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Circa 1450, the creative community was jolted. The printing press had just been invented in Europe. Scribes, typically monks who had spent lifetimes perfecting the spiritual art of hand-copying manuscripts, saw their specialized skills suddenly rendered obsolete. Yet in short order, the disruptive innovation democratized knowledge, enabled the Renaissance, and created entirely new creative roles for editors, typesetters, printmakers, and illustrators. More than five centuries later, Photoshop sparked similar concerns about devaluing traditional skills and compromising image integrity. Artists worried it would cheapen the craft. Instead, it became foundational to modern graphic design, opening new creative possibilities while making visual expression accessible to wider audiences. New tools that initially seem threatening often become indispensable partners in creative work. People in creative fields are, by nature, creative. They tend to think beyond what currently exists and adopt emerging technologies to accelerate their process, embolden their output, and make their medium more accessible. ENTER: AI Artificial intelligences threats to the creative community are well documented. At the same time, we are also seeing myriad ways the technology can quickly deliver valuable information, patterns, and research that can liberate the creative community to spend more time actually creating. When it comes to my area of expertiseempowering the design community to leverage the full emotional, narrative, and commercial power of colorAI can be a valuable partner in the creative process. Pantone just introduced a new tool, in fact, that employs conversational AI technology to help creatives expedite designs research and inspiration phases. The tool helps users explore color palettes, leverage trend forecasting data, and generate design concepts. But while AI can process data and identify patterns, the forward-looking trend insights themselves remain uniquely human, rooted in cultural analysis and nuanced insight, intuition, and imagination. A creative process that uses artificial intelligence also demands human intelligence. AI tools trained on human-identified trends help designers respond with greater speed, depth, and nuance, but the trends themselves must first be recognized by human experts attuned to cultural shifts. REQUIRED: THE HUMAN IMAGINATION When Pantone selected Mocha Mousse as Color of the Year 2025an evocative brown leaning into our desire for everyday pleasuresno machine learning model could have sensed the burgeoning cultural ethos it spoke to. Human forecasters recognized a global appetite for thoughtful indulgence, harmonious comfort, and personal luxury, all expressed by this rich, deep brown. Trend forecasting demands humanspeople who sense subtle undercurrents of collective emotion before they surface, who understand when comfort becomes more important than adventure, when personal expression pushes back against homogenization , when nostalgia begins to feel fresh again. Color scientists track films in production, new artists, fashion movements, emerging lifestyles, socioeconomic shifts, evolving technologies and materialsbuilding a comprehensive view of where culture is headed. After all, humans are animals, and animals have always used color as a multifaceted and sentient signal system: attracting mates, establishing identity, communicating mood, warning of danger. Just as a vermilion flycatcher uses red feathers to attract females while a kingsnakes bright red bands warn predators away, we use color to send messages about who we are and what we desire. These messages shift with our cultural moment in ways no algorithm or technology can anticipate. The insights require the unique ability to sense what’s emerging before it fully arrives. From the printing press to Photoshop to AI, new technologies amplify what creatives can do. It makes processes swifter, bolder, more affordable, and more accessible. AI can help creatives tap into powerful color stories and trend insights. But the creative vision, the cultural fluency, and the ability to sense what will move people remains distinctly, irreplaceably human. AI is another powerful tool in the creative arsenal, most potent when it augments rather than attempts to replace human insight and imagination. Sky Kelley is president of Pantone.
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E-Commerce
Were living through a seismic workforce disruption. Business leaders are poised to have a significant impact on the way our economy is shaped over the next decade. You already see it with the big company CEOs creating a cult of celebrity far beyond anything weve seen historically, but this phenomenon cascades down to all leaders across companies. Today, however, your personal brand is built in authentic micro-momentshow you lead meetings, navigate change, and bring others along. What story are you telling?Earlier this month, I sat down with Marissa Andrada and Al Dea at Guilds Opportunity Summit to discuss why personal brand building is no longer optional for leaders who want to drive meaningful impact. DOES PERSONAL BRAND NEED A REBRAND? The concept of a personal brand can sound like a marketing buzzword. But if you write it off as such, youre going to fall behind. We arent advocating for leaders to break out their tripods at a conference and do the latest Taylor Swift TikTok dance (but if thats authentic to you, go for it). Your personal brandor leadership signature if you really want to avoid the b wordis built through micro-moments: the tone you bring to a meeting, the decisions you make, and how you develop and support people during times of transformation.As Al put it, Every stakeholder conversation is a chance to show people what youre about. That starts with understanding the beliefs and motivations that drive others. People can only see things from their seat, he added. If you want them to see things from yours, you first need to see things from theirs. ELEVATE YOUR WORK THROUGH STRATEGIC STORYTELLING Personal brand canand shouldcoexist with humility. For the introverts among us, this isnt about self-promotion. Its about translating your teams impact into stories that resonate with the business. Strategic storytelling connects people to purpose. It transforms complex initiatives into narratives that inspire action and resonate with the business. As leaders, we can help our teams do this by focusing on what I call the three Cs: clarity, commitment, and consistency.Clarity: Clear really is kind. Strip out jargon and acronyms. Ask yourself: Would the average employee understand what Im trying to say? If not, simplify.Commitment: Audiences can sense when youre reciting a script versus speaking from conviction. Belief cant be fakedand when leaders try, trust erodes fast. Consistency: Rome wasn’t built in a day, and your leadership signature wont be either. Words and action, over a sustained period of time, reinforce your stated values. The small, unseen momentshow you respond to challenges, how you show up when no ones watchingcreate the foundation of your credibility. 2 SHIFTS TO BUILD YOUR PERSONAL BRAND FOUNDATION Mindfully consider your personal style and how you want your brand to show up. Gut-check that with others. Ask yourself: What do you want others to say about your leadership? Does that align with the feedback I receive? If not, where are there gaps and how can I work toward reconciling them? Here are two shifts you can make today to create that foundation. 1) Ground in outcomes Too often, leaders fall into the same traps we coach early-career workers to avoid on their resumes. Shift away from the activity, into the outcome. Activity: We led a large-scale software integration this quarter. Outcome: We transformed how our company connects people strategy to business results.Leading with outcomes helps to contextualize the weight and the why behind your teams work, building credibility with the listener. 2) Mind your language On our San Diego panel, Marissa shared a story of her time at Universal Studios. Early on, she introduced herself to business leads with HR-speak: Im here to help develop a new performance management and talent planning process. She received clear, actionable feedback that the corporate jargonwhat she jokingly called corponicswas not resonating. The very colleagues she was trying to rally did not know what she was saying.Taking their feedback, she dropped the lingo, and recalibrated to human-first language. Instead of succession planning, she said, Were growing fast. When youre ready for your next role, how do you ensure someones ready to step into your seat? AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP IN AN ERA OF ERODED TRUST Personal brands can no longer be “crafted” in a conference room with a team of external consultants. Todays workforce is skeptical, discerning, and exhausted. Decades of information overload, polarization, and change have left employees craving authenticity and wary of anything that feels performative. People are drawn to leaders who reflect their stated values through daily interactions. If you think your leadership brand only lives on LinkedIn, youre tracking the wrong KPIs. Do your public posts reflect the experiences your customers and teams are having privately? The leaders who will define the next decade are those whose public narratives match their private behaviors. When leaders clarify their values, master storytelling, and lead with authenticity, they dont just strengthen their own brandsthey rebuild trust in business itself. One example Marissa shared in San Diego, was her time as chief people officer at Chipotle and the experience of partnering with Guild to transform their employee tuition reimbursement program into an initiative that reinforced the companys belief in peoples potential. The result? Measurable business outcomes. Chipotle saw stronger retention and greater internal mobility made possible by the new skills through education. THE BIGGER PICTURE Building a personal brand isnt about self-promotion. Its about creating alignment between who you are, how you lead, and the impact you create. By cultivating clarity of values, mastering the art of strategic storytelling, and leading with authenticity, todays executives can build personal brands that elevate their voices and strengthen trust in their organizations. In doing so, leaders transform branding from an exercise in visibility into a discipline of influence anchored in purpose. Rebecca Biestman is CMO of Guild.
Category:
E-Commerce
Enterprises across the globe are pouring an estimated $1.5 trillion into artificial intelligence, and the results are already significant: AI has added more than $400 billion to the U.S. economy alone. Yet beneath these headline numbers lies a less celebrated truth. Most GenAI projects (95%) are failing to deliver a return on investment. This disconnect isnt a technology problem. Its a transformation problem. And the fix is not coming from the boardroom or the IT department. Its coming from the cubicles, the customer service desks, and the HR teamsthe employees who know firsthand where bottlenecks and opportunities exist. THE BOTTOM-UP AI MOVEMENT New data, based on a survey of 200 IT executives at billion-dollar U.S. companies that we conducted, reveals a quiet but historic shift in how innovation happens. For the first time, non-technical employees are driving the adoption of agentic AI, systems that can act on their own, make decisions, and automate complex workflows, at a scale weve never seen before. A staggering 91% of executives say that non-technical staff are playing a larger role in AI projects than they did in any previous wave of technology adoption. These arent hypothetical use cases or innovation theater projects. The majority (78%) of these initiatives are laser-focused on solving real, persistent, everyday challenges. From automating repetitive workflows to surfacing insights buried in mountains of data across numerous systems, employees are using AI to reduce their digital friction and return their focus to projects they are passionate about and drive the business forward. The results of our research78% of leaders reported that agentic AI has already caused a significant transformation in at least one part of their operations. This isnt about incremental change; its about reimagining how work gets done. A CHANGING CORPORATE POWER STRUCTURE This shift isnt just technical. Its changing the structure of organizations. For decades, IT departments have been the gatekeepers of new technology, often operating as the tallest tower in the enterprise. But the data shows that it is changing fast. Only 38% of executives now believe IT will be the department most responsible for AI innovation in the next three years, based on our survey results. The old notion of shadow IT, where teams bypass official channels to use their own tools, has long been viewed as risky or even reckless. But now, this approach is being recognized for what it really is: A sign that employees across the business are hungry for solutions, and they are willing to take the initiative to get them. Other business teams, such as operations, human resources, and customer service, are stepping up as leaders in AI-driven change. This redistribution of power is making organizations more agile and responsive, and its opening new avenues for career advancement. Four in ten executives expect AI to create upward mobility for all employees, not just technical specialists. THE HUMAN SIDE OF AI TRANSFORMATION This bottom-up shift presents new cultural complexities. While 89% of employees are receptive to AI tools, theres a strong preference for integration into existing workflows. Our survey reveals that 65% favor AI enhancing current processes over forcing a complete overhaul. This approach highlights a key tension: incremental improvement versus bold transformation. The most forward-thinking companies are designing AI around people, not the other way around, and as one IT executive put it in their response to our survey, [Agentic AI is] going to challenge the way we work today, but also open a new front door to smarter, faster, and more collaborative ways of working. Leaders must recognize the cultural and structural impact of agentic AI, and the companies that succeed will be those that embrace these shifts while keeping people and purpose firmly at the center. Balancing immediate adoption with the potential for true innovation requires a delicate touch. Leaders need to meet employees where they are while inspiring them to envision a future in which AI amplifies their capabilities, enabling them to focus on supervising systems and applying judgments in complex scenarios. WHAT COMES NEXT First, leaders should recognize that the most successful AI initiatives arent handed down from the top, they bubble up from the front lines. Organizations that empower employees to identify problems and experiment with solutions will outpace those that rely on mandates and one-size-fits-all platforms. Second, the IT departments role must evolve. Rather than acting as a gatekeeper, IT can become an enabler, providing guardrails, tools, and support while giving other departments the freedom to innovate. Finally, leaders must address the cultural hurdles that come with any major change. That means investing in education, building trust in new tools, and ensuring that every employee, regardless of technical background, has a chance to participate in the AI future. AIs real promise isnt in algorithms or hardware. Its in unleashing the creativity, expertise, and ambition of every person in the organization. The future of enterprise AI is bottom-up, not top-down. And the companies that embrace this shift will be the ones that truly transform. Bhavin Shah is the CEO of Moveworks.
Category:
E-Commerce
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