It is up to us, leaders [Horizon 01 - Issue #11]

It’s been a big week—this edition is packed. One thing’s clear: AI is no longer emerging. It’s here, scaling fast, and rewriting how marketing gets done.

You might notice a new look. We’re starting to redesign the newsletter—not just for content but also for clarity and style. More updates will follow soon.

Also, welcome to all our new subscribers!
As a reminder, we’ve published a few helpful guides for marketing leaders, like:

• The AI adoption roadmap 101 for marketing teams.

• A brand visibility guide on how to get cited by AI.

• An AI vendor checklist so you can source the right tools for your team.

• A scorecard that measures your marketing team’s AI readiness and provides you with tailored recommendations based on your score.

Bonus: We have a big-time surprise that will be rolled out this month for you.

Stay on and enjoy this week’s insights!

New AI Study

The AI Index 2025: A Business Wake-Up Call

The message is clear: AI adoption is accelerating—fast. Even with modest early ROI, companies are betting big: $252B was invested in AI globally last year, with $33.9B in generative AI alone. The U.S. leads by far, investing 12x more than China.

Under the hood, some deeper trends are unfolding:

• Industry Takes the Lead
  90% of top AI models now come from companies—not academia.

• Performance Up, Costs Down
  Model quality has surged (e.g., SWE-bench up 16x), while inference costs dropped from $20 to just $0.07 per million tokens.

• Open Models & China Close the Gap
  Open-weight models now rival closed ones, and China nearly matches U.S. benchmarks.

• AI Is Delivering
  From customer service to supply chains, AI is already driving efficiency—even if savings are still under 10%.

• Trust Is Falling Behind
  AI incidents rose 56%, and responsible AI adoption remains weak—especially in Western markets.

The bottom line is that AI is no longer experimental; it’s strategic. The gap between companies embedding AI across workflows and those still watching from the sidelines is growing.

AI-Powered Content Creation Just Got Real

Canva’s Visual Suite 2.0

We joked that Canva might struggle against AI image generators, but they dropped a major upgrade.

Visual Suite 2.0 is a powerful content platform that combines a voice-enabled AI assistant, smarter spreadsheets, and app-building tools.

With simple prompts, Canva AI can now:

• Generate images, layouts, and copy

• Build social posts, docs, and decks

• Even code basic web apps with “Canva Code”

Canva Sheets ties data directly to design—auto-creating charts, infographics, and personalized visuals at scale. Think Excel meets Figma, minus the friction.

Why it matters for marketing teams

One prompt now gets you campaign-ready content—ads, reports, mockups, and a full landing page. Non-designers can create polished assets, and creative teams can move faster than ever.

This isn’t about replacing creatives—it’s about removing bottlenecks. Canva just became an end-to-end content engine for modern marketing teams.

Best quote from the announcement:

A Real-World Use Case

A marketing team launching a new product prompts Canva AI with a short brief. In minutes, they get:

• Suggested social posts and product mockups

• A draft one-pager

• Auto-generated pricing charts from Sheets

• A branded sales deck

What once took weeks now takes hours—with the team focused on refining, not starting from scratch.

AI Flows and Deep Research from Google

Google Supercharges Workspace

Google just gave Workspace a major AI upgrade—and it’s all about getting rid of grunt work and boosting research at warp speed.

Unveiled on April 9, the update introduces two powerful tools:

• Google Workspace Flows – a no-code automation engine that uses AI “Gems” to handle complex, multi-step business processes.

• Gemini Deep Research – an AI research assistant built into Workspace that delivers structured, cited reports in minutes.

AI Tools Built For Marketing Ops

Workspace Flows acts like an AI-powered ops manager inside Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. These agents (“Gems”) can read emails, pull data, draft replies, and route for approval—no code needed.

They also integrate with tools like Salesforce and Slack, so you can switch from stats to slides before your first coffee.

Gemini’s Deep Research turns AI into a strategy assistant. When you ask a big question, it scans trusted sources, analyzes the data, and delivers a clean, cited report—or even an audio summary.

Perfect for kickstarting briefs, pitches, or competitive research—without burning hours.

Why It Matters for Marketing Teams

Google’s Flows and Deep Research tackle two big pain points: information overload and manual ops work.

Strategists can skip late-night research—Gemini delivers reports overnight. Marketing ops can automate updates, reports, and approvals with Flows.

It’s not just about speed—it’s about focus: less busywork, more strategy.

A Real-World Use Case

An agency uses Flows + Gemini to pull CRM data, generate insights, and build a client-ready deck before the team logs on. Meanwhile, sales ops auto-send a weekly pipeline summary to leadership, hands-free.

Meet Your New AI Shopping Concierge

Amazon’s “Buy for Me” Agent

Amazon is testing a bold new feature that lets its AI agent purchase products from third-party sites—like Nike or IKEA—when Amazon doesn’t carry them.

The AI handles everything: adding items to the cart, filling out forms, and checking out—all inside the Amazon app.

It’s powered by Amazon’s agentic AI, using Novalarge and Claude to act like a full-service digital shopper.

Why It Matters

It's ultra convenient for consumers—Amazon shops for you, even on other sites: no logins, no forms, just one tap.

For Amazon, it keeps them at the center of the shopping journey—even when the sale happens elsewhere. It also fends off AI shopping rivals like Google and OpenAI.

What It Means for Brands

DTC brands not on Amazon can still generate sales, but Amazon owns the customer interface. This is great for conversions, but it raises long-term questions about data and loyalty.

The Bigger Picture: Agentic AI in E-Commerce

This is part of a larger shift: AI agents aren’t just recommending but buying. Soon, shoppers may just say, “Buy me sneakers under $100,” and AI will handle it all.

To stay relevant, brands must optimize for AI using clean product data, structured pages, and bot-friendly content.

Latest AI Innovations and Updates

Amazon’s Nova Sonic Voice Model

Amazon launched Nova Sonic, a new AWS speech model that understands what you say and how—tone, pacing, and inflection. It offers more human-like voice assistants and smoother AI-powered customer service.

Google’s new Prompt Engineering paper

Google has released a super valuable asset written by SWE Lee Boonstra on Prompt Engineering. Packed with tips and best practices, we fed it to a CustomGPT prompt writer, and it worked incredibly well.

Adobe’s AI Agents in Photoshop & Premiere

Adobe is embedding intelligent assistants into its creative suite. In Photoshop, AI suggests and applies edits; Premiere will soon auto-generate first cuts. AI becomes your fast, built-in design and video assistant.

Snapchat’s Generative AI Ad Lenses

Snap now offers sponsored AI Lenses and allows users to create branded, interactive scenes—like virtual outfits or immersive environments—perfect for engagement and virality.

AI 2027 Report

A new speculative report, AI 2027, authored by experts like former OpenAI scientist Daniel Kokotajlo and writer Scott Alexander, has been released. They envision AI agents surpassing humans by 2027 and automating much of the economy by 2029. This is a bold scenario, but it is based on current trends.

xAI’s Grok 3 API

Elon Musk’s xAI has opened API access to Grok 3. With a 100k-word context window and image capabilities, it's a new option for deep analysis and multimodal prompts.

YouTube’s Free AI Music Generator

YouTube rolled out Music Assistant. With it, you can create royalty-free instrumental tracks on the fly. Just describe the mood or genre—perfect for marketers making quick video content or Shorts.

Perplexity for Startups Program

Perplexity launched their Perplexity for Startups program. 6 months of free Enterprise Pro (up to 50 seats) + $5K in API credits. For startups under 5 years old, <$20M raised, and partnered with their network.

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