Here's what caught my eye in the world of AI this week:

1.  If you’re looking to elevate your approach to building AI products, this episode is your roadmap to becoming indispensable.
   
   I just finished listening to Lenny’s Podcast episode, “Why Great AI Products Are All About the Data” Lenny Rachitsky with Shaun Clowes, and it’s packed with actionable insights for anyone working in AI, product management, or enterprise leadership. Shaun draws an inspiring comparison between the elusive 10X Engineer and the 10X Product Manager, highlighting how the latter can transform their teams and drive massive impact. His perspective on leveraging AI, data, and customer-centric thinking is both practical and inspiring. 
   
   Executive Summary:
   
   The journey to becoming a 10X AI Product Manager is about leveraging AI-powered tools and adopting a mindset focused on customer-centric innovation, data mastery, and strategic foresight. Shaun Clowes, a seasoned product leader, unpacks why most product managers fall short, how AI is revolutionizing product management, and the critical role of data-informed decision-making in a fast-evolving SaaS landscape. This article delves into actionable strategies to amplify impact and navigate the complexities of modern product leadership.
   
   Key Takeaways:
   
   Start Outside the Building
   
   Great PMs spend 80% of their time thinking from the customer’s perspective. Don’t get bogged down in internal politics or execution minutiae. Instead, seek market insights, customer feedback, and competitor analysis to guide decisions.
   
   Why it matters: Differentiated value comes from understanding external drivers, not internal processes.
   
   

   Master Data as a Core Competency
   
   AI and data are interlinked; the success of AI-driven tools hinges on the quality, structure, and recency of your data. Think of data as a compass, not a GPS—it won’t always give the answer, but it can point you in the right direction.
   
   Why it matters: A data-informed PM can extract insights, challenge assumptions, and make faster, smarter decisions.
   
   
   Integrate AI to Unlock Hidden Insights

   
   Use LLMs (Large Language Models) to analyze customer feedback, identify blind spots, and even reverse-engineer competitor strategies. AI is a force multiplier for synthesis and decision-making but requires strategic human oversight to drive results.
   
   Why it matters: AI enables PMs to uncover opportunities and challenges that would take weeks to find manually, fostering faster product innovation.
   
   Actionable Insight: Aspiring 10X PMs should view AI as both a tool and a mindset—adopting it strategically to enhance clarity, efficiency, and innovation across the product lifecycle.

Quote of the week

2. Inspired by the brilliance of Van Gogh, I found myself reflecting on the artistry required to succeed in AI today. If you aspire to lead in this transformative era, remember this: Data, AI, Culture, and Trust are the four essential pillars of success. These tenets form the foundation upon which the future is being built—far surpassing the legacy mantra of 'People, Process, and Technology' that defined innovation in the late 90s and early 2000s.

   .

   The evolution is profound. Data is our modern canvas, AI the brush that brings bold visions to life. Culture drives the creative energy of collaboration, and Trust weaves the bridge between humanity and technology, ensuring that progress is not just groundbreaking but sustainable.

   .

   This isn’t just a framework; it’s a call to action. Share it with those shaping tomorrow, because the way forward isn’t just about keeping up—it’s about mastering the art of building a future worth forwarding."

3. North Star

Building High-Performing Leadership Teams for AI Strategy Success

The secret to successful strategy execution lies in the dynamics of your leadership team. While many assume that executive teams naturally work in collaboration, the reality often reveals misalignment, power plays, and subtle politics that hinder progress. To overcome these challenges, leaders must intentionally build a cohesive, aligned, and high-performing team.

Key Elements of a High-Performing Leadership Team:

• Cohesion & Trust: True collaboration stems from mutual trust, vulnerability, and alignment on a shared North Star. Leaders must balance individual and organizational goals.

• Structure & Roles: Clear roles, norms, and processes—such as streamlined planning and well-defined responsibilities—reduce friction and ensure focus.

• Team Identity: Establishing a shared team identity fosters unity and collective purpose, turning individual leaders into a powerhouse team.

Why It Matters:

Leadership alignment isn't a "one-and-done" effort. It's a continuous investment in relationships, trust, and communication. When leadership teams are united, they not only navigate challenges more effectively but also unlock their organization's full potential.

Bottom Line: Strong leadership dynamics aren't optional—they're essential in the Era of AI. If you want your AI strategy to succeed, start by investing in your leadership team. They make it or break it.

4. Jesse Shiah’s brilliant visual on the chasm we must bridge to reach Agentic AI! My take? It won’t be the smooth ride some predict (see The Future of Data and AI, below)—especially for companies committed to building it responsibly. The challenges ahead are real, but so are the opportunities for those who get it right!

This isn’t traditional business news

Welcome to Morning Brew—the free newsletter designed to keep you in the know on the business news impacting your career, company, and life—in a way you didn’t know you needed.

Note: this isn’t traditional business news. Morning Brew’s approach cuts through the noise and bore of classic business media, opting for short writeups, witty jokes, and above all—presenting the facts.

Save time, actually enjoy business news, and join over 4 million professionals reading daily.

Check it out

5. Top 10 Data Engineering & AI Trends for 2025

I had the opportunity to hear Barr Moses speak at a conference and love the work that she is doing at Monte Carlo.  Data is the new gold and Monte Carlos is building tools to help ensure your data is of the highest quality.

The State of AI in 2024 and What’s Coming in 2025

2024 was expected to be a groundbreaking year for generative AI, with predictions of widespread operational use and the emergence of general artificial intelligence (AGI). While generative AI has made strides in areas like cost reduction and enterprise productivity, other expectations—like AGI or fully operational AI agents—remain elusive. The year has instead been defined by measured progress, as organizations refine their strategies, focus on process over tools, and shift toward smaller, more specialized AI models.

Looking to 2025, the future of AI lies in improving quality, unlocking the value of unstructured data, and bridging the gap between AI experimentation and business outcomes.

Key Takeaways

1. AI Is Driving ROI, Not Revenue

Generative AI has become a powerful tool for cost reduction but struggles to deliver direct revenue.

• Companies like Klarna and Microsoft have cut costs significantly, with AI boosting productivity by 50-75%.

• Revenue-generating AI tools, such as recommendation engines, produce sales pipelines but often lack the quality for tangible results.

2. Small, Specialized AI Models Are the Future

The shift from massive general-purpose models to smaller, fine-tuned ones is gaining momentum.

• Smaller, proprietary, or open-source models are cheaper, faster, and more accurate for B2B use cases.

• Fine-tuning models on domain-specific data (e.g., customer support tickets) leads to better outcomes, while legal and cost concerns push enterprises toward controlled solutions.

3. The Rise of Unstructured Data and Operational AI

Unstructured data is becoming a focal point for enterprise AI as organizations move from exploration to execution.

• Only 50% of unstructured data is currently analyzed, but the rise of AI tools is poised to change that in 2025.

• Companies are creating "unstructured data stacks" to train, fine-tune, and operationalize AI models, making this a greenfield opportunity for innovation.

The Bottom Line

AI in 2024 didn’t revolutionize the enterprise landscape overnight, but it laid the groundwork for more strategic adoption in 2025. The focus has shifted to creating measurable business value, prioritizing small, cost-effective models, and operationalizing unstructured data. Organizations that embrace quality, process, and domain-specific innovation will be well-positioned to lead the next wave of AI advancements. 2025 is set to be the year of execution—are you ready?

6. Sunday Funnies 🤣 .

7. Reflections

Want to grasp where AI is headed? Go straight to the source: Sam Altman. His insights are shaping the AI frontier. That said, as I mentioned earlier, I firmly believe agentic AI will take longer than we anticipate to gain traction at the enterprise level. The challenges in accuracy and operational readiness are far more complex than the hype suggests.

There’s a reason 400,000 professionals read this daily.

Join The AI Report, trusted by 400,000+ professionals at Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI. Get daily insights, tools, and strategies to master practical AI skills that drive results.

Sign up now for free and work smarter, not harder.

8. How Will AI Fundamentally Transform Our Economy?

Artificial intelligence is on the cusp of fundamentally transforming the global economy, comparable to the seismic shifts of the Industrial Revolution. UVA professor and G7 advisor Anton Korinek is at the forefront of understanding AI’s economic impact, from its potential to disrupt labor markets to the broader structural shifts it could spark. In a recent report for the G7, Korinek and a panel of global experts laid out actionable recommendations for navigating this uncertain but transformative era. While AI presents unparalleled opportunities for growth and innovation, it also demands policymakers prepare for rapid, potentially disruptive changes.

Thank you for scrolling all the way to the end! As a bonus check out the following: Beta Scheduled tasks in ChatGPT. A powerful yet simple taste of creating your own Agentic service that can watch the internet for you and report back to you.

Until next time, take it one bit at a time!

Rob

P.S.

💎 Discover Handpicked Gems in Your Inbox! 💎

Here are some FREE newsletters our readers also enjoy. Explore, it helps us keep our newsletter FREE is much appreciated and it will help feed your head !