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

You don’t need to be technical. Just informed.

• 1. 🤖 Easily plan, code, and validate for your team with IBM
• 2. 🏘️ Join The AI Report Community (free guides inside)
• 3. ⚡️ Microsoft bets $2.5B on AI
• 4. 💼 Your Business Briefing
• 5. ✍️ Today’s Policy Corner
• 6. 🗞️ The News Bulletin

Are you ready to launch AI transformation for your company?

TOGETHER WITH IBM

Not just AI coding. Enterprise delivery.

AI coding agents are changing how software is built, but not all are designed for enterprise complexity.

Unlike IBM Bob. Built for enterprise use, Bob helps teams plan, code, and validate across the SDLC with governance built in. It brings control, visibility, and coordination to software delivery so organizations can scale development while managing risk.

THE AI REPORT COMMUNITY

New here? Our free community is where the extra stuff lives, including:

📊 2026 AI Tool Stack Guide (20+ pages)

🤖 HubSpot x The AI Report: ChatGPT at Work Guide

📝 Claude + ChatGPT Prompt Library (75+ prompts)

AND you can gain access to your choice of two resources available in our premium Leaders Launch Program for free.

Latest in AI

Microsoft bets $2.5B on AI

🚨 Our Report

Microsoft is investing $2.5 billion to launch Microsoft Frontier Co., a new business group of approximately 6,000 employees dedicated to helping enterprises implement AI solutions through forward deployed engineering.

🔓 Key Points

• The new division will embed technical experts directly inside client environments to identify business challenges and build AI-powered solutions tailored to each organization's specific needs.

• Microsoft's announcement follows Amazon's $1 billion AI deployment initiative two days earlier, signaling that competition has shifted from building AI models to helping companies actually use them.

• Rodrigo Kede Lima, currently leading Microsoft's Asia business, will serve as president of Frontier Co., which combines forward-deployed engineers, consultants, support specialists, and industry-specific sales teams under one roof.

🔐 Relevance

For enterprise buyers, this signals that AI vendors now recognize the implementation gap as the critical bottleneck. Microsoft is betting that winning the enterprise AI market requires embedding experts inside client operations, not just selling access to models. The move also positions Microsoft against Palantir's forward-deployed model while leveraging its broader ecosystem of data connectors and integrations. Companies evaluating AI deployments should expect more hands-on vendor support as standard.

The AI Report Podcast

Why AI Adoption Fails Inside Most Companies | Scott Likens, Global Chief AI Engineer, PwC

Stop wasting time researching AI tools

The hardest part of adopting AI isn't finding tools, it's knowing which ones are actually worth using.

That's why we've upgraded our Tool Database into a completely redesigned Tool Index, featuring 5,500+ AI tools, structured comparisons, powerful search and filtering, and a new AI Stack Builder that recommends the best tools for your business based on your team, budget, and existing workflow.

Spend less time researching and more time implementing AI.

• Explore the Tool Index →

• Build your AI Stack →

THE BUSINESS BRIEFING: SALES (powered by Upscaile)

PayPal (global fintech, 200+ rep mid-market sales org) had roughly 8,000 new merchant leads each month that no human rep had time to consistently follow up on. They deployed Salesforce’s Agentforce as an AI SDR to run a structured 10-touch nurture cadence and book meetings automatically before handing qualified merchants to reps.

Tool used: Agentforce -- Salesforce’s AI sales agent that executes outbound cadences, qualifies leads, and writes back to CRM.

Result: ~50% higher meeting conversion compared to humans working similar leads. Fully live across a 200-rep org within 14 weeks.

The lesson: AI SDRs work best when they handle the leads your team ignores, then pass context-rich, qualified meetings to humans.

Steal this: Pull a report of every lead your team hasn’t touched in 30+ days. Build a 7 to 10 touch AI cadence focused solely on booking meetings, not closing. Route booked meetings directly into your reps’ calendars with full CRM context attached.

THE POLICY CORNER

Rhode Island enacts therapy chatbot ban, self-harm safeguards, and AI transcription disclosure rules.

Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee signed three AI-related measures into law this week. H 7349 and S 2197 prohibit anyone from providing, advertising, or offering therapy or psychotherapy services in the state unless conducted by a licensed professional. S 2195 and H 7350 require chatbot operators to include protocols addressing suicidal ideation, self-harm, and potential harm to others. H 7538 mandates healthcare providers using AI to document visits notify patients and review AI-generated documentation for accuracy.

Deadline: In effect now.

Your move: If you operate companion chatbots or AI-assisted healthcare services, audit your disclosure protocols and self-harm safeguards this week. Healthcare providers using AI transcription must implement patient notification workflows and post-visit accuracy reviews before your next patient encounter.

📚 RETHINKING YOUR CAREER? START HERE

80,000 Hours: How to Have a Fulfilling Career That Does Good by Benjamin Todd

If you're rethinking your career path (or just want to make sure you're spending your working years well), this one's worth a look.

Todd breaks down how to find work that's genuinely fulfilling and makes a real impact: practical, research-backed advice rather than vague "follow your passion" platitudes. Great pick for anyone weighing next steps or feeling stuck in a career rut.

AI News

• 🤖 Cisco hands AI agents to all 90,000 employees by August: The networking giant is deploying personal AI assistants company-wide, with finance teams already using AI to generate 80-90% of first-draft SEC filings. FULL STORY

• 🚫 Meta bans engineers from using Claude Code and OpenAI Codex: The company's Applied AI division prohibited rival coding tools to prevent "model distillation," after internal tracking showed 60 trillion tokens consumed in a single 30-day period. FULL STORY

• 🔒 Alibaba bans all Anthropic products after alleged China-detection backdoor: Security researchers claimed Claude Code contained hidden code to identify Chinese users, prompting the tech giant to add the tool to its high-risk software list and shift employees to in-house Qoder platform. FULL STORY

• 💰 Meta nears $6.5B Samsung deal for custom 2nm AI chips: The company is also launching Meta Compute, a cloud infrastructure business selling access to its AI data center capacity, marking a push beyond advertising into enterprise AI services. FULL STORY

Trending AI Tools (Sponsored by the AI Executive’s Pass)

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

1. Kit:* 600K+ creators. 2.5B emails monthly. 99.8% deliverability. The newsletter OS for creators.

2. AITalk is a language learning app that uses AI tutors for real-time speaking practice and feedback

3. AnyToSpeech converts text, PDFs, and URLs into natural-sounding audio for podcasts and voiceovers

^{*indicates a sponsored tool, if any}

⚡️ Why pay for 4–6 separate AI tools at full price when the AI Executive’s Pass fixes that?

The Money: Memory makers race to lock in AI supply

Micron and SK Hynix are both making multi-billion-dollar capacity bets in the same week, signaling that memory suppliers see AI demand as structural, not cyclical. With HBM sold out through 2026 and hyperscalers still spending aggressively, the companies building the chips that feed AI accelerators are locking in long-term positioning.

Deals to know:

• Micron (Plant Expansion, $9.3B) -- Hiroshima facility groundbreaking for HBM production, shipments expected summer 2028. Japanese government contributing $3.2B in subsidies. Investors: Micron balance sheet, METI subsidies

• SK Hynix (US Listing, $29B) -- Nasdaq ADR offering to fund South Korea fab expansion and close valuation gap with Micron. Largest-ever first-time share sale by a foreign company. Investors: US institutional capital, passive index funds

Signal: Memory producers aren't waiting for demand signals. They're building capacity now because they expect AI infrastructure spending to persist well beyond the current cycle.

Refer a Friend

Latest episode: Why AI Adoption Fails Inside Most Companies → Listen here
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Until next time, Arturo and Liam.

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