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Welcome executives and professionals. Enterprises now write code at speeds unthinkable a year ago, yet the processes surrounding that code haven't kept pace.

Since the previous edition, we have reviewed hundreds of the latest insights in agentic and generative AI, spanning best practices, case studies, market dynamics, and innovations.

This briefing outlines what is driving material value — and why it’s important.

In today’s briefing:

• Anthropic’s AI-native SDLC playbook.

• Deloitte’s AI workforce blueprint.

• Intel: The robotics readiness gap.

• Building the enterprise control plane.

• Transformation and technology in the news.

• Insights for Executive+ members.

• Career opportunities & events.

Read time: 4 minutes.

BEST PRACTICE INSIGHT

Anthropic’s AI-native SDLC playbook

Brief: Anthropic published a playbook on transforming the software development lifecycle (SDLC) with AI. It sets out practical plays for each stage, alongside guidance on adoption, governance and measuring impact.

Breakdown:

• Many engineering teams retain the same approval gates, and handoffs, stalling the gains made through agentic solutions like Claude Code.

• Once build runs faster than the traditional SDLC allows, the bottleneck shifts to plan, review, and deploy. Steps still running at human speed.

• The plays form the core of the playbook, grouped into six non-linear stages: plan, design, build, test, deploy, and maintain.

• Each play sets out what changes, how to get started, implementation steps, governance considerations, and measuring whether it worked.

Why it’s important: Most enterprises have adopted agentic coding solutions and seen the gains stall at code review and approval. The problem isn’t the technology, it’s that processes built for human-written code can’t handle the volume. This playbook helps fix the process.

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE BOARDROOM

AI blueprints you won’t find anywhere else

Brief: Dozens of CXOs, VPs, and directors are leveraging proven, step-by-step AI transformation blueprints not available elsewhere. A recent blueprint helped a consulting partner increase an AI transformation program deal size from USD 5.1M to USD 12.6M.

What’s inside The Boardroom:

• Executive AI transformation blueprints

• The Executive AI Index

• Full AI-native professional guides

• Extended version of Enterprise AI Executive

If you’re looking drive enterprise AI P&L impact, join us inside The Boardroom.

BEST PRACTICE INSIGHT

Deloitte’s AI workforce blueprint

Brief: Deloitte published a guide to workforce planning (WFP). With uncertainty becoming the new normal, success will depend on an organization's ability to modernize its WFP processes and adapt to the evolving impact of AI.

Breakdown:

• 88% of leaders say accelerating how people and skills are orchestrated is extremely/very important, yet only 7% are making great progress.

• A strategic WFP process measures workforce reality continuously, plans against it and executes through empowered leaders leveraging data.

• The guide includes a blueprint spanning three stages, measure (image above), plan and execute, covering current and future state.

• Deloitte shares a WFP maturity model firms can use to sequence the investments needed to reach always-on, AI-led workforce planning.

Why it’s important: Being able to accurately assess your workforce against the impact of AI will become an unmitigated superpower, creating competitive advantages and positioning organizations to successfully navigate the transfer of skills from humans to technology.

MARKET INSIGHT

Intel: The robotics readiness gap

Brief: Intel surveyed 800 senior business and IT leaders, robotics specialists and government and healthcare officials at organizations turning over at least $500 million, mapping robotics readiness and the factors behind success.

Breakdown:

• Robotics has moved past experimentation. On average, deploying a robot is expected to beat hiring a human on cost within three years.

• Six in ten leaders expect to have a fleet of robots within five years, and predict full-scale deployment could double operational output.

• 67% of leaders expect to manage a mixed human-robot workforce by 2030, yet only 40% have a formal human-robot strategy in place.

• Five factors that leaders should build and invest in continuously will decide the winners: strategy, skills, safety, shape and scale.

Why it's important: Demand for talent is outpacing supply across markets and industries. Robots take on repetitive, precision-driven work and deliver it consistently at scale, freeing people to concentrate on the higher-value tasks where they make the greatest difference.

AI-NATIVE PROFESSIONAL

How to prepare meeting briefs with ChatGPT

Brief: In this guide, you'll learn how to use ChatGPT alongside Calendar, Drive, Slack, and Gmail to gather approved sources ahead of a meeting, then draft objectives, a working agenda, key questions, and a notes template.

Step-by-step:

1. Use the starter prompt to name the meeting, date, or calendar event, then point ChatGPT at the docs, email threads, or folders it can draw on.

2. Ask ChatGPT to assess the sources before writing the brief, separating confirmed context from source gaps and remaining open questions.

3. Request a notes template or scorecard alongside the brief if you need a structured way to capture decisions during the meeting.

4. For recurring planning meetings, ask it to compare previous notes against the latest updates so the agenda starts from what changed.

Best practice: If the brief includes sensitive material, keep the output local to the chat and ask ChatGPT to flag anything that doesn’t belong in a shared doc.

For the full guide, including prompts, upgrade to Executive+ or The Boardroom.

BEST PRACTICE INSIGHT

Building the enterprise control plane

Brief: Deloitte detailed how the rapid spread of AI across cloud, edge, applications and devices is pushing firms to consider adopting a common framework for coordinating how that intelligence acts across the enterprise.

Breakdown:

• As AI turns agentic and models proliferate, selection and routing become an ongoing operational discipline, not a one-off choice.

• An enterprise control plane governs who can act, what data is reachable and how agents run within cost, latency and legal limits.

• Drawing on 30 expert interviews, Deloitte identifies capabilities that could help C-suite leaders orchestrate intelligence.

• Together these form the control plane (image above), which resembles service-oriented architecture but is more event-driven.

Why it’s important: Two uncertainties will shape the next five years: whether platforms concentrate or federate, and whether interfaces stay human-mediated or turn agent-mediated. Each implies a different organizing logic, so adaptable infrastructure beats betting on one.

KPMG China published 68 pages on AI transformation best practices, including industry use cases, roadmaps and case studies.

IBM shared three ways forward deployed engineering redefines client transformation and why the COO prize isn't speeding up old workflows.

AWS detailed architectural patterns for scaling agentic AI across the enterprise while preserving flexibility and avoiding lock-in.

Cisco released blueprints for lean AI-ready data centres, cyber defence and an accelerate-first approach to governing AI growth.

McKinsey explored scaling the agentic product development life cycle by redesigning the whole system rather than just deploying tech.

Sequoia published a how-to guide on owning intelligence, arguing the AI application layer fight is over the intelligence layer.

OpenAI debuted Private Safety Processing, scanning API sessions for misuse without staff seeing content, maintaining its zero-data-retention promise.

Anthropic will still require business customers to retain data 30 days but will let them keep it on their own cloud infrastructure.

OpenAI reportedly grew faster among business users in Q3, but Ramp data still puts Anthropic ahead at 43.5% of US firms to 39.7%.

Slack launched Slack Code, letting teams build software directly within the messaging platform. Agents write the software, humans steer the session.

Z AI released GLM-5.3, scoring 60 on Artificial Analysis' Intelligence Index, moving to fourth overall and tying Kimi K3 for the top open model.

Cerebras introduced CS-4, its fourth-generation AI accelerator, which it claims runs up to 30x faster than GPU rivals, even on the largest models.

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

Microsoft - AI Transformation Senior Director

Accenture - AI Strategy Associate Director

Databricks - Enterprise Sales Director

EVENTS

AI Infra Summit - September 15-17, 2026

The AI Leadership Summit - November 17-18, 2026

Enterprise AI World - November 17-19, 2026

Reach enterprise AI decision-makers:

• 66% of readers are C-level executives or VP and Director-level leaders.

• 63.2% of the audience is based in the U.S., EU, UK, ANZ, and Singapore.

• Read by leaders at Microsoft, Deloitte, the Fortune 500, and more.

Guaranteed impression and custom sponsorship packages available, with post-send performance reporting.

Conceived as a practical communication for executives Lewis Walker has worked with, this briefing has become a trusted resource for thousands of senior decision-makers shaping the future of enterprise AI.

We welcome your feedback.