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Welcome executives and professionals. Many enterprises renting AI intelligence rather than owning it are feeling the cost of that dependency.

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:

• AI sovereignty is your alpha.

• How AI leaders create advantage.

• OpenAI's GPT-5.6 & ChatGPT Work.

• Uber’s agentic pods in every function.

• Transformation and technology in the news.

• Insights for Executive+ members.

• Career opportunities & events.

Read time: 4 minutes.

BEST PRACTICE INSIGHT

AI sovereignty is your alpha

Brief: Palantir published a 28-page blueprint outlining the 15 steps every company and government must take to protect their sovereignty and compound lasting competitive alpha in this fast-moving age of AI.

Breakdown:

• The first three steps cover foundations: ensure zero data retention, map your AI decision tree, and identify architecture opportunities.

• Next, the model layer: guard against misaligned incentives, maximize model liquidity, and own the model flywheel.

• The compute layer follows: decide hardware based on assurance, own adaptable hardware for sensitive workflows, verify outside compute.

• Finally, the control layer covers agnosticism, permissions, auditing, cybersecurity practices, branching, and context flywheels.

Why it’s important: Sovereignty is your alpha. Many enterprises are being led to believe their choices are narrower than they are, leaving critical decisions about how AI is applied in the hands of others. In reality, you have complete agency over your model usage. This is a guide through those decisions.

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH TELEPORT

Your AI has more access than your people

Brief: New Teleport research found 70% of organizations grant AI more access than humans. Over-privileged AI carries a 76% incident rate, least-privileged access cuts that 4.5x. The risk isn't the AI; it's the access behind it.

With Teleport, you get:

• Least-privileged access enforced per request for every AI identity

• Short-lived certificates that eliminate static credentials and secrets

• Full identity attribution for every AI action across your infrastructure

• Audit-ready visibility into human and machine access alike

See where your enterprise stands. Read the 2026 research.

MARKET INSIGHT

How AI leaders create advantage

Brief: BCG Institute's analysis uses an outside-in measure of AI adoption across 600+ US firms to identify what separates AI leaders. It's different since most evidence today comes from what companies say about themselves.

Breakdown:

• Only 6% of firms qualify as AI leaders, but outperform peers by 9 points in shareholder returns, driven by revenue and margin expansion.

• Most AI leaders reinvest productivity gains to scale the business and create opportunities, rather than focusing primarily on cutting costs.

• Across the 600+ companies, a pattern emerges: three key transitions separate the starting point from the leader tier (image above).

• The biggest differentiator is talent: leaders' scores nearly triple from active to leading adoption, building AI fluency org-wide.

Why it’s important: BCG's data shows leaders need to build the talent base for proprietary AI capabilities, the architecture to deploy it across the business, and the ambition to use productivity gains for growth rather than cost cutting. This is what separates the 6%.

INNOVATION INSIGHT

OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 & ChatGPT Work

Brief: OpenAI's GPT-5.6 family is now generally available, introducing Sol with Terra and Luna, and launching ChatGPT Work and a redesigned desktop app that unifies Chat, Work, and Codex, advancing its 'superapp' vision.

Breakdown:

• Sol lands slightly below Fable on AA's Intelligence Index but tops it on agentic coding (image above), with computer use upgrades.

• Pricing matches GPT-5.5, from $5/$30 per million tokens for Sol to $1/$6 for Luna, as Altman notes enterprises watching AI spend.

• GPT-5.6 also introduces a new 'Ultra' mode for top performance, with OpenAI revealing that Sol autonomously post-trained Luna.

• ChatGPT Work answers Anthropic's Claude Cowork, putting Codex's engine behind a more accessible platform built for everyday tasks.

• The Codex app merges into ChatGPT's revamped desktop app, with a built-in browser and computer control alongside its new Work agent.

Why it's important: Sol isn't far behind Anthropic's Fable, and comes at a much lower price point, without the usage anxieties that have long followed Anthropic. With Work and the new desktop merge, OpenAI's 'superapp' ambitions have now officially moved into users' hands.

AI-NATIVE PROFESSIONAL

How to prepare for sales deals with Claude

Brief: In this guide, you'll learn how to pull relevant CRM data, like details on comparable opportunities, to prepare for upcoming sales conversations by grounding your talking points in what has worked before in similar deals.

Step-by-step:

1. Tell Claude about your deal and ask it to analyze comparable opportunities so you understand what's worked in similar situations.

2. Claude searches your CRM for comparable deals, identifies patterns in wins versus losses, and builds a deal prep artifact for you.

3. Create talking points: Claude turns your deal intelligence into conversation prep you can walk into your next meeting with.

4. Conduct further research: Claude researches your competitors and builds head-to-head guidance showing where you win on what matters.

Best practice: Connect both your CRM, which captures structured deal data, and sources like email, which hold more informal context.

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

CASE STUDY

Uber’s agentic pods in every function

Brief: Uber's CTO, Praveen Neppalli, shared how agentic AI adoption at Uber is changing the way the company builds, not only in engineering, but across every function of the organization, spanning Finance, Operations, and beyond.

Breakdown:

• Today, 99% of Uber's engineers use AI tools, over 70% of pull requests come from agents, and teams have built 2,500+ agent skills.

• To extend agentic AI beyond engineering, Uber created Agentic Pods, pairing AI-proficient engineers with business domain experts.

• Each pod had just two weeks to go from shadowing an expert to building and shipping a working agent (image above).

• In two months, 16 Agentic Pods ran across 16 functions, including cutting capital allocation from 15 hours to 30 minutes.

Why it’s important: The productivity gains are impressive, but what surprised Uber most was how quickly engineers in unfamiliar domains uncovered opportunities hiding in plain sight, by rethinking entire workflows around AI rather than simply automating one isolated task at a time.

Deloitte outlined three behaviors that show whether workers are actually adapting to AI: judgement, experimentation, and divergent thinking.

IBM outlined an AI-DLC operating model where autonomous agents and human engineers co-create software under continuous governance.

Bain found that 80% of 100 surveyed CEOs are dissatisfied with transformation progress, urging leaders to augment frontline staff.

McKinsey surveyed 750 employees and leaders, grouping organizations into three 'horizons' by how deeply AI is embedded into work.

Salesforce surveyed 4,450 marketers, revealing why pipeline is being lost, and how agentic marketing closes the gap.

Forrester warned that enterprise spend on autonomous tools is spiraling and doubted whether SpaceX's Cursor deal wins enterprise.

Anthropic launched three new certifications: Claude Certified Developer, Architect Professional, and Associate Foundations.

Meta released Muse Spark 1.1 for agentic tasks and computer use, putting it behind a paid API with pricing meant to undercut rivals.

SpaceXAI launched Grok 4.5, its first model built jointly with Cursor after the $60B deal, featuring strong benchmarks and pricing.

OpenAI rolled out GPT-Live, a voice model meant to feel like a real conversation, with a smoother, less clunky new architecture.

Anthropic introduced a 'Reflections' dashboard to help users analyze Claude usage, with suggested skills based on personal data.

OpenAI published research retracting its endorsement of SWE-Bench Pro, finding nearly a third of the benchmark's tasks had issues.

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

Salesforce - Agentic Transformation Senior Director

Takeda - Head of Artificial Intelligence

Palo Alto Networks - AI Transformation Senior Director

EVENTS

IAI - The Race for Enterprise AI - July 14, 2026

Databricks - Next Wave of Enterprise AI - July 21, 2026

MIT - Leading in an AI World - November 3, 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.