In this Advisor, ADL’s Michael Papadopoulos, Olivier Pilot, and Eystein Thanisch explore how AI’s greatest challenges in 2025 aren’t about intelligence, but context. From viral drive-through debacles to high-stakes corporate missteps, the problem isn’t capability — it’s integration. As top models plateau on benchmarks, their real-world performance often falters when they’re not tightly aligned with human workflows, norms, and systems.

When people believe in what they are doing and feel a part of it, they create better customer service. When employees feel psychologically safe to innovate, they push their thinking further and happily voice their ideas. They are excited about going to work, don’t often miss work, feel like they are a part of the solution, and don’t quit. And if people aren’t leaving, then companies aren’t spending billions to replace them.

Getting It Right

So who’s currently getting this right? And what does that look like?

This Advisor follows Mary Jacobs, the newly appointed chief sustainability officer of Exactibrate Corporation, as she confronts the challenge of unifying fragmented sustainability efforts into a program that delivers both economic and societal value. Rejecting the outdated notion of a “sustainability tax,” Mary embraces a model where shareholder and stakeholder interests align. Using the Sustainability Canvas, the piece demonstrates how targeted actions across four strategic quadrants generate value, reduce risk, and strengthen competitive advantage.

This Advisor explores agentic AI — the next phase beyond generative AI — where systems not only generate outputs but also autonomously plan and execute tasks across enterprise environments. By combining LLMs with orchestration, tool integration, and feedback mechanisms, agentic AI enables end-to-end workflow automation with minimal human oversight. While the potential is substantial, technical, organizational, and governance challenges still limit deployment to early-stage pilots in most enterprises.

In this Advisor, Bill Fox traces a personal journey of purpose-driven leadership sparked by a desire to fix what’s broken in organizational change. Inspired by Steve Jobs’s belief in “connecting the dots,” he shares three pivotal steps: becoming a catalyst for change, taking small actions aligned with a larger mission, and participating in the emerging future by sharing insights. Each step illustrates how clarity and impact emerge when purpose guides action.

This Advisor explores how Trane Technologies turned ambitious climate goals into a clear, executable strategy. Anchored by its 2030 Sustainability Commitments and the bold Gigaton Challenge, the company aligned sustainability with core business performance. By developing a robust playbook, Trane operationalized its net zero ambitions — establishing where to play, how to win, and the capabilities needed to lead on climate action.

This Advisor explores how agentic AI — autonomous systems capable of reasoning and acting across multi-step workflows — is rapidly reshaping enterprise operations. Drawing on field research and market signals, it distinguishes between firms embedding agents into core processes and those stalled in pilot purgatory due to fragmented data and governance. Early winners aren’t just using better models; they’re better prepared — with mature data pipelines, governed toolchains, and institutionalized knowledge.

While often overshadowed by buzzwords and tech trends, financial literacy enables leaders to spot early distress signals, assess business health, and make grounded decisions. This Advisor presents two enduring insights: first, while earnings drive headlines, it’s the balance sheet that determines survivability — highlighting the importance of stewardship over growth at any cost. Second, that sales growth rate serves as a company’s “speed limit,” providing critical context for interpreting operational changes and ensuring strategic alignment. In times of transformation, disciplined financial insight remains a leader’s most dependable tool.

In this Advisor, ADL’s Ali Ayach and Farhan Mirza explore how the healthcare sector can embrace sustainability without compromising care quality or patient experience. It highlights the role of green technologies, international standards, and cross-industry collaboration in reducing environmental impact. Case studies from leading hospitals and health systems demonstrate tangible benefits — such as cost savings, emission reductions, and operational efficiencies — while national action plans in the US and UK reinforce a global drive toward net zero healthcare.

This Advisor distills insights from interviews with 48 healthcare and pharmaceutical leaders on the challenges and best practices for cross-sector collaboration using data and technology platforms. Key barriers include trust, governance complexity, misaligned incentives, and limited scalability. Success hinges on shared agendas, clear accountability, streamlined contracts, and strong leadership — all essential for embedding technology in a way that delivers lasting value to stakeholders.

This Advisor explores how leader character can strengthen board governance and support ethical, effective decision-making in the face of growing ESG demands. It argues that traits such as courage, integrity, humility, and judgment are essential for directors to fulfill their fiduciary duties while navigating complex stakeholder expectations. By embracing character-driven leadership, boards can move beyond compliance to shape resilient, purpose-led organizations capable of long-term value creation.

This Advisor introduces a practical, integrated methodology for evaluating the holistic benefits of nature-based solutions (NbS). It addresses the shortcomings of current valuation approaches — either overly simplistic or excessively complex— by combining qualitative and quantitative measures within a structured multi-criteria analysis framework. The proposed benefit-screening method enables decision makers to transparently assess NbS across environmental, social, and economic dimensions.

This Advisor presents a case study from a major London hospital, showing how a simulation-first approach can guide AI model development in complex clinical settings. By simulating blood bank operations, the team assessed the potential value of predictive models before investing in data acquisition and model training. The simulation revealed that even moderately accurate predictions could reduce waste, especially when combined with optimized ordering policies. Beyond technical insights, the process fostered early stakeholder collaboration, ensuring the final model addressed real-world needs.

This Advisor urges leaders to move beyond surface-level digital upgrades and confront the deeper cultural and strategic shifts required for true transformation. By focusing on digital ambition, data-driven decision-making, and organizational alignment, it provides a roadmap for boards and executives to overcome inertia, reengage their teams, and lead with purpose in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

This Advisor explores the often-overlooked sustainability potential of hydropower — highlighting how long-standing facilities are evolving to support environmental stewardship, community engagement, biodiversity, and transparent governance. From adaptive river management to educational outreach and innovative turbine designs, hydropower is demonstrating its capacity to deliver more than just renewable energy.

This Advisor, Part II in a series that explores the current state of on-orbit data centers, spotlights the countries, companies, and initiatives leading their development. From national space agencies to emerging start-ups, it maps the key players building space-based computing infrastructure — transforming satellites into intelligent, autonomous systems that can process data in real time.

This Advisor explores the growing importance of lead independent directors (LID) in strengthening board oversight, especially in firms with concentrated leadership or weak governance. The LID plays a key role in balancing power, fostering accountability, and enhancing investor trust — but only when backed by real authority and engagement.

This Advisor argues that many firms abandon sustainable business transformation (SBT) too soon, overlooking its proven financial, cultural, and societal benefits. Success depends on a Constancy of Purpose — an enduring, organization-wide commitment that embeds sustainability into strategy, avoids greenwashing, and positions companies to achieve lasting growth and resilience.

This Advisor argues that to unlock the full potential of private quantum hubs (PQHs), organizations must implement centralized governance systems tailored to the unique demands of quantum ecosystems. These systems must coordinate diverse technologies, manage hybrid architectures, and ensure secure, scalable access for a broad spectrum of users. Without such purpose-built governance, PQHs risk inefficiency and fragmentation — undermining their role as key enablers of enterprise quantum innovation.

As this Advisor explores, AI is transforming corporate governance by narrowing the information gap between boards and management. With greater access to data and analysis, directors can exercise more informed oversight— but face higher expectations, new legal questions, and cybersecurity risks.

This Advisor introduces the seven essential practices of a cross-industry generally accepted carbon accounting principles system. It outlines how transparent, interoperable, and verifiable carbon accounting creates opportunities for market differentiation and presents a blueprint for a reliable, global carbon ledger that supports business accountability and climate action.

This Advisor series explores the emergence of on-orbit data centers — space-based platforms that enable real-time, AI-powered data processing and analysis directly in orbit. Here in Part I, we examine the enabling technologies, key benefits, and transformative potential of these systems for autonomous space operations, Earth observation, defense, manufacturing, and beyond.

Most organizations underutilize their boards, treating directors primarily as oversight agents rather than strategic partners. This Advisor recommends a shift toward deeper, ongoing engagement between directors and management to unlock the full value of board expertise. By institutionalizing both hard and soft skills — through regular interaction, strategic involvement, and better succession planning — organizations can ensure board knowledge becomes a lasting asset, not a transient one.

As biodiversity loss intensifies, companies face mounting pressure to integrate nature positive actions into their sustainability strategies. This Advisor explores how businesses can operationalize these efforts by leveraging established tools and frameworks to assess nature-related risks and opportunities. It also highlights the importance of third-party verification to avoid greenwashing and ensure meaningful outcomes.

This Advisor explores the accelerating convergence of academic research and industry investment in quantum algorithms, marking a shift from theoretical promise to practical application. From simulating molecules in drug discovery to optimizing logistics and advancing financial modeling, quantum algorithms are beginning to deliver domain-specific value. As industries invest in identifying where quantum advantage matters most, the focus is turning to integrating these tools into real-world workflows and architectures.