Friday, April 18, 2025
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Hi, it’s Chad. Every Friday, I serve as your AI guide to help you navigate a rapidly evolving landscape, discern signals from noise and transform cutting-edge insights into practical leadership wisdom. Here’s what you need to know:
1. Paper Trail: AI Research Decoded
First Impressions Matter: How LLMs Validate the Power of Thin-Slicing in Presentations
Research proves that the first minute of your presentation shapes your audience’s entire perception. Here’s how to leverage this insight:
- Brief excerpts (less than 10% of a talk) strongly predict a presentation’s overall perceived quality, confirming the importance of strong openings
- AI-based evaluation tools can reliably assess presentation quality at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods
- Middle market organizations can strategically improve communication by focusing preparation efforts on the critical first moments of presentations
Read our full analysis of each of these research papers at AI for the C Suite
2. Sound Waves: Podcast Highlights
Our latest episode drops this coming week and features my chat with Nathan Whittacre from Stimulus Systems. Listen in as Nathan and I discuss… you know what, no spoilers today. You’ll have to tune in to learn more. Subscribe for free today on your listening platform of choice to ensure you never miss a beat.
New episodes release every two weeks.
3. AI Buzz: Fresh Bytes
This week was a busy one in AI-land. Here are several interesting articles that caught my eye.
- How Psychology Has Shaped, and Continues to Shape, AI
- Claude just gained superpowers: Anthropic’s AI can now search your entire Google Workspace without you
- Anthropic’s Claude can now read your Gmail
- 9 business leaders on what’s possible with Google AI
- ChatGPT gets a useful new home for your AI images – and it could be the first step towards OpenAI’s new Instagram rival
- Introducing OpenAI o3 and o4-mini
4. Algorithmic Musings. The AI Flood: Why Today’s Tools Are Just the Beginning
The past six months have been truly remarkable (and entirely expected) with a veritable flood of artificial intelligence applications washing over virtually every industry. Yet we’re still just barely getting our feet wet.
From Trickle to Torrent
The numbers tell a compelling story. By early 2025, the global AI market reached approximately $390 billion, expanding at a mind-boggling 37.3% compound annual growth rate since 2022. This explosive growth has created fertile ground for new AI product introductions.
What’s driving this surge? In part, it’s the stability and maturity of foundation models—the technological engines powering everything from your chatbot customer service rep to the AI that just drafted your company’s quarterly report. Following the trend established in 2023, when 149 foundation models were released (more than double the 2022 figure), the industry maintained robust development momentum. The percentage of open-source models also continued rising from the 65.7% seen in 2023, making AI technology increasingly accessible to developers.
Translation: The technological underpinnings became reliable, accessible and affordable enough for entrepreneurs and established companies alike to build upon them with confidence.
Where the Water’s Flowing
By February 2025, our research shows that several AI categories established substantial ecosystems. Chatbots led all AI application categories with 528 distinct products, while AI writing assistants followed closely with 424 products. Other significant categories included generative image tools, code assistants, and data analysis platforms.
Business adoption has skyrocketed in parallel. The proportion of organizations reporting AI use jumped from 55% in 2023 to 78% in 2024. By 2025, approximately 83% of companies considered AI a top priority in their business plans.
The healthcare sector provides a particularly powerful example. FDA-approved AI-enabled medical devices jumped from 6 in 2015 to 223 by 2023, with this growth accelerating into 2024-2025. By 2025, approximately 38% of medical providers were using computer systems as part of their diagnostic processes.
Just the First Wave
Impressive as these numbers are, they’re merely the prelude to something more profound. To (mis)appropriate Ferris Bueller’s parting words, AI moves pretty fast, and if you don’t stop to ask big questions once in a while, you’ll miss what’s actually happening.
What’s happening is that we’re witnessing the first generation of applications built atop foundation models with tools designed primarily to enhance existing processes rather than fundamentally reinvent them.
The latter half of 2024 was characterized as “the year of the Generative AI POC (Proof of Concept),” with many experimental products moving toward commercial deployment. This period saw the maturation of AI agents capable of working autonomously, making decisions, and interacting with their surroundings.
Now, consider this: some experts predict that by 2028, AI agents will autonomously make about 15% of daily work decisions. My personal bet is that by 2028 the figure will be closer to 25%. These aren’t merely tools we use; they’re entities that will increasingly operate on our behalf.
Beyond the Horizon
The tools we’re using today, impressive though they are, represent low hanging fruit: applications of AI that fit relatively comfortably within existing workflows and paradigms. The real revolution will come as we move from merely using AI tools to partnering with AI systems.
Investment patterns suggest this evolution is already underway. U.S. private AI investment reached $109 billion in 2024, nearly 12 times higher than China’s $9.3 billion and 24 times the UK’s $4.5 billion. This capital isn’t flowing toward minor iterations, it’s betting on fundamental breakthroughs.
The AI applications flourishing today are like the first web browsers of the early internet, primitive compared to what’s coming but revolutionary for their time. Today’s intelligent writing assistants and image generators will eventually seem as quaint as Netscape Navigator.
Is your organization ready for the second wave? Do you have a strategy for not just using AI tools but integrating with AI partners? If these questions make you uncomfortable, they should. The organizations that flourish tomorrow won’t be the ones with the most AI tools, they’ll be the ones that fundamentally reimagine their operations around AI capabilities.
The flood waters are rising. Time to learn how to swim. Better yet, learn how to sail.
5. Elevate Your Leadership with AI for the C Suite
Subscribe today because your organization deserves the competitive edge that only cutting-edge AI insights can provide.
Don’t let your organization fall behind in the AI race. AI for the C Suite’s insights and tools are designed to keep you ahead of the curve.
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As we navigate this unprecedented fusion of human and machine intelligence, remember: the best leaders aren’t just adapting to change – they’re actively shaping it. Until next week, keep pushing boundaries.
Chad