Hey

Welcome to The AI Report — the #1 AI newsletter for business leaders.

We believe you don’t need to be technical. Just informed.

Inside: real-world use cases and Partner Perspectives you won’t find anywhere else:

• 1. 👩‍💼 Monitor leads with Ava, an AI assistant from Artisan
• 2. ⚖️ ByteDance pledges copyright safeguards for Seedance
• 3. 💼 Your Business Briefing
• 4. 🦾 Turn your AI enthusiasm into marketable skills with Innovating with AI
• 5. ✍️ Today’s Policy Corner
• 6. 🗞️ The News Bulletin

Want to reach 400k+ AI-focused business leaders?

TOGETHER WITH ARTISAN

Meet Ava, the AI BDR

Ava monitors leads for buying intent and launches multi-channel outreach within minutes. You get leads delivered to your inbox on autopilot while Ava does all the grunt work.  She's able to:

• Prospect from her database of 300M+ contacts

• Enrich leads from any publicly available information

• Runs dozens of continuous experiments to optimize conversion rates

• Find leads using live intent signals (fundraises, job posts, website visitor de-anonymization, etc.) 

• Import HubSpot lists / Salesforce views in one click

• Execute multi-channel outreach + deliverability management

Trusted by teams at Quora, SumUp, and SaaStr.

Latest in AI

ByteDance pledges copyright safeguards for Seedance

🚨 Our Report

ByteDance says it will "strengthen safeguards" on Seedance 2.0, its AI video tool that has gone viral for generating hyperrealistic clips of Hollywood stars and copyrighted characters. The announcement follows a cease-and-desist letter from Disney and pressure from the Motion Picture Association over unauthorized use of intellectual property.

🔓 Key Points

• Disney accused ByteDance of "hijacking Disney's characters" by reproducing, distributing, and creating derivative works, after AI-generated videos featuring Marvel's Wolverine and Star Wars characters circulated widely online.

• Motion Picture Association CEO Charles Rivkin said ByteDance is "disregarding well-established copyright law" by launching a service "without meaningful safeguards against infringement," putting millions of American entertainment jobs at risk.

• ByteDance told media it "respects intellectual property rights" and is taking steps to prevent unauthorized use, though it did not provide details on what the new safeguards will include.

🔐 Relevance

The backlash exposes a widening gap in how AI companies handle copyrighted content. While ByteDance faces legal threats, Disney signed a three-year licensing deal with OpenAI in December, giving Sora users access to 200 Disney characters. For enterprises building with generative AI, the message is clear: licensing deals and proactive IP safeguards are becoming table stakes.

THE BUSINESS BRIEFING: MARKETING & GROWTH

Alaan (B2B fintech, corporate card & spend management platform) was running high-engagement LinkedIn campaigns targeting CFOs across the UAE and Saudi Arabia, but couldn’t clearly tie ad clicks to qualified pipeline and closed deals. They integrated LinkedIn Ads with Factors.ai via Conversions API to connect upper-funnel engagement data to CRM outcomes.

Tool used: Factors.ai, revenue attribution platform that connects ad platforms to CRM and offline conversion data via Conversions API.

Result: 56% reduction in cost per lead after implementing full-funnel attribution and refining targeting and creative mix.

The lesson: Attribution clarity unlocks performance gains; once marketing can see pipeline impact, targeting and budget decisions improve fast.

Steal this: This week, connect your primary paid channel to your CRM using server-side tracking (e.g., Conversions API). Then build a simple report that shows: Ad → MQL → SQL → Closed Deal. Reallocate 20% of spend toward campaigns influencing qualified opportunities, not just top-of-funnel leads.

TOGETHER WITH THE AI CONSULTANCY PROJECT

‘AI consultants are getting paid $900/hr’ –Fortune

Fortune Magazine interviewed Innovating with AI’s founder to discuss a crazy stat – AI engineers are being deployed as consultants at $900/hr. Why did they interview Rob? Because he’s already trained 1,000+ AI consultants  – and IWAI’s exclusive consultant directory has driven Fortune 500 leads to graduates.

Want to learn how to turn your AI enthusiasm into marketable skills, clear services and a serious business? Enrollment in The AI Consultancy Project is opening in 2026 – and you’ll only hear about it if you apply for access now.

THE POLICY CORNER

The European Union now requires any business deploying AI for hiring, credit scoring, employee management, or safety-critical systems to meet strict compliance obligations. The rules require risk assessments, detailed documentation, human oversight, and logging of all AI decisions. Applies to any company selling to or operating in EU markets, regardless of where you're headquartered.

Deadline: August 2, 2026 for most high-risk systems. Some product-embedded AI gets until August 2027.

Risk: Non-compliance triggers fines, potential market bans, and enforcement actions from national authorities across all 27 EU member states.

Your move: Audit your AI systems this month to identify which fall under high-risk categories, then start building the required documentation trail.

AI News

• Airbnb tests AI-powered search: Users can now describe rentals in natural language, with the company's AI support assistant already resolving 33% of all customer requests in the U.S. FULL STORY

• Meta weighs facial recognition for Ray-Ban glasses: The "Name Tag" feature would identify contacts through Meta platforms, though privacy concerns are slowing the rollout after 7M+ smart glasses sold last year. FULL STORY

• OpenClaw hype meets security reality: The viral AI agent framework hit 190K GitHub stars, but researchers say prompt injection vulnerabilities make it risky for real-world use. FULL STORY

• a16z backs Swedish dental AI startup: Andreessen Horowitz led a $2.3M pre-seed into Dentio, an AI clinical notes tool for dentists, as the firm expands its European deal flow. FULL STORY

Trending AI Tools (sponsored by our tools database)

A curated look at the AI tools quietly transforming how teams work.

1. Meco is a distraction-free space for reading and discovering newsletters, separate from the inbox.

2. Scrumbuiss is an agile project management tool with Kanban boards and real-time collaboration

3. Parsers VC is for predictive investment matching between startups and venture capitalists

The Money: Infrastructure capital races to meet AI compute bottlenecks

Investors poured $1.8B into AI infrastructure this week as compute shortages force enterprises and governments to build local capacity. Two deals show capital chasing supply constraints, not models.

Deals to know:

• Neysa (Private equity majority stake + debt, up to $1.2B) -- Indian AI infrastructure provider scaling GPU clusters as India pushes for domestic compute; targeting more than 20,000 GPUs over time.

• Oracle (Capital raise plan, $45B–$50B) -- Funding large-scale AI data center expansion linked to major AI cloud contracts, including OpenAI

Signal: Neo-clouds and hyperscalers raising record capital to solve the same problem, GPU scarcity is the new infrastructure arms race, and sovereign compute demands will command premium valuations through 2027.

Refer a Friend

Latest episode: Microsoft Copilot Is Losing Ground → Listen here
Want to reach 400k+ decision-makers? → Sponsor us

Until next time, Martin, Arturo, and Liam.

P.S. Unsubscribe if you don’t want us in your inbox anymore.