SenseMaking from the Web is a curated list of recent articles I’ve read and thought worth sharing with my subscribers. I’ve automated this but the curation, which is a discerning process, is all human. I’ve added some commentary.

In this post of curated articles, a mixed bag covering everything from AI (no surprise), innovation, attention, Agents and management. One in particular is sending shock waves in enterprise AI circles. Never a dull moment in this AI hype cycle.

MIT report: 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing

Posted on August 18. Companies are betting on AI according to this report, yet nearly all enterprise pilots are stuck at the starting line. While The Information pooh-pooh’s this (What MIT Report? ‘AI Native’ Apps Boast $18.5 Billion Annualized Revenue), that misses the point that the MIT article is about enterprise success with AI, not about how much they are spending on AI. Considering we are only really just out of the starting blocks, I’m not surprised but not alarmed.

Microsoft: AI ‘Business Agents’ Will Kill SaaS by 2030

Posted on August 17. When Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella first indicated that business Software as a Service (SaaS) applications are dead last December, that sent shockwaves too. While it’s also too early to tell if this will be the case, on this one I am confident this prediction will turn out to be true.

How to be the designer in the AI Loop

Posted on August 14. Exploring the evolving relationship between humans and AI in product design.

Good Hooks: How to Grab and Keep Attention in 2025

Posted on August 13. Attention is expensive, and if you don’t win it in the first few seconds, your content may never get the chance to be seen. A hook — the opening part of a piece of content, whether audio or visual — is often the ticket to gaining that first few seconds of attention. But a strong hook isn’t the same as clickbait. The goal isn’t to trick someone into stopping, it’s to set up value your content will actually deliver.

How to foster innovation at work

Posted on August 13. Listed are some essential takeaways for nurturing disruptive teams: Recognize the importance of teamwork; Embrace uncertainty; Celebrate failure and Accept risk. Dive in for the detail.

Middle management is dead

Posted on July 31. In this article, the concept of the great flattening talks about how middle management exists primarily for one reason: to be human routers of information. Managers aggregate data from below, filter it, and pass it upward. They take strategy from above, translate it, and cascade it downward. They’re essentially organizational middleware. In this sense, you can see why AI might destroy middle management as we know it.