Companies need AI to accelerate innovation, assess business conditions and deliver new customer experiences. But today, many organisations have not yet bridged the gap between the promise of AI and real results.

The theologian William Ellery Channing once described the struggles of human advancement by asserting that “difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage”. He was referring to the attitude one must embody to tackle some of history’s greatest global challenges: slavery, poverty, and war. Despite this sentiment being over 150 years old, I witnessed a similar conviction from modern-day business leaders when faced with extraordinary and unparalleled adversity in the last 18 months.

61% of high-growth brands are shifting to a first-party data strategy. What is a first-party data strategy? It’s a strategy that uses data collected directly with the unambiguous consent of customers. First-party data can come from a variety of online and offline interactions with customers. But in today’s digital world, first-party data often starts with first-party cookies. A first-party cookie is a code that automatically gets stored on a visitor’s computer when they browse a brand’s website. Sounds simple - so why are high-growth brands only beginning to shift to a first-party data strategy? Digital marketers have traditionally relied on a third-party data strategy, underpinned by third-party cookies. Third-party cookies are created by domains that are not from the website that you’re visiting. They can be added to any website that loads the third-party server’s code. This has enabled third-parties cookies to collect vast amounts of data. This broad reach has meant that third-party data has formed the bedrock of large scale digital marketing campaigns in recent years. It’s been transformative for brands because it’s allowed them to market to and re-target more current and prospective customers than ever before.

Ann Roberts, Chief People Officer at Flo Health and ex-HR Director of Bumble, shares her lessons on how to effectively scale talent and culture in fast-growing tech businesses.

Tech commentator Benedict Evans asked in 2018, “we hear that Tesla is ‘the new iPhone’ - what would that mean?... How do we think about whether something is disruptive? If it is, who exactly gets disrupted? And does that disruption mean that one company wins in the new world? Which one?”

Earlier this year, Rest of World published the stories of nine workers across the world who turned their homes into makeshift offices during the pandemic. They ranged from a logistics specialist in Kyrgyzstan, a chef in Bangkok, a marketing consultant in Bangladesh and an environmental campaigner in Seoul. Their jobs are varied, but the pain points are similar: distractions at home, less effective team collaboration, connectivity issues, blurred lines between work and personal lives.

On a bleary January morning, my phone pinged with urgency. It was telling me that an army of amateur investors, captained by subreddit r/WallStreetBets, had collectively spiked the stock price of GameStop against the predictions of downturn from Wall Street hedge fund managers. The battle that ensued gripped the global imagination with somewhat of an underdog story, but what underpins this narrative is the power of perception to rapidly transform the value of something.

“Cautious optimism is hugely important,” the CIO of a large coffeeshop chain told us at the end of 2020. The sentiment of caution is familiar: the lockdown life we have all come to know is characterised by endless cancelled plans, delayed returns to the office and an underlying sense of uncertainty. Any optimism that we entertain must be held up with the slightest suspicion that our well-laid plans may indeed fall apart.

As the Middle East’s start-up capital, Tel Aviv churns out business after business. Whilst tourists love the hustle and bustle of the city, for the everyday commuter, the network of minivans (called sheruts) mean multiple transfers and untimely travel. During a typical lengthy commute, Via co-founders, Oren Shoval and Daniel Ramot, began to wonder how useful a flexible, on demand bus experience, enabled by technology, would be. Enter Via.

Economic “bigness” has gone too far. Economists and political commentators have frameworks to tackle it, but allowing tech giants to grow and absorb small competitors has squashed tech democracy.