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Welcome executives and professionals. For a single $10 billion data center project, even a six-month delay can cost approximately $900 million to $1.3 billion, while cancellation can lock in $1.5 billion to $2 billion in losses.

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 $1 trillion AI problem.

• McKinsey’s AI assembly line.

• Google I/O highlights.

• The AI adoption illusion.

• Transformation and technology in the news.

• Insights for Executive+ members.

• Career opportunities & events.

Read time: 4 minutes.

MARKET & BEST PRACTICE INSIGHT

The $1 trillion AI problem

Brief: Teneo’s 23-page report warns billions are at risk in data center development. By engaging communities early, AI infrastructure developers can de-risk project delivery, reduce local opposition, and accelerate approvals.

Breakdown:

• Over $1 trillion in US AI infrastructure spending faces rising public opposition, putting deployment and costs (~10%) at risk.

• Half of all planned projects are delayed or cancelled, with 77% of impacts occurring during the permitting and approvals process.

• Data center developers can avoid delays and save billions by building social license early through ongoing community engagement.

• Developers should implement socio-economic benefit programs and address data center energy concerns.

Why it’s important: Investing between 0.03% and 0.05% of total project costs in targeted community engagement and investment initiatives can help mitigate the risk of billions in losses, and protect the data center pipeline to help guarantee compute capacity for scaling enterprise AI.

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH AWS

Turn AI ambition into enterprise results

Brief: Join global executives, innovators, and AWS experts virtually at AWS Summit India Online on June 3. Stream live from the US, Europe, or anywhere in the world to discover the frameworks to drive enterprise AI impact.

Event highlights:

• 50+ virtual sessions tailored for innovators and builders

• Real-world AI and cloud transformation success stories

• The latest on agentic AI and modern infrastructure

• Live Q&As and networking

Secure your free virtual ticket here.

BEST PRACTICE INSIGHT & CASE STUDIES

The AI assembly line

Brief: McKinsey argues that Henry Ford’s assembly line, which revolutionized 20th-century factories, still offers a blueprint for CEOs looking to reimagine their enterprises with agentic AI.

Breakdown:

• Rewiring a business focuses on six themes: strategic road mapping, talent, operating model, tech, data, and adoption and scaling.

• McKinsey's insights focus on setting an enterprise strategy while building the underlying technology for AI transformation.

• CEOs must set a compelling vision and examples of desired impact as each AI assembly line is custom designed based on a company’s needs.

• Underpinning every AI assembly line is an agentic orchestration layer where data, models, and agents interact seamlessly (image above).

Why it’s important: With McKinsey's framework, companies can build AI assembly lines where agents complete tasks, improving efficiency and productivity. McKinsey research shows CEO-led transformations are 1.5 times more likely to succeed than those led primarily by tech teams.

ENTERPRISE INNOVATION

Google I/O highlights

Brief: Google unveiled new AI models and capabilities at I/O following Cloud Next ’26 last month, where it outlined its Agentic Enterprise vision with eighth-generation TPUs, Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, and more.

Breakdown:

• Google released Gemini 3.5 Flash with frontier performance, handling long-horizon tasks, often at under half the cost of rival models.

• Google expanded Antigravity capabilities and integrated it with Agent Platform, to bring agentic development to entire organizations.

• Gemini Spark gives Gemini Enterprise and Workspace users a 24/7 AI agent that autonomously completes tasks under direction.

• Google integrated CodeMender into Agent Platform, helping developers identify and fix vulnerabilities in code.

Why it’s important: Google's making it easier than ever to move from initial idea to business impact. The new releases are designed to empower your teams and improve the economics, speed and operational efficiency of production-scale enterprise AI.

AI-NATIVE PROFESSIONAL

How to turn transit time into research time

Brief: In this guide, you’ll learn how to capture ideas with voice on mobile using Claude, then let it research, organize and turn rough thinking into polished deliverables ready to finalize once you return to your desk.

Step-by-step:

1. Ideas emerge during commutes, between meetings, and on walks, but clarity is often lost by the time you’re back at your computer.

2. Using Claude, you can start ideas on mobile, and finish them on desktop. For instance, use your voice to research onboarding flows.

3. Claude searches for relevant data, pulls in documents you reference, and synthesizes what it finds.

4. When you reach your desk, the research is done and organized, ready to become a polished deliverable.

Best practice: Talk the way you think. Claude parses intent from rough, stream-of-consciousness input. Save the editing for desktop.

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

MARKET & BEST PRACTICE INSIGHT

The AI adoption illusion

Brief: PwC Strategy& published a 20-page report on AI adoption, drawing on PwC’s 29th Global CEO Survey of 4,454 CEOs and Strategy&’s 2026 CIO Tech and AI Study covering 60 CIOs.

Breakdown:

• China (51%) and the US (38%) show the highest AI-driven sales increases, compared to 14% in the EU.

• Only one-third of CIOs have "structurally embedded" AI into core workflows, exposing a gap between ambition and execution.

• Most firms are scaling AI into structures never designed for it, with only ~22% having the data setups required for advanced use cases.

• 62% of CIOs expect AI to dominate organizational decision-making within five years, with 32% expecting it within two years.

Why it’s important: Executives are in a “tough spot”: rising demands for speed and sovereignty versus budget and talent constraints. Winners will not necessarily be the most advanced, but the most adaptive; those who treat speed as an internal capability, not an external threat.

PwC explored how financial, workforce and trust metrics can help leaders measure AI performance and guide scaling decisions.

Cyera and Oso found 96% of enterprise permissions go unused, warning AI agents could turn dormant access into a security crisis.

Capgemini explored how GBS is evolving from a cost-focused model into a driver of growth, resilience and data-driven insights.

EY shared how Daikin transformed operations by aligning teams around a North Star to align operations and guide business transformation.

SAP published insights on building skills-based organizations in the AI era and how AI is elevating the high-tech industry.

Halcyon shared what boards should understand about ransomware as AI rapidly reshapes the cybersecurity threat landscape.

OpenAI announced that for the next 30 days, new Codex users on eligible enterprise accounts can get two months of free Codex usage.

Andrej Karpathy, the former Tesla AI executive and OpenAI cofounder, has joined Anthropic as the Claude maker looks to dominate the AI race.

Cursor released Composer 2.5, its upgraded coding model built on Moonshot Kimi K2.5, with frontier-level results at lower token prices.

Anthropic acquired Stainless, a leader in SDKs and MCP server tooling, to further push the frontier of agent connectivity.

Accenture and Stellantis announced plans for a strategic partnership with NVIDIA to advance AI-driven digital twin manufacturing capabilities.

Elon Musk’s $100B+ lawsuit against OpenAI, Sam Altman and Microsoft was dismissed after a jury ruled that the case was filed too late.

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

Anthropic - Head of Partner Programs

State Street - Global Head of AI

Deloitte - Vice President, Anthropic Sales

EVENTS

OpenAI - Codex in Finance - May 21, 2026

The AI Summit London - 10-11 June, 2026

The USA AI Summit - June 17, 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.