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Evergreen playbooks

Guides and frameworks without survey data behind them. Useful when you are ready to act.

These are how-to guides, not research. They are listed separately so they do not skew the research timeline.

Reading list

  1. 01McKinsey · Nov 2018The executive's AI playbookInteractive tool that sizes the AI value opportunity by industry using McKinsey market data.
  2. 02Accenture · May 2025The front-runners' guide to scaling AI: Lessons from industry leadersOnly 8% of the 2,000 companies surveyed are 'front-runners' scaling AI enterprise-wide; 15% are 'reinvention-ready'.
  3. 03BCG · Jun 2025How Companies Can Prepare for an AI-First Future (AI-First Companies Win the Future)Argues AI-first firms reshape competition: trust, brand, IP, proprietary data and AI-fluent talent gain importance, while scale and headcount matter less.
  4. 04WEF · Jan 2022Empowering AI Leadership: AI C-Suite ToolkitOrganized into five modules: introduction to AI, AI strategy, people and organization, responsible AI, and implementation, plus a sixth on specialized topics.
  5. 05Google · Jun 2020Google Cloud's AI Adoption FrameworkFrames AI capability across four areas: people, process, technology and data.
  6. 06Bain · Jan 2025Transforming your business with AI: five questions for every CEOUrges CEOs to form a clear view of how AI could reshape their industry's profit pools before setting an agenda.
  7. 07NIST · Jul 2024AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF 1.0) + Generative AI Profile (NIST-AI-600-1)AI RMF 1.0 (Jan 2023) organizes AI risk work into four functions: Govern, Map, Measure, Manage; voluntary and sector-neutral.
  8. 08Microsoft · May 2025The Strategic CIO's Generative AI PlaybookOrganized in three sections: the AI-ready organization, enabling all employees, and moving from functional workflows to intelligent agents.
  9. 09IBM · Oct 2024The CEO's Guide to Generative AIA 22-chapter series, each a short CEO briefing on one area: talent, customer service, cybersecurity, finance, procurement, operating model, and more.
  10. 10OpenAI · Apr 2025Identifying and scaling AI use cases: How early adopters focus their AI effortsThree steps: spot where AI helps (repetitive tasks, skill bottlenecks, ambiguity), teach six use-case primitives, then collect and prioritize use cases.
  11. 11OpenAI · Apr 2025A practical guide to building agentsSuggests agents where rules-based automation struggles: complex judgment calls, hard-to-maintain rule sets, or heavy unstructured data.
  12. 12Anthropic · Dec 2024Building effective agentsDistinguishes workflows (predefined code paths) from agents (models directing their own process and tool use).
  13. 13ISO · Dec 2023ISO/IEC 42001:2023 AI management systems (overview: What businesses need to know)ISO/IEC 42001 is described as the world's first AI management system standard, published December 2023 (edition 1, 51 pages).
  14. 14SBA · Dec 2024AI for small businesses (SBA business guide)Advises small businesses to start small, noting many AI tools offer free or low-cost tiers to test before committing.

Other collections

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