New research shows that access to AI is not the same as knowing where to use it. Listen to this article: A firm is only as fast as the slowest step in its chain of work. In manufacturing, it might be one particular machine on the line. In software, one overloaded intake service. Many business […]
Exploring how the complexity of large language models acts as a moral safeguard Listen to this article: The standard fear about advanced AI goes something like this: the more sophisticated a system becomes, the better it gets at sounding convincing, reading the room, and manipulating people. A model that can reason step-by-step might not just […]
How companies can overcome the structural frictions that block AI at scale Listen to this article: AI has entered the enterprise faster than most previous waves of technology, reshaping expectations about speed, productivity, and decision-making. Yet adoption alone does not produce transformation. The Frontier Firm Initiative (FFI), a joint effort between the Digital Data Design […]
New research reveals that firms are playing a game of catch-up they didn’t even know they were losing Listen to this article: Leaders know they must innovate to survive, and they don’t make decisions in a vacuum: they watch rivals, draw inferences, and position themselves accordingly. But what happens when their picture of the competitive […]
A new cross-domain benchmark reveals how the leading AI research tools perform on real-world production tasks Listen to this article: Two AI-generated research reports land on your desk before a major decision. Both are polished, confidently written, and well-structured, but they reach different conclusions. Which one do you trust, and how would you even begin […]
How to design AI adoption so decision makers can say yes without self-sabotage Lots of organizations can green-light AI. Far fewer can absorb it. That gap, between excitement and real, embedded use, keeps showing up even when ROI is compelling and leadership is visibly supportive. New research from D^3 Frontier Firm affiliate Shunyuan Zhang and […]
New research shows when AI boosts service, and when it backfires. Think about the last time you contacted customer support. Did you start with a chatbot? If it failed to resolve your problem, how did you feel when transferred to a human agent? This dynamic defines our expectations of the modern customer service experience: the […]
A new study shows how AI can influence the kind of innovation you end up funding. Many of us have started using AI as an “answer machine” to brainstorm ideas, analyze data, and pressure-test assumptions. You might even have a set of preferred prompts saved for just these purposes. But how often do you switch […]
What the rise of AI swarms reveals about the future of influence, information, and democratic resilience. Listen to this article: As we move into the era of agentic AI, what kind of influence will this emerging technology have on democracy and misinformation? In the new Science paper “How Malicious AI Swarms Can Threaten Democracy,” Amit […]
When Machine Learning Meets Sales Psychology Listen to this article: Conventional sales wisdom treats persistence as virtue: stay in the conversation, overcome objections, keep the line alive. But recent research into the dynamics of sales conversations suggests that our bias toward persistence leads to a massive misallocation of resources. In “Learning When to Quit in […]
