT

Sequoia envisions the future of AI agents

Brief: Sequoia Capital's AI Ascent 2025 convened OpenAI’s Sam Altman, NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang, and 100+ top AI executives, founders and researchers to explore the future of AI. Sequoia shared why now is the time to go at “maximum velocity all of the time.”

Breakdown:

• Sequoia continues to see the AI opportunity wide open, with the value at the app layer. Competition is in reasoning, agent protocols, and more.

• “If you don’t get in front of it, somebody else will,” said Sequoia partners, noting AI coding hit "screaming product-market fit" this year.

• Companies are creating vertical agents trained to excel in very specific workflows using reinforcement learning on synthetic data and user data.

• Sequoia envisions an "agent economy," where agents don’t just communicate information, they transfer resources and make transactions.

• Achieving the next wave requires addressing key challenges: persistent identity, seamless communication protocols, and secure trust.

Why it’s important: The AI opportunity remains massive, but only for those, new players and incumbent enterprises, who see where the puck is heading and move fast to seize it. Most overlooked the cloud shift when it began. AI is different. Event talks from Anthropic CPO Mike Krieger, and others are now live.

CASE STUDIES

Meta publishes new Llama success stories

Brief: Meta’s new Llama case studies demonstrate how it’s partnering in enterprise to improve AI agents performing knowledge work, enhance research via intelligent document processing and drive sales with tailored proposals.

Breakdown:

• Meta's case studies show clear impact, detailing challenges, quantifiable results, and often high-level solution architecture diagrams.

• A top consulting firm upgraded its AI agent with Llama 3.1 8B Instruct and LoRA, improving knowledge work accuracy and saving 1M+ hours.

• A SaaS firm uses Llama to classify documents and automate research with 97.2% accuracy, eliminating thousands of manual reviews weekly.

• Upwork’s case study shows how Llama helps freelancers generate tailored proposals faster, with a 19.3% reduction in cost per token.

• Previously released case studies show Databricks generating synthetic data faster, Sevilla FC scouting smarter, and more enterprise wins.

Why it’s important: Meta’s success stories showcase how enterprises are increasingly proving value by leveraging Llama’s cost, customization, and speed efficiencies, combined with complementary techniques and partnerships, to unlock scale and automation use cases that were once uneconomical.

PROCESS INTELLIGENCE

Celonis: Processes give AI what it needs to succeed

Brief: Celonis, a leader in process intelligence, surveyed 1,620 enterprise leaders on their processes, AI use cases, and ROI, highlighting how current processes and a lack of business context may limit AI’s full potential.

Breakdown:

• 58% of business leaders are concerned current processes may limit their ability to make AI work effectively across the enterprise.

• 24% strongly believe so. It's evident leaders increasingly acknowledge that better processes are critical for AI to deliver enterprise value.

• Leaders know AI also needs context of how their business runs, including how KPIs are calculated, policies applied, and how the org is structured.

• 89% say it’s crucial AI has this business context to be effectively deployed. 43% strongly agree. 2% strongly disagree.

• This AI edition of Celonis’s 2025 report also explores departmental views on AI, and how enterprises gain visibility with process intelligence.

Why it’s important: This new research revisits a classic enterprise issue of automating broken processes, a concern that has long accompanied transformation efforts. However, it risks being increasingly overlooked amid pressure to rapidly implement AI, potentially hindering long-term value.

Deloitte's chief futurist Mike Bechtel explained how human workers can stay relevant and why the future favors learn-it-alls over know-it-alls.

Microsoft Azure processed over 100 trillion AI tokens last quarter, up 5x year-over-year, including a record 50 trillion tokens in the final month.

AWS shared slides on how it leveraged gen AI to transform a 1.8M-call contact center, and 41-pages on trends in banking including agentic workflows.

Andreessen Horowitz outlined nine emerging AI-era developer patterns including AI-native version control, vibe coding, MCP, and more.

Bain’s gen AI survey found nearly ubiquitous adoption, tempered by security and quality concerns. Plus, new tools, including AI, are resolving legacy issues.

BCG explored how AI is beginning to transform government, streamlining services, cutting costs, and helping agencies meet citizen expectations.

Financial Times released a 7-page report on agentic AI, including adoption trends, common use cases, and the emerging winners and losers.

Design Executive Council shared a 66-page report on how AI is reshaping design, featuring insights from JPMorgan, Amazon, and more.

Google released a preview of Gemini 2.5 Pro I/O edition, improving coding capabilities and pushing it to the top of AI leaderboard benchmarks.

OpenAI will maintain nonprofit control as it transitions its business arm into a public benefit corporation (PBC), reversing fully for-profit entity plans.

Mistral launched Medium 3, a cost-efficient model rivaling top LLMs, plus a new enterprise platform called Le Chat Enterprise.

OpenAI and AMD CEOs urged the U.S. Senate to ease AI regulation and improve infrastructure. Former Google CEO discussed China’s AI rise.

Amazon is reportedly building an AI coding app, code-named ‘Kiro,’ leveraging agents for developer tasks and featuring multimodal capabilities.

OpenAI is reportedly buying AI coding startup Windsurf (previously named Codeium) for $3B, which would be its largest acquisition to date.

IBM announced new technologies to scale AI agents and improve interoperability, while unveiling an agent catalog with 150+ pre-built agents.

Apple may shift Safari to AI search, with the likes of OpenAI and Perplexity poised to supplant traditional search. Google also faces the innovator’s dilemma.

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

Anthropic - Head of Channels & Alliances

EY-Parthenon - AI Senior Director

Google - AI Cloud GTM Director

EVENTS

Writer - Uber AI Agents - May 13, 2025

Doherty Associates - Exec Briefing on Copilot - May 20, 2025

Databricks - Data + AI Summit - June 9-12, 2025

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