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Brands that arent using artificial intelligence will soon be left behindbut its not too late to start, argues a new book, AI First: The Playbook for a Future-Proof Business or Brand. The same way that business leaders once explored what it means to be digital first or mobile first or video first, digital strategists and authors Adam Brotman and Andy Sack pose the question: What does it mean to be AI first? Brotman and Sack, cofounders of the digital consultancy Forum3, interviewed some of the most influential leaders in technology for their book, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, and Reid Hoffman, best known for cofounding LinkedIn. The book shares their insights as well as a playbook for businesses on how to integrate AI. Brotman, the former chief digital officer for Starbucks who shaped the brands highly successful mobile app and loyalty program, spoke to Fast Company about what he hopes readers will gain from their new book. Fast Company: Why did you and Sack want to write this particular book, and why now? We had actually been asked by Harvard Business Review Press to write a book on digital loyalty, which is my background and our specialty. But we had just had a holy s— moment, like a lot of other people, when we saw ChatGPT. We didn’t understand what was really behind these generative AI systems and where the various frontier labs and systems were going with it. We thought, we better learn this. We asked Harvard if we could go on this journey and share it with our readers, and they said yes. Why does AI feel different to you than other technological advances? There are two ways. One is that we’re talking about intelligence as a service, and that just felt like something that was always reserved for either science fiction or human beings. It wasn’t just software that you programmed, that either worked or didn’t work. The fact that it could think and reasonat least seemingly sofelt very human and unlike anything that we had seen. The second thing was how fast it was moving. You brought up the holy-s— moment. Ive heard that you and Sack at one point wanted that to be the title of the book. Why? We talked to Sam Altman as our first interview for the book. He said that the mission of OpenAI was to achieve artificial general intelligence. And by definition, thats when the AI can effectively do what any human can do, if not better, pretty much instantly and for free. We were like, Oh my God, youre focused on that. When do you think thats going to happen? And he said, I cant predict it, but probably in around five years. That was a holy-s— moment for us. We were sort of stunned. When you try this technology, I think everybody has their own aha moment, if you will. How do I take advantage of this? What is this going to mean for jobs? What is this going to mean for society? Theres a lot of exciting things but theres also a lot of scary unknowns. We thought that was an appropriate name, but of course thats not the best name for a book published by an established publisher. So we compromised and called the introduction chapter The Holy-S— Moment and the book is called AI First. You also interviewed Bill Gates. Can you tell me what your biggest learning or takeaway was from your conversation with him? Yeah, two things: One was that he likened the first time he saw ChatGPT4 to the first time he saw graphical user interface, before Microsoft came up and led the PC revolution with Windows. So he validated and confirmed the significance of this technology. The other thing Bill Gates said to us that was a key takeaway was about the contours of the concept of productivity. Most of us think of productivity as just quantitative, meaning output. He reminded us that productivity has a qualitative edge and dimension to it, and that if you have access to a tool like generative AI and you know how to harness it, you’re going to not just up your productivity, but the quality of your work. I thought that was really interesting. How should business leaders today be leveraging AI? Most organizations want to skip to the AI innovation. They want to skip to the application, like the chatbot or the robot. What theyre skipping over is the powerful effects of everybody using AI many times a day, every day, to enhance their decision-making and analysis and insightsfrankly, to do their job better and faster. Thats not as sexy as some advanced voice-mode, drive-thru technology you deploy across all your QSR [quick-service restaurant] locations. Its not as sexy as completely innovating your creative output through text-to-image, text-to-video capabilities. Those are really important AI use cases, but theyre not the everyday, always-on superpower of letting every individual get that benefit of co-intelligence to make decisions faster. One of the key nuggets from the book is that AI-first organizations start with AI-first people. Is that what you mean when you say that business owners should be thinking of AI as a colleague? Yes. Its collaborating, soundboarding with the AI, inviting AI to the table, as [AI expert and Wharton] professor Ethan Mollick likes to say. Its thinking of it as a member of your team, a colleague. Is there anything else you want readers to know about your book or AI in general? I think a lot of people are intimidated or afraid of either not being able to keep up with the advancements in AI or of the implications of AI, given how fast-moving and powerful it is. What I would say is: Its absolutely not too late. There are so many business leaders in the same spot as you. This is the perfect time to develop a game plan to figure out how to make your organization keep up with whats going on. But dont waitget started.
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E-Commerce
In the fictional town Levi’s and Nike created to promote their latest collaboration of denim outerwear and Air Max 95s, the paperboy still delivers the morning newspaper by bike (with an arm like a cannon, by the way), and the neighbor out walking her dog just so happens to be the WNBA’s Dallas Wings star Paige Bueckers. Welcome to Blue Arc County. [Photo: Levi’s] For their latest joint collection, out in July, the brands are releasing a special edition of the Nike Air Max 95 made from Levi’s denim in a neutral matte white; black; indigo denim; and full-on Canadian tuxedo made from the Levi’s x Nike Trucker Jacket and matching Baggy Jean. Like its jeans, Levi’s sneakers with Nike feature a single Levi’s Red Tab under the Nike Swoosh on the right shoe only. The jacket sports a big Nike wordmark and Swoosh logo lockup in white on the back, plus co-branded brown leather patches. [Photo: Levi’s] The world Levi’s and Nike created for the collection is charming but hard to place. In promotional photos and social media shots featuring Bueckers, hip-hop artist Larry June, NFL player Keon Coleman, and designer Daniel Buezo, it’s a mix of rural country, Midwest suburb, and deep South. The local barbecue joint is staged like the sort of roadside, hole-in-the-wall treasure that draws in diners far and wide, and the Blue Arc County logo shows an evergreen tree line that evokes Nike’s Oregon roots. It’s Anywhere, U.S.A., built for promoting two iconic American brands at a time when heartland aesthetic is ascendent. [Photo: Levi’s] This isn’t Nike’s first foray into “jeakers” with Levi’s. They teamed up for apparel like a Nike SB x Levi’s 511 Skateboarding Collection in 2012 and Nike Air Force 1s by Levi’s in 2019. But their 2025 collab uses lighter-wash denim for the jacket and jeans and a lower-profile shoe that feels less like a novelty than some past attempts. It’s a simple capsule, but they got the details right. [Photo: Levi’s] The announcement was timed just before Nike reported its quarterly earnings June 26. The company said earlier this year it expects a sales decline, and its planned NikeSkims launch has been postponed, but a highly anticipated collab with the denim brand is good news. Levi’s parent company, Levi Strauss, beat expectations earlier this year, and CEO Michelle Gass said on the company’s April earnings call that new products were “resonating and driving market share gains. She also referenced a “robust product pipeline that she said will fuel growth in the companys denim and nondenim business well into 2026.
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E-Commerce
I run two companies, lead a team of over 20 people, mentor women entrepreneurs, and juggle multiple side projects. As a result, my calendar is filled with calls, meetings, decisions, deadlines, and the constant ping of notifications. For years, I convinced myself that unpluggingeven for a daywould be reckless. What if something urgent came up? What if everything collapsed? Eventually, though, I did it. I turned off my phone for seven full days. No email, no WhatsApp, no Slack, no Instagram. Just silenceand, of course, a notebook. This digital detox had a deeper purpose than a conventional holiday. In todays world, being on vacation can mean keeping in touch, even if lightly: answering emails, reading news, scrolling through social media, and so on. We stay in the information bubble, which makes it difficult to tune out the noise. I didnt plan to turn this into a case study. I simply needed a break. What I didnt expect was how deeply restorative and surprisingly productive it would be. My fear was that it would slow me down, but instead, it recalibrated me. And if youre someone who thinks they cant afford to disconnect, thats exactly why you should. Heres a way to start. What the detox looked like Because it was the weekend, I didnt need to make a big announcement. Just four peoplemy mother, sister, business partner, and assistantknew how to reach me in case of an emergency. Everyone else was left in the quiet. It was all designed consciously. Part of the detox fell on the weekend, when I did not expect any urgent messages from clients or partners. Also, there were some public holidays, so in the end I only missed one day of work. At the same time, I put my full trust in my team. Our managers are the first point of contact for clients, while my business partner is the go-to touchpoint for employees. Everyone also has my assistants contact details, so if something truly pressing had come up, they would have easily found out why I wasnt responding. So, late on a Friday night, I shut my phone down, and didnt turn it back on until one hour before my next workday. This buffer gave me space to ease in without anxiety. In case youre wondering, there were no exceptions. The phone wasnt silenced or stashed in a drawer I could access when I needed comfort. It stayed off, completely out of reach. Heres a snapshot of how a day looked like during this period: Mornings started with movementpilates or a long runfollowed by a mindful, unhurried breakfast. Then: hours of reading real books. No articles, no headlines. I took two naps a day for the first 48 hours. It was as if my nervous system had been waiting for permission to rest. By day three, something shifted. I began writing. Not for deadlines, just to think. I filled pages and pagesincluding my goals for the year, updates to my life balance wheel, forgotten ideas, coaching reflections, and personal values I hadnt revisited in months. Creative clarity came fast, and because I opened the space for it, it stayed. Three lessons I took with me I walked away from my phoneless time with dozens of insights. Of those, three stayed with me, and theyve reshaped both how I work and how I lead. #1: Clients are mirrors Every client relationship reflects something back at you. When youre truly present, you start to notice what those reflections are teaching youwhere your boundaries are too loose, where your expertise can deepen, what energizes you, and what drains you. We also learn to listen more attentively. As a seasoned PR pro, I know what I need to do to achieve the best possible resultsthe biggest coverage, the boldest narrative, the most polished story. But over time, Ive realized that what I consider the best isnt always what the client actually needs. This shift in perspective changed the way I work, and helped me build deeper relationships with my clients. I can honestly tell Ive learned more about myself from client work than from many books or programs. Not because they teach me something directly, but because they hold up a mirror. When were receptive to it, that relationship becomes a shared process of growth. #2: Choose your energy before the day begins Before I made this shift, my mornings belonged to everyone else. Id wake up and immediately jump into the noiseemails, deadlines, and messages. I was reacting to the worlds demands before Id even taken a breath. But now, I begin each day with a decision: Who do I want to be today? I started setting a tone for the day, not with tasks, but with intention. Calm. Generous. Creative. Focused. That one quiet choice each morning changed how I navigated everything else. I wasnt reacting, I was leading from the inside out. And when you do that, the world starts meeting you differently. Now, the day feels like minenot something Im surviving, but something Im actively shaping. #3: Dont make decisions just to relieve pressure Many of us, especially high performers, can easily confuse urgency with clarity. We say yes, push forward, launch, commit. Not necessarily because were grounded, but because were tense. Stepping away helped me name that pattern. During this time, I realized how often I made choices to soothe discomfort rather than move from vision. Now, before anything, I pause and ask myselfIs this decision coming from a place of power, or from a place of pressure? Why more people should try a phone detox Your brain needs rest. Not scrolling, not content-switching. Real, deep rest. We dont hesitate to give our muscles recovery days after a grueling exercise session. Why cant we do the same with our minds? When we stop consuming content, our brain starts producing it. Ideas resurface. Our vision returns. We reconnect to the version of ourselves that doesnt need noise to feel alive. Silence, as I learned, did not slow me down. It reintroduced me to what matters the most. We frequently imagine disconnection as a luxury. Its not. From this new vantage point, I can say it is a leadership practice. It is how we step back into our lives with discernment, energy, and purpose. Nothing burned down while I was gone. The world kept spinning. And I came back steadier, sharper, and more attuned to those things I hold dearly. If youre still thinking along the lines of, I could never take a week off, thats exactly your sign. There is clarity waiting for you, patiently, on the other side of silence.
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E-Commerce
Over the last two months, a first-of-a-kind project has taken shape at an industrial site in Nevada: the worlds largest microgrid built with used EV batteries, designed to power an adjacent data center.Its the first of a series of microgrids planned by Redwood Materials, the battery recycling company now valued at more than $5 billion. The company is taking in a quickly-growing volume of used EV batteriestens of thousands over the last year, and perhaps hundreds of thousands over the next 12 months. Most of those batteries still have enough capacity to have a second life before the materials are recycled. And they could help deal with a major energy challenge: how new data centers can come online quickly and cheaply without straining the grid and significantly adding to climate emissions.The amount of batteries coming back that have usable life and that are relatively more cost-efficient to deploy has ramped up dramatically in just the last year or two, says JB Straubel, CEO of Redwood Materials. The company announced its new energy business arm at an event on June 26.[Photo: Redwood Energy]Straubel, one of Teslas cofounders, left the automaker in 2019 to help build a new U.S. supply chain of critical battery materials using the growing pile of battery waste. Last year, the company started commercial production of cathode active material, one key component in batteries, from recycled materials. Its recycling business is already profitable; it generated $200 million in revenue last year. But it also recognized the huge opportunity to put some batteries to work again. [Image: Redwood Materials]How EV batteries can find a second lifeWhen a battery is in a car or a truck, its a pretty demanding application, Straubel says. You need a lot of power capability. You really want to charge quickly, usually, so you can go to fast charge stations. And you also need a pretty high percent of your overall initial range that you purchased in the car. But even when a battery has lost so much capacity that it no longer makes sense for driving, it can still be used to store energy. In that application, charging and discharging can happen slowly. A battery might only have half of its original capacity, but can still reliably support the grid or a microgrid. In some cases, it could be used for years before its eventually recycled.In the new microgrid, on Redwoods campus near Reno, more than 800 used EV batteries are connected to 20 acres of solar panels. It has enough power to run a new AI data center on the site, built by Crusoe, a company that designs and deploys low-carbon compute infrastructure.The data center operates fully off the grid, without an external backup. We still expect [the microgrid] to be very, very reliable, Straubel says. In some cases, it might be more reliable, because we have less failure points. To make it possible to avoid the grid completely, the team built a relatively large amount of solar power and large battery capacity. In other cases, the company will build microgrids that do have a grid connection, but allow data centers to run on their own renewable energy most of the time. Some projects could also be built with backup from gas generators. But there are advantages to off-grid renewable projects.[Photo: Redwood Energy]Why companies want to go off the gridOff-grid projects are faster than other alternatives. Right now, the wait time for a new gas turbine can be as long as seven years. Connecting large new renewable energy projects to the grid also takes years because of long delays in the permitting process. A self-contained microgrid can avoid waiting in the interconnection queue. And if its fully renewable, like the project from Redwood and Crusoe, it can also avoid the long process to get air quality permits. All that a project needs is simple construction permits. The process to build can also happen quickly. (Crusoes own data center infrastructure, which uses modular, self-contained small units, is also fast to deploy. The new data center is already running in test mode and will be available for Crusoes cloud customers to use in the coming weeks.)Because renewable energy is cheap, and Redwoods battery system is also affordable, the microgrids can compete head to head with fossil fuels. Were seeing prices now that I think are below what you can do with the gas microgrid, says Straubel. All of this means that even if a tech company doesnt have sustainability as its first priority when it builds a new data center, the microgrid can still be a compelling choice. It seems that in this moment, speed and power availability is the number-one topic, Straubel says. Maybe number two would be overall economics. Number three is sustainability. Not to say that people dont care about thatI feel that most of our customers care quite deeply about it. But theres a lot of pressure for everyone to grow fast and balance all these other constraints while doing it.[Photo: Redwood Energy]The potential for scaleData center providers that want to use solar power need to find land in the right location. But one recent analysis found that there was more than enough available land in the U.S. to support the massive energy demand from new data centersfar more than even high-end projections that say that we may need a staggering 300 gigawatts of new energy by 2030 to cover growth. That analysis looked at the feasibility of microgrids that were 90% renewable and 10% gas-powered. But it mapped out potential sites in detail, and points to areas that could also potentially be used for 100% renewable projects.Redwood is already working on other microgrids for other data centers. And over time, as more used EV batteries become available, they can play a greater role for the grid overall. The volumes in the automotive and transportation sector are so much higher than in the grid sector, Straubel says. Over the long term, I believe that EV batteriestrucks, cars, robotaxis, all of itwill have an extremely significant role to play in really all bulk energy storage.It can help the cost of energy storage come down, which is key to helping renewables fully scale up. Renewables are our cheapest source of generation today, he says. And I think thats only going to expand. But theyre intermittent. We have to find a cost-efficient way to deliver firm, reliable, renewable energy if we have a hope of scaling it. And to me, that is really the long-term main application.
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E-Commerce
The AI landscape is evolving rapidly and its important to keep up. No one can afford to stay out of the loop on AI, so here are five new books to fill you in on the latest updates, concerns, and uses of this world-changing technology. AI First: The Playbook for a Future-Proof Business and Brand By Adam Brotman & Andy Sack In AI First, youll hear from a whos who of tech visionaries who spoke with the authors, including Sam Altman himself, Bill Gates, and Reid Hoffman, sharing how theyre thinking of the transition to the new reality. Listen to the Book Bite summary, read by authors Adam Brotman and Andy Sack, or view on Amazon. The AI Con: How to Fight Big Techs Hype and Create the Future We Want By Emily Bender & Alex Hanna A smart, incisive look at the technologies sold as artificial intelligence, the drawbacks and pitfalls of technology sold under this banner, and why its crucial to recognize the many ways in which AI hype covers for a small set of power-hungry actors at work and in the world. Listen to the Book Bite summary, read by authors Emily Bender and Alex Hanna, or view on Amazon. More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valleys Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity By Adam Becker How Silicon Valleys heartless, baseless, and foolish obsessionswith escaping death, emergent AI tyrants, and limitless growthpervert public discourse and distract us from real social problems. Listen to the Book Bite summary, read by author Adam Becker, or view on Amazon. AI Valley: Microsoft, Google, and the Trillion-Dollar Race to Cash In on Artificial Intelligence By Gary Rivlin A veteran Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist shadows the top thinkers in the field of Artificial Intelligence, introducing the breakthroughs and developments that will change the way we live and work. Listen to the Book Bite summary, read by author Gary Rivlin, or view on Amazon. More Human: How the Power of AI Can Transform the Way You Lead By Rasmus Hougaard & Jacqueline Carter AI has the potential to transform leadership and the human experience of workor to lead us into an automated and uninspiring work reality. Which one will it be? Listen to the Book Bite summary, read by coauthor Rasmus Hougaard, or view on Amazon. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
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E-Commerce
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