Dayle Stevens’ team monitors AI usage metrics and data protection compliance equally; more than 18,000 people have completed its academy training programs. Telstra balances adoption targets with governance metrics, adjusting training and change management programs based on usage patterns. This comprehensive approach ensures both rapid scaling and responsible deployment.

Since Uniper IT started to build its digital transformation capability six years ago in a bottom-up approach, its objective has always been “to deliver what our customers need — and that is better process performance,” says Steven van den Berg, vice president digital transformation. This amplifying IT style focuses on optimizing business outcomes and streamlining processes at scale through technologies such as automation.

Excerpt from the transcript: Or as the famous comedian Steven Wright once said, "You can't have everything 'cause where would you put it?" He is hilarious, if you ever have the opportunity to see Steven Wright in person, I guarantee your tummy is gonna be so in pain afterwards 'cause you just can't stop laughing. It's a wonderful experience.

Unlike traditional personas (e.g., “Stingy Steven” or “Spendy Susan”), which are static and based largely on panel survey data, synthetic personas are dynamic and interactive. They draw from seed data with well‑defined attributes that mirror real consumer characteristics and are almost always powered by large language models (LLMs) to answer questions or respond to content.

Supplemental Material Additional Contributors The author would like to thank the following Forrester analysts for their additional contributions to this report: Amy Bills, Rick Bradberry, Steven Casey, Cristina De Martini, Paul Ferron, Amy Hayes, Ian Bruce, Nick Buck, Maria Chien, Kathy Contreras, Phyllis Davidson, Dawn Ferrara, Dave Frankland, Lisa Gately, Brett Kahnke, Craig Moore, Rani Salehi, Christina Schmitt, Zachary Stone, and Karen Tran.

Many creators use social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram to promote their podcasts, and others — like Steven Barlett — create stand-alone clips for social media platforms versus promotional content. TikTok is making this practice even easier with a new feature called Smart Split, an AI editing tool to help creators cut down long podcasts or videos into smaller clips.

Steven Duran, vice president and global commerce lead at Merkle, asks, “How do [brands] ensure that being a first mover in agentic commerce doesn’t only mean feeding the LLM for training data to sell ads?” Each interaction between consumers and producers on the platform further generates value and trains the algorithm; new platforms subsidize product content to stimulate consumer growth. The result for brands?

Academic Steven G. Rogelberg found, “Of the 23 hours that executives spend in meetings each week, on average, eight are unproductive.” A litany of problems reduce the value of meetings — from having the wrong attendees to a lack of follow-up. One leader told us, “Just scheduling a meeting and matching availability is hard enough, but then the actual meetings aren’t always well-run.”

The hands-on keyboard work isn’t what it used to be,” said Steven Pritt, vice president, Content Studio of Thomson Reuters. Modernize measurement to manage content like a business function. Organizations need to widen the aperture beyond campaign assets and measure the full customer experience — capturing operational health, financial outcomes, and the impact on internal and external stakeholders.

As Ben Stevens, VP sales engineering, Motive, explains, “A successful sales engineer excels at consultative and authentic engagement with our clients, moving beyond technical specifications to understand their broader business needs.” Problem-solving skills. Sales engineers must use a proactive and analytical approach to identifying customer pain points and crafting tailored technical solutions that align with their stated, executive-level business needs.