Only 45% of employees feel their company has been very successful in adopting and using generative AI over the past 12 months, starkly contrasting with 75% of C-suite executives, indicating a significant disconnect between leadership perception and operational reality. [Writer AI Survey, p. 16]
71% of the C-suite admit generative AI applications are being created in a silo within their organization, highlighting a failure in cross-functional collaboration and strategic alignment.[Writer AI Survey, p. 16]
58% of laggard orgs have a corporate culture that does not reward creative thinking, directly hindering innovation & growth by failing to value actual contribution over conformity. [HBR Creativity, p. 4]
Only 22% of orgs are "very successful" at identifying creative solutions to business problems, suggesting a widespread failure in fostering & recognizing true innovation across ranks.[HBR Creativity, p. 3]
51% of GenAI creators & heavy users (often tech experts) plan to quit their jobs next 3-6 months, highlighting retention issues linked to feeling undervalued or poor management.[McKinsey Quarterly - People before tech, p. 20]
67% of the C-suite believe executives are in charge of AI strategy, while only 35% of employees agree, showcasing a major disconnect in perceived power and decision-making authority. [Writer AI Survey, p. 17]
Sustainable & Profitable Business Model
Product-Market Fit
SWOT
Porter's 5 Forces
Growth Matrix
Competitors
Markets
Consumers/Users
Unique Value Proposition
Blue Ocean Strategy
Etc.
Diminishing Returns per Employee
Derek J. de Solla Price is a British physicist, historian of science & computer scientist who studied the exponential growth of organizations and science. He found his "Square Root Law" confirmed in scientific research, software development, art businesses, team sports and many other areas.
Price's Square Root Law
In every type of organization, half of the work is done by the square root of the number of employees. This means, for example:
In an organisation with 9 employees: 3 do 50% of the work.
49 employees ➡️ 7
100 employees ➡️ 10
10,000 employees ➡️ 100
Speed beats Size (Employees & Innovations)
Negative Business Impact
Organisations underestimate their application count by 1,600%– believing they use 37 when in reality they pay for 625 apps, which they mostly don't use. [State of Digital Adoption 2025, p. 12]
Enterprises lose $104M annually from digital inefficiencies: $50M in productivity losses, $43M in tech underutilised & $11,35M in failed IT projects that don't deliver ROI due to low user adoption. [State of Digital Adoption 2025, p. 12]
41% of Millennial & Gen Z admit to sabotaging their company’s AI strategy, indicating deep mistrust or dissatisfaction stemming from leadership decisions or poor tool quality. [Writer AI Survey, p. 9]
73% of orgs invest $1-100 million annually in AI – but only 1/3 achieves ROI.[Writer AI Survey, p. 11]
Enterprises waste an average of 36 working days per employee annually dealing with technology frustrations, highlighting significant operational inefficiency. [WalkMe State of Digital Adoption, p. 10]
"Transformation debt" – the growing divide between innovation & tangible value driven by challenges like slow adoption & disjointed strategies, costs the average large enterprise $23 million annually.[State of Digital Adoption, p. 3]
Despite 61% employee AI adoption, average usage frequency is only 11 times per month, proving AI is not fully integrated into workflows & its potential remains largely untapped due to inefficiency or poor implementation. [VML AI At Work, p. 4, 9]
Zeitgeist Fit
The only constant in life & business is change.
Too many orgs refuse to evolve – especially if they make money & profit.
R&D would reduce ROI.
Change requires more effort & mental flexibility than simply continuing whatever works at the moment.
Sure you are too successful to fail?
The global AI investment landscape saw a significant surge in 2024, with total investments of $110 billion = a 62% year-on-year increase.
Top 10 companies with biggest AI investments
Baidu: $10 billion
Oracle: $12 billion
IBM: $15 billion
Tesla: $18 billion
Apple: $20 billion
Meta (Facebook): $25 billion
NVIDIA: $30
Amazon: $35
Google (Alphabet): $38
Microsoft: $40+ billion
Compute Power 2x every 2 Years – since 1970
Both graphs show the same: the amount of transistors per microprocessor aka computer chip. It doubles every 1.5-2 years since 1970, which is referred to "Moore's Law". The only difference between the graphs is their Y axis: left is logarithmic, right is linear.
How much is 1 Zettabyte?
Apx. 226.5 billion copies of the Bible.
If you print out as text data and stack the pages, the pile would reach from Earth to the Moon and back over 14 million times.
If you tried to download 1 zettabyte of data using a standard home internet connection (100 Mbps), it would take you approximately 2.5 billion years to complete the download.
Intelligence rises – while Costs plummet to Zero
AI models get smarter, while costs per unit dropped by 99.59% from 2017 to 2021. And currently get 10x cheaper every year.
AI-Powered Mediocrity
Nick Law is one of the world's best Creative Directors.
Since everyone has access to the same AI tools, it's how they are used that makes the difference.
Negative Business Impact
EU risks losing €2-4 trillion in annual GDP value by 2040 if it fails to close tech investment & adoption gap with the US & China, highlighting massive economic cost of not keeping pace with technological Zeitgeist. [Europe in the Intelligent Age, p. 4]
Structural labour-market transformation (churn) impactS 22% of jobs by 2030(170 million created, 92 million displaced), indicating that ignoring workforce evolution driven by tech/macrotrends is perilous. [Future of Jobs Report 2025, p. 5, 18]
Gen Zers & millennials in EU/US ranked sustainability lower as a purchasing factor in 2024 vs 2023, demonstrating rapid cultural shift in priorities that companies ignoring could misinterpret. [McKinsey Quarterly - Consumer 2024, p. 139, 140]
Only 10% of large companies significantly shift resources year-to-year, with 90% correlation in spending, indicating massive inertia preventing adaptation to changing strategic needs. [McKinsey Quarterly - Keep calm & allocate capital, p. 124]
Gap between actual MSME productivity ratio & top-quartile level is equivalent to 5% of GDP in advanced economies & 10% in emerging ones, showing huge value lost by firms not using best practices. [McKinsey Quarterly - Better together, p. 93]
Global Threats in 2025 (only 8 examples of many more)
AI Race
US vs. China
US-Chip Embargo
Climate Disasters
Israel vs. Palestine
Infrastructure Fails
Financial Instability
Left vs. Right
AI Speeds up Innovation Cycles Exponentially
Founding a Company has 3 main stages (simplified overview)
Identify problem that needs solving
Hire experts to develop tech solution
Market & improve product
The 2nd stage was huge bottleneck because you need to find experts & afford hundreds of thousands of salaries for months or years.
AI reduced 2nd phase down to days/weeks & hundreds of Euro/Dollars with programming tools like Lovable, Cursor, Replit, etc.
Even Big Tech Struggles to Keep Up with AI
Two examples of how even the most inventive big tech companies need to buy expertise to not fall behind in AI's exponential developments. Now ask yourself: Do you think you're more inventive than Amazon, Microsoft, Apple & alike? Time to act!
Echo-Chamber-powered Tribalism & Misinformation
Most people judge nowadays without looking at details, but rather who said what, e.g.:
Left/Liberals vs. Right/Conservatives
Young vs. Old & all Generations against all others
Men vs. Women vs. LGBTQIA+Whatever
Anyone vs. Everyone
Dwindling subscriptions ➡️ less revenue ➡️ more job loss ➡️ more clickbait ➡️ false news ➡️ more hate ➡️ less thinking ➡️ more antagonism ➡️ worse decision-making ➡️ humanity's current algorithmic death spiral.
The newspaper industry has a century-old insight: "If it bleeds, it leads!" (= Worst news on title page)
And the Romans knew since Millenia : "Divide et vince!" (= Divide & conquer!)
Negative Business Impact
AI Compute Concentration & Chokepoints: Extreme reliance on Taiwan for high-end AI chips creates a critical global vulnerability; a blockade or invasion coulddisrupt AI development & deployment worldwide, impacting nearly every sector.[Superintelligence Strategy, p. 27]
Geopolitical Fragmentation & Trade Restrictions: Rising geopolitical tensions are leading to doubled trade restrictions (2020-2024) & potential global output losses of up to 7% GDP, impacting supply chains & market accesseven for SMEs. [Future of Jobs Report 2025, p. 13, 60]
Software Supply Chain Vulnerabilities:Dependencies on external software (even open-source ones like FFmpeg) can introduce critical vulnerabilities (like SSRF), impacting any organization using that software, regardless of size or location. [Microsoft Red Teaming, p. 16]
Economic Slowdown & Inflation Persistence: Despite recent easing, price pressures and risks of slower growth persist globally, impacting consumer spending, investment decisions, and operational costs everywhere.[Future of Jobs Report 2025, p. 13]
Cyberattacks on Critical Infrastructure:The increasing fragility of infrastructure (power grids, water systems) combined with AI's potential to lower barriers for sophisticated cyberattacks poses a systemic risk with potentially severe consequences.[Superintelligence Strategy, p. 9]
The 5 P's of Marketing
Marketing is more than Advertising. It's every part of a company. This is only a reduced & simplified overview.
Marketing Fundamentals: Brief, Brand Strategy, Creative Strategy, etc.
90% of marketing departments can't write good briefs.
Most agencies can't either and/or are too afraid to ask their clients for follow-up meeting to discuss & elaborate their 1st draft.
Study with 3.500 C-levels from BetterBriefs.com estimates that $353 Billion Ad spend go to waste in 2025.
Negative Business Impact
97% of c-levels see benefits of AI, but 42% admit adoption process (often incl. marketing use cases) is tearing their company apart due to lack of fundamentals like change management & alignment. [Writer AI Survey, p. 9]
Brand loyalty is fading across demographics; over a third of consumers in advanced markets tried different brands recently, showing companies with weak brand-building fundamentals are losing ground.[McKinsey Quarterly - Consumer 2024, p. 139]
40% of consumers switched retailers for better prices/discounts, indicating that brands failing on fundamental value proposition messaging and pricing strategy are vulnerable. [McKinsey Quarterly - Consumer 2024, p. 139]
Marketing & Sales is a top area for GenAI use, yet organizations report significant implementation challenges and slow ROI, suggesting a lack of foundational capability to leverage new marketing tech effectively. [McKinsey State of AI 2024, p. 16-18; Writer AI Survey, p. 19]
35% of employees pay out-of-pocket for better GenAI tools (aka "Shadow AI"), indicating company-provided tools (potentially including MarTech) lack fundamental usability or effectiveness. [Writer AI Survey, p. 20]
Understanding User, Pain-Points, Journey, etc.
POV Flip from Inside Out to Customer-centric
Especially engineering-led companies often think from an internal perspective.
They often create what is technologically feasible – versus – solutions that solve a real customer pain-point/problem.
Humans beat AI at "Insight Quality"
AI helps to find pain-points – but experienced strategist know much deeper & more creative alternatives.
This is example a persona I created to promote my services as a freelance AI, marketing & strategy consultant – by better understanding my target audience.
Issues with AI Insights
They're helpful, decent & better than what most marketing uses as leverage for its messaging, but:
AI suggests the most logical insights, which every user will get from every good LLM
great strategists & creatives can find & create unexpected insights that AI would never suggest
USP of "Lateral Creative Human Thinking"
AI will for the foreseeable future not be able to match human experts because AI can't "think laterally". This means either illogically with their gut, or instinctively synthesise multi-domain knowledge, or draw from real-life experiences & interactions, etc.
Examples of Deep Human Insights
Impatience overrides intelligence: most prioritise speed over thought-through consideration & weighed wisdom.
Anecdotes usually better than data:if both don't line up, you're most probably measuring the wrong things.
Many Jobs are more than their obvious function, e.g. doorman at a high-class hotel's entrance offers status.
Even most empathic humans who understand others don't understand their own behaviour, e.g. how they choose.
Commissions fined, Omissions rarely, e.g. salesperson forgets "open" sign (huge loss) vs. if customer steals cheap item.
Short-term, measurable results are prioritised over long-term, less measurable benefits (e.g. brand building)because ease of measuring customer acquisition makes it more appealing than investing in loyalty, which has a slower payoff.
Innovation reshapes the competitive landscape, making dramatic pivots necessary, e.g. technological shifts can render previous strengths less relevant – like electrification of carsdevalues their combustion engine expertise.
Most organisations prefer to add solutions rather than subtract them, even when removing something is more effective: that's why it's important to champion first-principles system thinking & design fo X approach.
I recommend subscribing to & reading everything from Rory Sutherland – a British marketing strategist & human insight God.
6 Areas where skilled Humans outperform AI
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Negative Business Impact
Companies not deeply understanding customer price sensitivity fail with green logistics: over 80% of customers won't pay even a 10% premium, despite stated desire for sustainability. [McKinsey Quarterly - Green logistics, p. 105]
The "squeezed-but-splurging" middle-income consumer defies conventional wisdom, highlighting that companies relying on surface-level assumptions instead of deep research misunderstand crucial market segments. [McKinsey Quarterly - Consumer 2024, p. 139]
Gen Z consumers are picking up the phone more for customer service, contrary to digital-native stereotypes, showing failure to understand nuanced channel preferences leads to poor service design. [McKinsey Quarterly - Customer Care, p. 85]
AI creators and heavy users prioritize relationships and flexibility over pay, yet companies often misread talent motivations, demonstrating a failure to understand even their internal customer (employee) needs. [McKinsey Quarterly - People before tech, p. 20]
Only 65% of Financial firms see creative thinking as a core skill (vs. 80% needing analytical thinking), undervaluing the empathetic, customer-centric ideation needed beyond data analysis. [Future of Jobs Report 2025, p. 256]
Optimal User Experience (Example: Apple Website)
1. Overview
Users get simple & elegant overview: highlights on top, rest below or in navigation bar.
2. Benefits
Users start seeing the benefits of each product or service – as clear text & beautiful demo.
3. Features
Only at the end, users see a list of features that they can also easily compare to other models.
Apple has world's best UX because of its level of attention to design everywhere: products, packaging, stores, interfaces & even programming guidelines.
Most want to be Apple – but few know how or invest the effort
I worked for 150+ international Ad agencies & marketing departments. Most leaders & employees adore Steve Jobs and/or Apple – but almost none whom I met over 25 years really know the level of obsession, love for craft & 360° effort go into achieving such success.
I recommend the book "Build" from Tony Fadell who is one of the most accomplished engineers who worked with Steve, built the iPod, iPhone, Nest thermostat & much more. He spills all his life's learnings & also Apple's & Google's inside workings. These are some photos from it. Click to enlarge.
Negative Business Impact
35% of employees pay out-of-pocket for AI tools because employer-provided ones are inadequate, showcasing a terrible internal UX that creates cost burdens & security risks. [Writer AI Survey, p. 20]
52% of employees distrust AI outputs, indicating poor UX in terms of reliability, transparency, or explainability, hindering adoption and effective use. [VML AI At Work, p. 6]
94% of executives are not completely satisfiedwith their generative AI vendors, suggesting vendors often fail to deliver tools & support that meet enterprise UX standards & needs. [Writer AI Survey, p. 30]
49% of employees feel left to figure out generative AI on their own, revealing a poor onboarding and support experience provided by organizations. [Writer AI Survey, p. 16]
72% of C-suite leaders faced at least one challenge adopting GenAI, frequently related to user resistance, skills gaps, or cultural issues – all linked to the employee experience. [Writer AI Survey, p. 9, 15]
Creative 360° Concepts
Only 8 exemplary creative & successful marketing concepts of 2024's Cannes Lions award show.
All helped their brands overcome business challenges with smart, customer-centric & ROI-focused ideas. Click for website.
Negative Business Impact
94% of leaders agree creative orgs achieve greater strategic growth, linking creativity to business success. [HBR Creativity, p. 3]
96% of leaders agree creative ideas are essential for long-term success and performance, establishing creativity as a fundamental business requirement. [HBR Creativity, p. 3]
Gen AI in product research and design alone could unlock $60 billion in productivity, showcasing the immense value potential when creativity is effectively enhanced by technology. [McKinsey Quarterly - Product Design, p. 44]
Creative thinking is a Top 5 core skillexpected to rise in importance by 2030, yet many organizations struggle to foster it effectively. [Future of Jobs Report 2025, p. 35, 37]
While GenAI accelerates concept development, human intervention by experts is still needed to validate, test, and refine outputs to make them meaningful, manufacturable, and impactful – proving AI slob isn't enough. [McKinsey Quarterly - Product Design, p. 44]
58% of laggard organisations have cultures that actively discourage creative thinking,showing a common systemic barrier to leveraging creativity. [HBR Creativity, p. 4]
AI frees up significant employee time (65% agree), but the top activity enabled is Creative Problem Solving (47%), indicating its potential for higher-order creativity if managed correctly. [VML AI At Work, p. 16]
The 8-Dimensional Business Success Matrix™
Company, Product & Service
Marketing Mastery
Great Consumer Insights
Optimal User Experience
Creative 360° Concepts
Global Threats Mitigation
Good Zeitgeist Fit
Profitable Business Model
How to optimise AI Implementation, Use & ROI
Digital Adoption Best Practices – only 7% of Enterprises follow
Train employees to use new technology
Deploy process automation for proactive support
Evaluate & measure current technology use
Create content to boost application engagement
Unify the experience across applications
Manage technology adoption with DAP
Measure user engagement
Strategic GenAI Implementation Guidelines
Quick Wins
High impact, low effort
Research assistance
Data summarization
Minor automatic tasks
Inbox clearing
Implementation: 2–8 weeks
Adoption rate: 40–60%
Important Tasks
High impact, high effort
Data analysis
Predictive modeling
Workflow automation
Strategic gains
Implementation: 12–18 months
ROI: 85% with best practices
Other Tasks
Low impact, low effort
Simple text generation
Proofreading
Repetitive code checks
Implementation: 4–12 weeks
Support role in strategy
Ungrateful Tasks
Low impact, high effort
Complex workflows
Limited ROI potential
Overcomplicated implementations
Implementation: 18+ months
Consider alternatives
The Five Steps to HyperProductivity
1
1
Adaptive User Interfaces
Personalize support based on user context
Reduce learning curves for all skill levels
Maintain peak productivity across applications
2
2
Proactive Automation
Identifies tasks before they become bottlenecks
Eliminates repetitive work
Enables focus on strategic activities
3
3
Cross-Application Workflows
Create seamless handoffs between systems
Minimize context switching
Deliver cohesive user experience
4
4
Continuous Improvement
Uses real-time feedback loops
Identifies inefficiencies quickly
Implements solutions iteratively
5
5
Inclusive Digital Experiences
Make technology accessible to all users
Provide context-aware assistance
Offer personalized learning paths
5 Traits of Great Technology Partners
Customize AI Tools
53% of C-suite executives need vendors who prioritize business-specific use cases and identify high-value proof-of-concept opportunities
Prepare Organizations
52% want help defining roles, gathering necessary data, and addressing security while providing training programs
Offer Pilot Phases
50% seek support for cultural acceptance through experimental implementation phases that ensure smooth transitions
Measure Real Impact
48% wish vendors would help quantify and communicate AI tool effectiveness through qualitative and quantitative metrics
Enable Enterprise Scaling
45% need stronger support during the critical final adoption phase to successfully deploy solutions company-wide
The 8-Dimensional Success Consultant
Who am I, Elias Kouloures?
Multiethnic: Greek & Austrian – with Italien & Turkish influences
Domain Expertise: 40 years IT, 30 WWW & 25 marketing of which 15 in Germany, New York & Hong Kong & 11 freelance in EU
Perm Jobs:10 international positions – from intern to Creative Director – on up to €120 million marketing budgets (today: 160)
Freelance:apx. 150 clients & 300+ projects in 7 countries - from start-up GTM to international blue chip campaigns
Qualifications:Diploma in Marketing Communications, Creative Copywriter, IT Product Manager, Data Scientist, Social Media Manager, Rescue Diver, Fitness Trainer-B incl. Gym Manager license, Nutritionist & dozens of AI/LLM trainings
Self-taught:Creative Strategy (Get-Who-To-By), Brand Strategy (Why-How-What), Business Model Transformations & Evolutions (Blue Ocean Strategy), Drone Pilot & Film Editor with Premiere Pro
Successes:24 int. awards (incl. ADC, Eurobest, OneShow & Cannes Lions merit), approx. 75% pitch success since 2005 & some just for fun competitions, e.g. 1st place Prompt Engineering Battle, Snoop Dogg awarded me "Viral Video of the Week", etc.
Biggest Insight:Experienced 25+ years in dozens of companies, how digital ideas were hindered & opportunities missed
Unique POV & USP: Asperger's + ADHD (approx. 0.1% of the population) = “You think like a bot, Elias!” + Turkey Talker
First-Principles System Thinker
1. Break down complex problems into fundamental truths:
Question every assumption & conventional wisdom.
Ask: "What are we absolutely certain is true?"
Rebuild solutions from the ground up, not by analogy.
2. Challenge artificial constraints:
Recognize most constraints are human-made, not physics-based.
If something’s never been done, ask: “Why not?”
“Physics is the law; everything else is a recommendation.”
Metaphor:
Amateur cooks by following rules e.g. imitating a recipe = analogy.
Chef cooks by 1st principles = knows ingredients & techniques on fundamental level.
Born with Native AI Understanding
OpenAI's 6 Prompt Strategies
I was surprised by announcement (12/2023) & wondered "Doesn't everyone prompt like this?!"
MS Prompt Compressor
I write like this natively because "it just makes sense" to not feed unnecessary clutter to LLMs.
CS Masterclass Mentor
I mentored 1st AI project after 6 months & Professor with 20y expertise asked me for advise. I solved instantly.
Superb Problem-Solving with Logic + Creativity
Dentist Guerilla Flirting
I fell in love with new dentist & didn't want to embarrass her in front of assistants. Used my jaw x-ray to ask her out to dinner: 100% response quota.
Putin Tinder Hack
News revealed Russian soldiers used Tinder to hit on Ukrainian ladies. I used this for Propaganda Hacks, which went viral & even Sagmeister shared idea.
Outsmarting Junkie with Gun
I was alone at night in San Francisco when a Meth Addict held a gun in my face. I salvaged myself without force by convincing him I was much crazier.
I recognise Patterns most People miss
I deactivated 95% of notifications weeks after buying my 1st iPhone in 2008 because I felt the constant notification "BINGS!" were unhealthy. Studies confirm this, e.g. Prof. Jonathan Heidt
I knew without a doubt thatDonald Trump would be re-elected – in mid 2024.
No wonder"Everyone is a Nazi!" if surveys show 83% of German journalists identify as left/liberal.
Most "traditional" software will become obsolete in 15-20 years because AI will either do the task or write deterministic software code on the fly (similar to a "function call" today).
Average human lifespans will grow to 500+ years until 2100 due to 4 emerging transformational technologies that create exponential synergies: AI, biotech, robotics & quantum computing.
AI develops exponential, most humans only linear
This leads to AI BS flooding all channels from TV to newspapers & Social Media.
Some posts are from innocent & unknowing people.
Many from status-seeking individuals & greedy companies trying to profit of others' lack of knowledge.