News, with a verdict / Ways of working
What if the five-year plan is the thing holding you back?
The strongest operators we interview rarely followed a plan. They followed a short list of rules about what they would and would not do — and let the path assemble itself.
8 Aug · Editorial · 7 min
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View allPhotograph — a steel coil with a marked surface defect in a customer's warehouse, a phone photographing it for a complaintDeployment / ManufacturingTata Steel put AI agents on customer complaints. Turnaround halvedTata Steel says agents that read complaints, spot defects in photos and route them cut average turnaround by 50%. The baseline and the cost are not published.9 Oct 2026 · Customer servicePhotograph — a contact-centre desk with a headset resting on a keyboard and a website security dashboard on the monitorNews, with a verdict / Ways of workingMeta's Personal Agent Protocol has no spec yet. Check your firewallMeta and Sierra want one standard for AI agents dealing with businesses. Nothing to build yet. The agent setting in your bot protection matters more.8 Oct 2026 · VerdictPhotograph — a grocery marketing team's wall of printed ad thumbnails, some marked with green dots and some with red, a laptop showing a spreadsheet beside themDeployment / RetailKroger had AI score 1,934 ads before buying media. It was 81% accurateKroger, Vidmob and MMA Global say a model trained on a year of Kroger ads forecast online conversion with 81% accuracy before a cent of media was spent.7 Oct 2026 · ForecastingPhotograph — a small single-board computer and USB camera clamped above a parts conveyor in a car plant, a quality inspector watching a laptop screenDeployment / ManufacturingToyota let factory staff build their own AI. They made 10,000 modelsToyota skipped a quote of over ¥100m and let plant staff build inspection AI themselves. By 2024 they made 10,000 models a year across 10 factories.6 Oct 2026 · Quality controlPhotograph — a laptop on a clinic reception desk with a website chat window open beside an appointment bookFailure / Ways of workingAesthetify's chatbot invented doctors' titles. A court held it liableA German beauty clinic's website bot called its two doctors board-certified surgeons. They are not. The clinic fixed it in days and still lost in court.5 Oct 2026 · FailurePhotograph — a customer service desk at an industrial manufacturer, an order email with a PDF attachment open beside an ERP order screenDeployment / ManufacturingDanfoss put AI agents on its order inbox. They make 80% of decisionsDanfoss gave the email orders its EDI links never caught to AI agents. Its digital chief says they make over 80% of the decisions. Cost: not published.3 Oct 2026 · Back officePhotograph — a returns desk in a mid-sized shop, a parcel opened on the counter beside a printed order slipNews, with a verdict / RetailShopify let browser agents check out. Who pays when they buy wrong?Shopify opened checkout to browser AI agents on 28 September. Six banks say nobody has settled who pays when an agent errs. What a retailer carries.1 Oct 2026 · VerdictPhotograph — a home improvement store associate in a red vest holding a handheld device in a paint aisle, a customer beside themDeployment / RetailLowe's says Mylow users convert at triple the rate. What that provesLowe's online shoppers who use its Mylow assistant convert three times as often as those who don't. It is a real result, but not a controlled test.30 Sept 2026 · Customer servicePhotograph — a store back office with a handheld scanner and a printed stock report on the deskSector brief / RetailRetail AI returns in 2026: which retailers put a number in writingIKEA, Zalando and Walmart have published AI results. Kroger and Tesco describe AI programmes without a result figure. What that tells a mid-sized retailer.25 Sept 2026 · Sector brief