The Track
A Section Blog

Is Deep Research worth $200 a month?

Can't stop checking your favorite app? Here's why.
Have you ever been bored and caught yourself checking Instagram just seconds after you closed it?
I’m sure you didn’t reopen it because you had an overwhelming urge to see more pics of your college roommate's lunch. You did it without thinking, like it was second nature.
If that sounds familiar, then I hate to break it to you: You have a habit.
And what’s more, that habit was built intentionally – by the people who designed your app.

The three skills that actually matter to business growth
Do you ever look at a company like Google or Netflix and think, “I know we could be that successful – if only we had their people on our team”?
The bad news: It’s impossibly expensive to recruit talent from the top tech companies.
The good news: You can develop this type of talent in-house, if you zero in on the skills that actually matter to drive business growth.
To help you, our research team looked at 100 of today’s top-performing organizations and identified the business skills that matter.
These are the skills that should be your top priority in talent development. So let’s get started.

Self-assessment: Does your team trust you?
I’m sure you’ve had a manager you didn’t trust.
Maybe that manager said she valued your time – but then canceled your 1:1 at the last minute because she just had to run out and get a smoothie.
Maybe he called you out in front of the team for a mistake he made. (Truly an unforgivable offense).
Whatever it was, you know that once trust is lost, it’s hard to get back...
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Why most corporate learning offerings suck (and how to fix it)
What percentage of employees actually use the skills they learn in L&D programs at their jobs?
Twelve percent.
If these numbers sound rough, that’s because they are...

How an agency is preparing for AI clients
AI has put a big question mark over the future of agencies. So we talked to David Freas, Managing Partner at Supermoon, about how he’s transforming his brand agency with AI agent teammates – and for AI agent clients.

AI can think now. What does that mean for you?
The next stage of LLMs is here: AI that “thinks,” or breaks down problems step-by-step like a human would. Here’s how we got here, and what it means for how you use AI.

How the Royal Family’s AI-powered mental health agent overcame privacy concerns
Most orgs feel unready for the challenges that Gen AI brings to risk management. Yet many AI applications will have to navigate the line between user value and user privacy. So we sat down with specialist, Brian Kolodny, to understand how he traversed matters of privacy when building a mental health bot for the Royal Family’s foundation.

Our Guide to Building Enterprise AI Applications
Every company needs to be thinking about where AI slots into their product or service, but all the noise and hype makes it hard to determine what a valuable vs. novel use case looks like. Machine & Partners’ Ed Ortega is sharing 2 frameworks to narrow down your laundry list of AI ideas.