Lessons from the front lines - - IDEA IN BRIEF THE QUESTION Silicon Valley reads about AI in emerging markets one headline at a time. What does the whole picture look like, and what does it mean for the Valley? THE INSIGHT Across China, India and the Gulf, AI is being rewritten for the front line: voice-first, frugal, physical and carried on state-built rails, at a speed and scale the Bay Area cannot match alone. THE IMPLICATION Silicon Valley wins by keeping innovation at it

Jevons Paradox, AI shopping agents, and the future of the physical store - - IDEA IN BRIEF THE QUESTION AI shopping agents such as Meta’s Muse can now search, compare and buy on a shopper’s behalf. If a machine does the shopping, does anyone still need a shop? THE INSIGHT In 1865 William Stanley Jevons showed that when a resource becomes cheaper to use, people often use more of it. Cheaper shopping means more shopping, and when information is everywhere, trust, touch and belo

-- The word engagement is something I have started hearing in the last 10-12 years. We didn’t have much of a hype on engagement in the 90s or in the early 2000s. In Unilever, we used to do a Global People survey once every two years, and most of it was pen and paper-based. The results used to take about 3-6 months, and by the time we cascaded and did team discussions, it was almost a year! We did not dissect or discuss the engagement levels of various teams. Attrition was low

Why India's social sector needs to build the leadership infrastructure to match the capital flowing into it -- For years, leadership development has been treated largely as a corporate concern. CXO mentoring. Succession planning. Board effectiveness. Executive coaching. Leadership programmes. We have built an entire ecosystem around helping people who run businesses become better at running them. The social sector has largely been treated differently. There has been enormous