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Welcome executives and professionals. Nearly two-thirds of workers are now using AI, but only a minority are reaping the rewards.

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 AI divide splitting the workforce.

• Bain's Technology Report 2026.

• Three dimensions of AI leadership.

• The future of jobs in the USA.

• Transformation and technology.

• Insights for Executive+ members.

• Career opportunities & events.

Read time: 4 minutes.

Final call: Join the Boardroom now to get three AI blueprints this Friday: How to find valuable AI opportunities, How to sell AI transformation, and the new How to advance from AI experiments to enterprise transformation.

MARKET & BEST PRACTICE INSIGHT

The AI divide splitting the workforce

Brief: PwC's Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey 2026, drawing on 49,364 workers in 48 countries, finds a divided workforce, with a small group of AI-enabled front-runners pulling ahead while the "engine room" is left behind.

Breakdown:

• Front-runners are 14% of workers; 85% feel secure in their jobs, yet 29% are very or extremely likely to change employer in the next year.

• The engine room, 56% of workers, feels squeezed: a third feel fairly paid, fewer can cover bills and just 33% trust top management.

• Change is fastest at the top: 51% of senior executives and 46% of managers applied new skills extensively, vs 29% of non-managers.

• Leading firms are 2.2 times as likely to redesign workflows and 1.9 times as likely to reward their employees for experimenting with AI.

Why it's important: Nearly two-thirds of workers now use AI, yet adoption alone will not deliver returns. PwC encourages leaders to rewire roles and workflows, protect time for learning, tailor incentives and support stretched managers, or they risk losing top talent.

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH ELEVENLABS

The most emotive text to speech model

Brief: Eleven v4 from ElevenLabs is here. Not an increment on v3, but a new model architecture. It interprets tone, pacing, emotion, character and context, with brand-safe consistency across every variant and reach for enterprise campaigns.

What's new:

• A new architecture, designed so speech is performed rather than read

• Detailed inline tags to set delivery, emotion, pacing, and reactions

• Eleven v4 Turbo at ~100ms latency for real-time voice agents

• Biggest gains in Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, Mandarin and Cantonese

Hear the difference. Try Eleven v4 for free.

MARKET & BEST PRACTICE INSIGHT

Bain's Technology Report 2026

Brief: Bain's 81-page Technology Report 2026 spans 12 themes defining the next era of AI-driven transformation. No technology has disrupted as quickly or broadly, and nine of the 10 most valuable public companies are AI-focused.

Breakdown:

• AI infrastructure: An estimated $6 trillion annual market will be needed by 2031 to justify the AI infrastructure buildout (image above).

• The AI-native enterprise: The speed at which companies can put AI to work is fast emerging as a new competitive variable.

• Cybersecurity: AI has compressed the time needed to carry out a typical cyberattack from four weeks to around 18 hours.

• The SaaS opportunity: The emerging US agentic AI market could be worth $100 billion in the USA, with more than 90% of it still untapped.

Why it’s important: Last year's agenda of finding ROI and picking pilots has given way to more difficult questions: how to fund the buildout, integrate AI faster and preserve IP, and how industry structure and regulation will evolve to facilitate innovation, competitiveness and safety.

MARKET & BEST PRACTICE INSIGHT

Three dimensions of AI leadership

Brief: BCG surveyed 563 executives globally on three dimensions of leadership in the AI era. Firms with well-prepared leaders are 3x as likely to outperform their peers as those with only highly mature AI deployment: 66% v. 20%.

Breakdown:

• The visionary connects AI to what matters: leaders tie AI to measurable goals; mature firms are 3x as likely to have a clear vision.

• The codeveloper builds with, not for: leaders co-create new ways of working; those at mature firms are 75% likelier to experiment.

• The steward sets the guardrails: leaders with clear rules on fairness, privacy and safety are 2-3x as likely to run AI-mature firms.

• Yet only 25% of employees feel leaders support their AI use, a sign that too few executives have mastered the skills they need.

Why it’s important: Highly effective AI leaders see leadership, technical prowess and governance as parts of one whole. The executives winning today did not build this fluency piecemeal; they developed it through integrated, hands-on practice in the context of real work.

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE BOARDROOM

Get three AI blueprints this Friday

Brief: Final call to get three step-by-step AI blueprints this Friday: How to find valuable AI opportunities, How to sell AI transformation, and the new How to advance from AI experiments to enterprise transformation.

What members get:

• Blueprints have helped a Fortune 500 CAIO lift AI pipeline value 42% and a senior leader grow an AI engagement from $5.1M to $12.6M.

• A new step-by-step blueprint every quarter, each focused on driving AI P&L impact, with practical guidance you won't find elsewhere.

• Everything in Executive+: the Executive AI Index, full AI-native professional guides and extended Enterprise AI Executive briefing.

Dozens of CXOs, VPs and directors already use these proven blueprints. Join The Boardroom now to receive all three in your inbox on Friday.

AI-NATIVE PROFESSIONAL

How to make better decisions with ChatGPT

Brief: In this guide, you'll learn how to give ChatGPT research, planning documents, financial models, stakeholder context, and unresolved questions, then have it separate evidence from interpretation and draft a decision memo.

Step-by-step:

1. State the decision, decision maker, timing, and criteria. Attach recaps, plans, financial models, budget guardrails, and meeting notes.

2. Ask ChatGPT to set out the internal evidence, source gaps and unresolved debate, and list any web research you want it to run.

3. Run the starter prompt, then review the recommendation, tradeoffs, risks, and gaps. Verify material claims before review.

4. Use the follow-up prompt to challenge the preferred option, test which assumptions would change it, and anticipate likely questions.

Best practice: Keep internal evidence, external research, and interpretation separate. List any unconfirmed cost, date, or fact as an open item.

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

MARKET INSIGHT

The future of jobs in the USA

Brief: McKinsey's 82-page report maps how AI and automation will reshape US labour demand through 2035, exploring the skills, career pathways and barriers that US workers will face as they transition into the jobs of the future.

Breakdown:

• Automation could cut labour demand by the equivalent of 36 million jobs by 2035, while growth could add demand for 41 million more.

• Only 14% of those moving have direct routes into growing roles, while 45% face harder pathways (e.g. longer credentialing periods).

• Lower-wage workers are 7.6 times as likely to need to change occupation, as job growth clusters in higher-wage roles across the US.

• Employer demand for AI fluency has risen elevenfold since 2022, and demand for adaptability has increased fivefold over the period.

Why it’s important: AI, automation and wider structural trends are accelerating the reallocation of work across the US economy. Capturing the benefits will require building new career pathways, stronger skills and lower barriers between declining and growing occupations.

Deloitte published a 20-page report on securing agentic identity, covering bounded autonomy, target architecture and a roadmap.

Forrester shared how five tech leaders make AI work at scale and explored Alibaba's next chapter, from AI-native to agent-native.

PwC explored the shift from systems of record to systems of reasoning behind AI adoption, and outlined the four stages of AI growth.

HFS spoke with Accenture's Lan Guan about what leaders must consider as they move from managing cost per token to value per outcome.

Anthropic tested how well AI can negotiate deals for people by having Claude agents trade books on behalf of 201 employees.

a16z argued OpenAI will win not through better models but by shaping new user behaviours and owning distribution channels.

OpenAI unveiled dots, always-on agents that work 24/7 from a cloud computer; GPT-6.1 Sol, shared team workspaces, and an Ultrafast mode.

Meta launched the Meta Enterprise Platform, a unit selling its Muse models and agents to businesses, led by ex-MongoDB CEO CJ Desai.

Anthropic released Claude Sonnet 5.5, a 30% faster model with major coding gains, rivalling Opus on some tests at half the cost.

Reuters reported on a leaked Anthropic IPO prospectus showing the Claude maker grew revenue 12x in 2025 while losing $42B overall.

Nvidia unveiled its Open Agent Safety Platform which monitors AI agents and isolates them from chips they can't reach.

The White House launched America.gov, an AI chatbot front door to federal agencies that will eventually let citizens file forms.

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

OpenAI - Partner Director, McKinsey Alliance

Capgemini Invent - Vice President, AI Transformation

7-Eleven - Senior Director, Enterprise AI

EVENTS

Gartner - C-Suite AI Themes - October 5, 2026

Bain - Technology Report 2026 - October 14, 2026

IDC - Enterprise AI Executive Lunch - October 22, 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.