🤖 Great Automation Starts With Great Operations

🚧 Why Most AI Fails at the “Last Mile”

As we often say, AI is everywhere — in boardrooms, strategy decks, and investor calls. But here’s the kicker: only 5% of AI pilots actually deliver measurable ROI, according to MIT. The rest? Expensive experiments with no payoff.

A new Lucid study shows the issue isn’t the models, it’s the messy operations around them. Most companies are sprinting toward AI without fixing what’s under the hood: poor documentation, unclear workflows, and weak collaboration. In short, they’re automating chaos. More than 60% of workers say their company’s AI strategy doesn’t align with its operational reality.

It’s the “last mile” problem, not getting AI to run but getting it to work. Without structured processes, collaboration breaks down, and AI ends up amplifying inefficiency instead of solving it. The takeaway: before you automate, organize.

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🏭 Can the EU Turn Plans Into Systems?

The EU is rolling out its new “Apply AI” strategy, pushing industries from manufacturing to healthcare to finally go all in on artificial intelligence. The plan includes free access to supercomputers, new AI “Gigafactories,” and €1 billion in funding to help businesses experiment faster.

From factories to hospitals, the message is clear: stop talking, start building. But skeptics aren’t convinced. They’ve seen plenty of plans — just not much execution. The real test is whether the Commission can turn strategy into systems that actually work.

Europe’s got the blueprint. What it needs now is builders.

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🤝 When AI Agents Actually Team Up

Turns out, not all “AI teams” are really teams. Most don’t collaborate at all; they just work in parallel. But a new framework from Northeastern University shows how to spot the difference between AIs that cooperate and those that simply guess side by side.

In tests, agents only showed true teamwork when prompted to consider each other’s strategies, dividing roles, anticipating moves, and reaching shared goals faster. The secret wasn’t scale or speed. It was synergy.

Real AI collaboration begins when agents stop thinking alone and start thinking together.

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🔒 Governance Isn’t Boring — It’s Your Secret Weapon

In 2025, “good governance” isn’t about more rules. It’s about protecting trust. AI is moving fast. Cyber threats even faster. And the only thing keeping both in check is trust.

A new World Economic Forum piece argues that leaders need clarity, not complexity, in AI governance. Boards that still treat AI and cybersecurity as separate playbooks are missing the plot. Instead of validating systems after launch, top teams co-design AI and security from day one, track every decision, and make accountability part of the workflow.

The takeaway: integrity, transparency, and resilience matter more than endless frameworks. In the AI era, governance isn’t about slowing things down. It’s how you scale responsibly.

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🎙️ In Case You Missed It: The 90-Day Automation Playbook

Ever heard the phrase “automating a bad process just gets you to the wrong answer faster”? That’s from Colin Dowd, Industry Strategy Senior Manager at Armino — and our latest guest on the Process Masters Podcast.

He shares a 90-day playbook for turning automation ideas into real wins: start small, bring your people in early, and track what actually matters.

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