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Welcome executives and professionals. AI is redefining the infrastructure stack. Demanding, latency-sensitive, and data-sovereign environments require full-stack optimization from silicon to systems to software.

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:

• The future of AI is on-prem.

• AI-first corporate strategy.

• Effective AI-native experiences.

• Will AI eat software?

• Transformation and technology in the news.

• Insights for Executive+ members.

• Career opportunities & events.

Read time: 4 minutes.

ACCELERATOR

The future of AI is on-prem

Brief: Palantir Technologies and NVIDIA introduced a sovereign AI reference architecture to run AI workloads inside enterprise and national data centers, combining infrastructure, software, and deployment expertise.

Breakdown:

• The Palantir-NVIDIA AI Operating System Reference Architecture (AIOS-RA) is a subset of NVIDIA’s Enterprise Reference Architecture.

• It is tested and qualified to run Palantir's complete software suite, including AIP, Foundry, Apollo, Rubix, and AIP Hub.

• The architecture accelerates deployment while maximizing performance across on-premises, edge and sovereign cloud environments.

• Joint teams combine NVIDIA engineers focused on infrastructure/models with Palantir engineers focused on workflows/platform ops.

Why it’s important: This combined stack provides enterprises with a high-performance, turnkey "AI factory" that ensures data and IP ownership. By reducing reliance on cloud, leaders can deploy mission-critical AI at the edge or on-premise, satisfying security and regulatory compliance standards.

TOGETHER WITH DEX

Dex - The world’s first autonomous IT engineer

Brief: Dex doesn’t just assist IT; it investigates, plans, and executes tasks with controlled autonomy. Dex reasons through IT issues across your environment. Built by a team with rare depth, trusted by 3,000+ organizations and millions of users worldwide.

The Dex advantage:

• Specialized AI agent built for complex, end-to-end IT tasks.

• Resolve issues through plain-language conversations.

• Maintain control: Approve all actions before execution.

• Resolve 90% of IT issues before they become tickets.

See the first public demonstration of Dex on March 31.

BEST PRACTICE INSIGHT

AI-first corporate strategy

Brief: BCG examined the state of AI in the corporate strategy function, outlining how AI will transform work from periodic planning toward continuous insight generation, experimentation, and dynamic decision-making.

Breakdown:

• BCG Henderson Institute analysis shows more than 80% of tasks strategists perform face high or medium exposure to AI automation.

• Many strategists already use tools like ChatGPT to draft competitor reports, brainstorm initiatives, and outline strategy narratives.

• Beyond general tools, bespoke AI solutions are emerging to tackle strategy tasks, including financial models rivaling first-year analysts.

• The strategy AI vendor landscape is expanding rapidly, with more tools launched in early 2025 than in the prior two years.

Why it’s important: Most strategy teams have yet to systematically harness AI. Over time, AI will drive structural changes in how strategy is created and executed, enabling faster insight generation, more decentralized decision-making, always-on strategy development, and dynamic resource allocation.

BEST PRACTICE INSIGHT

Effective AI-native experiences

Brief: McKinsey examined how many organizations struggle to scale generative and agentic AI. The barrier is rarely technical; it is experiential. Here are four principles to design AI tools that people will embrace.

Breakdown:

• Design systems that make their logic, assumptions, and outputs clear, enabling users to confidently understand the outputs.

• Sustain context and memory across interactions to create coherent, personalized, and seamless experiences over time (image above).

• Enable rich, multistep, domain-specific workflows that go beyond single interactions to support meaningful end-to-end outcomes.

• Create environments where human expertise and AI agents collaborate fluidly, both in real time and across disciplines, to amplify impact.

Why it’s important: These principles address the breakdowns that prevent AI from becoming a trusted partner and enable systems that are intuitive, collaborative, and impactful. When workflows are reimagined with these principles in mind, adoption accelerates and the value of AI is unlocked.

MARKET INSIGHT

Will AI eat software?

Brief: Goldman Sachs explored how, after more than a decade of software “eating the world,” agentic AI coding tools are raising concerns that AI could "eat" software itself and reshape the competitive landscape.

Breakdown:

• GS’s Borges explains that “AI is software,” expanding the market, lowering code costs, and increasing competition.

• Incumbents risk remaining tied to shrinking “systems of record” as AI-native entrants capture new opportunities.

• Legacy firms are innovating as fast followers, leveraging moats such as domain expertise that new entrants cannot quickly replicate.

• GS’s Poonen warns that “just like any technology wave, you must surf this tsunami, or it will demolish you."

Why it’s important: Agentic AI commoditizes code, shifting value from static “systems of record” to dynamic “systems of action.” Leaders must assess whether their current vendors can adapt or risk AI-native competitors capturing critical layers of the enterprise software stack.

McKinsey shared insights on rethinking enterprise architecture for the agentic era and what organizations should expect at NVIDIA GTC.

Kearney explored how organizations should evolve AI operating models from automation toward large-scale work redesign across functions.

Everest Group found AI ambition is only as strong as partner ecosystems and urged firms to redesign portfolios for 2026.

Deloitte examined how ERP is evolving in the agentic era and why skills-based organizations are winning the talent race.

Fujitsu released a 29-page report on transforming employment systems for the AI era and building organizations capable of continuous adaptation.

Menlo Ventures outlined a future where AI could generate most software and argued mathematics will ultimately prove reliability.

Meta reportedly delayed its next AI model, Avocado, until at least May after internal evaluations showed it underperformed against leading frontier models.

Databricks launched Genie Code, turning data engineering, data science and analytics ideas into autonomous production systems.

Anthropic invested $100 million in the Claude Partner Network, supporting partners in helping enterprises adopt Claude AI.

CodeWall said its AI agent breached McKinsey’s ‘Lilli’ AI in under two hours, gaining read-write access to plain-text chats, files, and accounts.

Microsoft AI debuted Copilot Health, an AI that analyzes records, wearable data, and history to deliver personalized insights.

Google upgraded Gemini across its productivity suite, enabling it to draft docs, build sheets, and create slides faster using files, inbox, and web context.

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

Anthropic - Google GTM Partnerships

Databricks - AI GTM Leader

SMBC - Head of Artificial Intelligence

EVENTS

HumanX - April 6-9, 2026

Microsoft - Azure Summit - April 23, 2026

IDC, AWS & Kloia - Executive Dinner - May 7, 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.

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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.