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AI First: The Playbook for a Future-Proof Business and Brand
AI is going to change brand strategy and marketing forever. Are you ready?
What does the rapid rise and astonishing rate of improvement of AI mean for brands in the next five years? Listen to what OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told authors Adam Brotman and Andy Sack when he met "It will mean that 95 percent of what marketers use agencies, strategists, and creative professionals for today will easily, nearly instantly, and at almost no cost be handled by AI. No problem."
Upon hearing that astonishing statement, the authors began a journey of discovery to understand what the transition to an AI first world would mean. You'll hear from a who's who of tech visionaries who spoke with the authors, including Altman himself, Bill Gates, and Reid Hoffman, sharing how they're thinking of the transition to the new reality. You'll also hear from practitioners bold enough to be surfing this tidal wave of change, including one who audaciously mandated experimentation with AI for all his employees.
Brotman is the former chief digital officer at Starbucks, pivotal in the development of the coffee giant's mobile payment and loyalty programs. Sack is a legendary tech visionary and former adviser to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Together, they formed the strategic consultancy Forum3 to take on every aspect of the challenge of becoming an AI first organization, including how you think about the design of jobs, what skills you need to develop within your organization, what your customers will expect from your brands, and how you can achieve early wins. In the AI first arena, where almost anyone can build creatively engaging brands quickly and cheaply, you need to know how to compete.
It's time to get ready for a brand-new world. Start here.
What does the rapid rise and astonishing rate of improvement of AI mean for brands in the next five years? Listen to what OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told authors Adam Brotman and Andy Sack when he met "It will mean that 95 percent of what marketers use agencies, strategists, and creative professionals for today will easily, nearly instantly, and at almost no cost be handled by AI. No problem."
Upon hearing that astonishing statement, the authors began a journey of discovery to understand what the transition to an AI first world would mean. You'll hear from a who's who of tech visionaries who spoke with the authors, including Altman himself, Bill Gates, and Reid Hoffman, sharing how they're thinking of the transition to the new reality. You'll also hear from practitioners bold enough to be surfing this tidal wave of change, including one who audaciously mandated experimentation with AI for all his employees.
Brotman is the former chief digital officer at Starbucks, pivotal in the development of the coffee giant's mobile payment and loyalty programs. Sack is a legendary tech visionary and former adviser to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Together, they formed the strategic consultancy Forum3 to take on every aspect of the challenge of becoming an AI first organization, including how you think about the design of jobs, what skills you need to develop within your organization, what your customers will expect from your brands, and how you can achieve early wins. In the AI first arena, where almost anyone can build creatively engaging brands quickly and cheaply, you need to know how to compete.
It's time to get ready for a brand-new world. Start here.
193 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 24, 2025
51 people are currently reading
114 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 26, 2025
AI is all the rage today. While there is a lot of worry with respect to jobs, scams etc, there is also a lot of excitement. This is a good introductory book for business leaders to get serious about using AI.
Adam Brotman, the former chief digital officer at Starbucks and Andy Sack, former adviser to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella have formed a strategic consultancy - Forum3. Much of the book is about what got them excited about AI and how they think business leaders should look at AI. There was not much new material in the book which I did not already know but I found it very readable. The early part of the book is about the discovery of the potential of AI. There are short takeaways from their meetings with Bill Gates (who mentioned how he was excited after seeing ChatGPT, much like how it was when he first saw a graphical interface), Sam Altman (his focus on getting to Artificial General Intelligence), Jamie Teevan at Microsoft (on how she jumped on to AI after Bill Gates’ asking her to look at it) and Mustafa Suleiman (on the productivity leap we will see). There are stories about how companies like Moderna and Khan Academy are leveraging AI. The impact on marketing is discussed.
This is very much a very high-level introductory book, and can be among the first you read in case you are getting started on reading about AI in business.
Thanks to Netgalley, Harvard Business Review Press and the authors for a free electronic review copy.
Adam Brotman, the former chief digital officer at Starbucks and Andy Sack, former adviser to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella have formed a strategic consultancy - Forum3. Much of the book is about what got them excited about AI and how they think business leaders should look at AI. There was not much new material in the book which I did not already know but I found it very readable. The early part of the book is about the discovery of the potential of AI. There are short takeaways from their meetings with Bill Gates (who mentioned how he was excited after seeing ChatGPT, much like how it was when he first saw a graphical interface), Sam Altman (his focus on getting to Artificial General Intelligence), Jamie Teevan at Microsoft (on how she jumped on to AI after Bill Gates’ asking her to look at it) and Mustafa Suleiman (on the productivity leap we will see). There are stories about how companies like Moderna and Khan Academy are leveraging AI. The impact on marketing is discussed.
This is very much a very high-level introductory book, and can be among the first you read in case you are getting started on reading about AI in business.
Thanks to Netgalley, Harvard Business Review Press and the authors for a free electronic review copy.
August 23, 2025
Total waste of time. The first half is summaries of interviews with AI experts. The interviews were a year or two ago I guess, so they're already outdated. Nothing useful or helpful anyway. Just a bunch of 'We interviewed this guy and he said this and we were like WOAH!'
The second half is the "tactical part" except even then, they waste two chapters on nothing to get there. The point of the book starts on page 103 and takes about 10 pages. That's the playbook part, but it's everything you've already heard from any blog post or webinar on how to implement Ai into your company.
After a very (very) brief description of the playbook, they take a few more chapters describing examples of companies that did it. This makes me think these guys have never actually done this before, they're just talking about companies who did and how great it was.
I threw the book away.
It is, in fact, NOT a must-read for business leaders in the AI era.
The second half is the "tactical part" except even then, they waste two chapters on nothing to get there. The point of the book starts on page 103 and takes about 10 pages. That's the playbook part, but it's everything you've already heard from any blog post or webinar on how to implement Ai into your company.
After a very (very) brief description of the playbook, they take a few more chapters describing examples of companies that did it. This makes me think these guys have never actually done this before, they're just talking about companies who did and how great it was.
I threw the book away.
It is, in fact, NOT a must-read for business leaders in the AI era.
August 25, 2025
I would name the book “Snake oil salesmen doing gen AI”.
The authors were bragging in the beginning that they were responsible for NFT-based loyalty program for Starbucks without mentioning that this program failed completely.
“Too often, business leaders chase after the latest technology trend, without first asking what problem they want to solve for customers, and whether there is even a problem that needs solving.”
https://econsultancy.com/starbucks-nf...
This book is actually a mix of authors getting 15 min attention of celebrities like Bill Gates telling them about awesomeness of ChatGPT and “case studies”, which don’t contain any ROI or even any description of scenarios.
The authors were bragging in the beginning that they were responsible for NFT-based loyalty program for Starbucks without mentioning that this program failed completely.
“Too often, business leaders chase after the latest technology trend, without first asking what problem they want to solve for customers, and whether there is even a problem that needs solving.”
https://econsultancy.com/starbucks-nf...
This book is actually a mix of authors getting 15 min attention of celebrities like Bill Gates telling them about awesomeness of ChatGPT and “case studies”, which don’t contain any ROI or even any description of scenarios.
July 23, 2025
This is a very good introduction to any business leader or anyone interested about the application of artificial intelligence to businesses. It provides a lot of ideas and business stories on how organizations such as Khan Academy and Moderna instituted the application of LLMs in their business.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews