95% failure rate? A diagnosis that needs nuance

Let’s go back to that famous 95% AI project failure figure that fueled the panic. Should we really be alarmed when this number comes from a sample of only 52 large companies and when a project is deemed a “success” only if it yields a return on investment within six months?

Even the report’s authors admit that AI itself is less to blame than companies’ ability to transform. AI isn’t magic: like any technological project, it produces nothing if the organization isn’t structured to adopt it.

And in the flood of AI innovations we’re living through, is it really surprising that large AI projects are stalling? By the time a custom tool is developed and rolled out, a new service comes out and makes it obsolete…

Useful AI should not be confined to the IT department

That large-scale projects are struggling is one thing, but it certainly doesn’t mean we should throw in the towel — or worse, restrict the use of AI in companies by reserving it exclusively for the IT department. Unfortunately, we see some IT teams slamming the brakes whenever employees want to use “consumer” AI tools (like ChatGPT), even when the security risks are minimal. Do employees simply give up? Of course not: they turn to their personal accounts.

In fact, the MIT report highlights the success of this AI “shadow IT” — the unofficial use of digital tools by employees. The researchers found that in more than 90% of the companies studied, employees regularly use consumer AI tools for work, even though only 40% had purchased an official solution. AI spreads from the ground up because it is easy to access and immediately meets concrete needs. Performance-wise, employees often get more value from these “unofficial” practices than from the heavy, complex projects deployed by the company.

Naturally, giving employees a Microsoft Copilot account won’t magically transform the company. Training teams on general-purpose tools will have a limited effect if deeper issues remain unaddressed. The main barrier to AI effectiveness today is not technological — it is organizational.

Back to reality: All the more reason to invest smartly

If the AI bubble does burst, at least it will cool things down and bring us back to earth. Gone will be the tech companies’ wild promises, replaced by the need to design seriously, fine-tune carefully, integrate patiently with existing tools, and provide continuous oversight. In short, to reconsider AI for what it truly is: a formidable tool capable of delivering enormous gains, but one that requires method and perseverance. That’s good news. As with any bubble, the burst clears away illusions and brings forward the projects that truly create value.

In any case, this is certainly not a reason to stop investing in AI — quite the opposite. We must continue investing, but intelligently. That means learning from recent failures: no more high-tech cathedrals disconnected from real-world needs. Instead, we should invest in concrete, human-scale use cases with a clear improvement goal. We should bet on rapid iteration and continuous adaptation, without fearing a modest start. AI is not a passing fad: even after the speculative bubble bursts, it will remain a driver of innovation and performance. In summary, the goal is not to believe in AI miracles, but to invest in it like any strategic asset: progressively, with measurable use cases, and without engaging in escalation.

Alexandre Villeneuve and Edouard Fillias, authors of The AI Survival Manual (2025, Ellipses) and founders of the communication agency JIN.

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During the debate, he highlighted the role of Gen Z as “community natives”, a generation capable of organizing around shared causes, mastering social media codes, and influencing public discourse. He emphasized that political debate increasingly unfolds within digital spaces, where narratives and movements evolve in real time.

The full episode is available for replay on the France 24 website:

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In Good Company

For business leaders, these major events are more than just photo ops—they’re essential to their advocacy strategies. Forums offer a chance to speak up and be heard by policymakers, investors, and key stakeholders. It’s a democratic platform to demonstrate how economic leadership impacts society, driving transformational change and global progress. Beyond that, it’s an arena with potential jousting serving pro-business commitments, and delivering a positive PR spin on capitalism. More than anything, they reflect the current mood of the business world. They create a kind of microclimate—an elite bubble where executives can share their frustrations behind the scenes and occasionally even make real decisions. It’s a space for catharsis. However, within today’s world the question is: Are these forums always a true external executives’ platform to address key corporate messages _ or is it more a place for the elite to make decisions behind closed doors?

No Controversy, Please

European leaders, French in particular, have long clung to a tradition of discretion and neutrality. They’re cautious. Even in a world shaped by Trump-style shock politics, the French don’t want to ruffle any feathers. Don’t expect soundbites or headline-grabbing quotes. Today’s spectators, craving bold narratives and radical action, will likely be disappointed. This reserve isn’t only about a gloomy calm chaos context. It’s also an irritation against the pressure to follow every new trend of communication. Think about LinkedIn culture!

In a world of over communication, the decisive communication happens behind the scenes, away from prying eyes. “Most of the dealmaking happens in private suites and meeting rooms tucked away from journalists”, wrote the WSJ on The World Economic Forum in May, just after the recent unravelling of its king, Klaus Schwab. Leaders show only what they want us to see.  In France and Europe: it is a soft consensus. In other regions, these are the deals.

The most essential economic forums today are those that enhance a company’s strategic ability to operate globally. A place where strategic alliances are made and decisions are taken to put policies into action. In this regard, forums like the Qatar Economic Forum are increasingly watched by large companies today, as they serve as a platform for corporate diplomacy.

The Forum Agenda

So, what’s actually being discussed at events like the “Rencontres Économiques d’Aix”? The agenda is heavy: structural shifts like AI, demographic divergences, geopolitical tensions, trade wars, ideological battles, and climate anxiety. Behind the scenes, there may be whispered conversations about the growing sense of « Mean World Syndrome,”—a deep-seated anxiety about a world that feels increasingly broken and more dangerous than it is. For young people, it’s essential to move past this cognitive bias of a dangerous world and « embrace the shock of reality”.

Faced with all this, French leaders today resemble Gulliver, bound by countless threads and struggling to move.

This is largely because many European business leaders are still waiting—either for clearer guidance and changes in position from the European Commission (as was recently the case with the CSRD), or for a genuine political agenda that addresses both the public deficit and the major transitions of the 21st century. This sense of expectation highlights how corporate strategies are increasingly shaped by external forces.

There was a time—between 2020 and 2024—when businesses were primarily focused on external pressures like climate change. Today, that focus has shifted. The dominant concerns now stem from heightened economic volatility, much of it triggered by renewed tariff policies by the US. Yet even as attention returns to core business issues (growth and development, as a North Star), the complexity has only grown.

According to the economist Dambisa Moyo, leaders must pay closer attention to capital flows, demographic changes, and political ideologies in their business strategies. Geostrategic challenges—around steel, aluminum, and the deployment of artificial intelligence— weigh heavily on corporate decision-making. Exogenous phenomena are the focus of the forum, but in the corridors, endogenous issues are discussed.

Other pressing issues? Yes, concerning the endogenous effects within organizations. This is probably an example of a topic discussed away from journalists. A clear decline in employee engagement is evident— people are working because they have to— not because they feel a sense of pride. Emmanuel Duez, a French entrepreneur, named this decline the great disillusion. She asks the question: Are our dreams of emancipation through work over? In addition, according to a recent Cegos international survey, some key functions, such as managers, are less popular—especially in France. This refers to the phenomenon of refusal as “conscious unbossing”. A critical issue and cost for the future of work because as said by a Wharton alumnus during a speech for the Class of 2025: « The one thing that we all have complete control over is how hard we work, and nothing feels better than a hard-earned win, especially in challenging times ».

This shift is a direct result of the ever-changing world we now live in. It calls for a new corporate communication, which has not been crafted yet. A strengthened forecast communication strategy that people can trust in for the future of capitalism. How to deliver a decisive communication in a « new normal context » driven by uncertainty, fragmentation and AI experimentation ; this is a great conversation for leaders in the corridors of the “Rencontres Économiques d’Aix” ?

Either way, the underlying mood is clear: tension is running high. Globally, we have gloomy CEOs in the western world. As Axios media wrote: Economic sentiment among America’s top CEOs plunged to the lowest level since 2020, according to a new survey by the Business Roundtable.

As ‘calm chaos’ rises, both internally within organizations and externally on the geopolitical stage, the need for clear communication has never been greater. An event like “Rencontres d’Aix” could do this job. But, everything unfolds behind the scenes (if that!), without decisive communication announcements. The reasons why: 1/ The places where transactions and corporate diplomacy happens are no more in the old continent. A forum to attract foreign elites is urgently called for. This means a forum focused on renewed corporate diplomacy to prop up the competitiveness of European multinationals. 2/ Leader’s communication strategies have not yet been fully crafted for social expectation in this new paradigm. A renewed social license to operate, refocused on trusted business capitalism communication is called for too. 

Camille Fumard is a special advisor on strategic affairs to C-suite executives at European boutique communications agency JIN and the author of a book on leadership in the XXIst century.

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While the finance team has EBITDA and marketing boasts customer acquisition, what can the Communications Director show in the boardroom? Traditional indicators have structural weaknesses: barometers that are too slow and non-actionable, incomprehensible KPIs, and disputed ad-value equivalents. It’s no wonder your projects get deprioritized and your role is dismissed as “just the colored-pencil department.”

It’s time to move from justification to demonstration. Unlike other departments, you don’t simply carry out a plan—you’re a partner to all strategic plans. Proving your decisive impact means establishing a clear, direct, and demonstrable link between communication and the executive leadership’s top priorities. Let’s explore three themes that resonate at the executive level: stock price (for public companies), market share, and business model. These are three areas where you can shift perceptions:

From Awareness to Brand Value

Rather than talking about awareness or image, focus on your impact on investor perception—and, by extension, valuation multiples. Nvidia, once a graphics card manufacturer, became an AI leader in just a few years, thanks to a strategic shift in brand perception that had a tangible effect on its market capitalization. Imagine identifying the “tech” signals in your market that boost that perception. By leveraging these markers in your communication, you demonstrate your ability to tangibly influence company value.

From Thought Leadership to Market Leadership

Show how your communications strategy helps win market share. A well-orchestrated message can make a company appear larger than it is—triggering a Pygmalion effect that speeds up market entry. In its early days, Doctolib was just one of many startups offering online medical appointments. But its bold, leader-style communication and ability to dominate informational pathways made it seem like the market leader. The result? Public hospitals, health authorities, and doctors adopted it as the go-to platform—well before it actually led the market.

From Reputation Management to Recommendation Engineering

Defending your image reactively is no longer enough—communications must now act as the social engineer of a recommendation machine. The most powerful brands today aren’t just known—they’re endorsed. Take Decathlon. Once a standard sports retailer, it became a relationship-driven brand by activating user feedback, ambassadors, and product use stories. It no longer says, “Here’s what we sell,” but gets customers to say, “Here’s how I use it.” This shift from product to purpose is something communication can help lead and prove its strategic value in doing so.

Generative AI: Your New Metrics Power Tool

But how do you actually measure “tech perception,” market leadership, or recommendation strength? That’s where generative AI comes into play.

It allows the creation of custom KPIs that draw on multiple data sources—media, social media, search behavior, web analytics—and go beyond raw numbers to include qualitative insights. These are tailored, strategic metrics that finally allow Communications Directors to quantify their impact.

This AI-driven metrics revolution is exciting forward-thinking Communications Directors. They see AI not just as a tool for optimization, but as a strategic command center. Where many feared AI might replace roles, it might actually prove their legitimacy.

Caroline Faillet, General Manager of the JIN Group.

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You might already be using them without realizing it. Tools like ChatGPT’s “deep search,” Perplexity, or Gemini break down your question, scour dozens of web pages, and deliver — sometimes after a few minutes — a detailed response, almost like a mini research paper. These are agents.

But AI agents aren’t “just” AIs that answer questions. They are AIs that pursue a goal, make decisions, choose tools to use, and act, sometimes through multiple steps, without human intervention.

Still early days… but spectacular nonetheless

OpenAI launched Operator in January. It can plan trips or purchase products online from start to finish, completely autonomously. It’s available only to premium subscribers and remains low-key for now. But it was Manus, a Chinese AI agent unveiled in March, that sent real shockwaves through the field.

Manus can take control of a browser, navigate complex websites, fill out forms, connect to business tools — and even launch a design in Canva. Sure, the result isn’t very pretty yet. But when you watch an AI using software like a human would, one thing becomes clear: the threshold of autonomy has been crossed.

And given the speed at which AI evolves, we know these clumsy prototypes will soon become highly effective assistants for repetitive, precise, and structured tasks.

The Era of “Super-Agents” Is Approaching

Google is also developing agents, like Project Mariner, designed to act within Chrome. But again, it’s OpenAI making the biggest waves, with its announcement of a lineup of “super-agents”:

• Executive & Expert Agent: $2,000/month
  
• Developer Agent: $10,000/month
  
• PhD-Level Research Agent: $20,000/month, capable of formulating scientific hypotheses and coding autonomously.
  

We’re entering a whole new dimension.

AImpact on a communications Agency: A new way to work

As entrepreneurs in the communication field, we’re already feeling the shift. Writing a press release or social media post without AI now feels outdated. And tomorrow?

Tomorrow, we might delegate the entire chain: trend monitoring, editorial strategy, content creation (text, images, video), publishing schedules, community management, influencer targeting and activation, even email or SMS follow-ups.

An AI agent could track key conversations around your brand, detect weak signals, suggest a strategy, and implement it — from start to finish — without lifting a finger.

And if that sounds futuristic, remember this quote from Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI:

“We’re betting on the first year a billion-dollar company will be launched by a single person.”

Entrepreneurs: Now it’s our move

While we’re convinced that humans will still play an essential role in leadership, supervision, and ethical decision-making, it would be dangerous to believe this revolution will leave us untouched. Homo homini lupus est. Every job, every role, every process must be reimagined through the lens of autonomous AI.

There’s no need to warn our readers of a dystopia à la Gattaca. Instead, we should see AI as a kind of “new light bulb”, like Edison’s, that is still diffusely illuminating our era.

But we must act now. Because for us, as entrepreneurs, this is not a threat — it’s a vast playground. A powerful lever for productivity, creativity, and optimization. As long as we don’t stay on the sidelines.

Now is the time to shape the agency (or company) of tomorrow. Now is the time to integrate these tools, reinvent our methods, and reaffirm what only humans can bring: vision, ethics, creativity, emotion.

AI agents won’t replace us. But they do force us to transform.

Op-ed by Edouard Fillias and Alexandre Villeneuve, CEO & Co-founders of JIN.

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The R1 incorporates a training mode allowing users to teach specific actions to the device. Rabbit OS, the preinstalled operating system, can even learn multi-step tasks in complex applications like Photoshop and execute them on voice command.

Compact in size, the R1 is equipped with a 2.3GHz MediaTek processor, 4GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage. It features a 2.88-inch touchscreen, a rotating camera, and a navigation wheel. It is available for pre-order at $199, significantly less than conventional smartphones and other generative AI interfaces, such as Meta Glasses.

Does the R1 foreshadow the future iPhone?

Watch the launch keynote on the Rabbit website

According to Jesse Lyu, CEO of Rabbit, the R1 aims to combine voice assistant, screen, and camera, positioning itself more as a competitor to devices like Humane’s new AI Pin rather than the iPhone. This innovation nonetheless raises questions about the future of applications. The Rabbit R1, by making interactions with applications smoother and more intuitive, could reduce reliance on traditional interfaces. The era of traditional smart assistants, like Alexa, seems to be over with the advent of AI-first devices like the R1.

Traditionally seen as vessels for applications, smartphones could evolve into « AI boxes ». This metamorphosis would mean that interaction with devices would no longer occur through distinct applications, but through an integrated artificial intelligence interface capable of understanding and executing complex actions. This is likely the direction in which Apple aims to take its flagship smartphone, aided by its secretive development of the « Ferret » large language model. The Rabbit R1, with its LAM, foreshadows this evolution, transforming how we interact with our devices.

Could this device mark the beginning of an era where applications as we know them become obsolete, replaced by a more organic and integrated interaction with technology? Only time will tell, but one thing is certain: the Rabbit R1 represents a significant turning point in how we interact with technology on a daily basis.

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The End of the Dubai El Dorado

Reality TV influencers have long been a subject of fascination and controversy. Advertisers’ former darlings for easily ensuring visibility and success for their products are now distancing themselves from the glitz and glamour. « Booba killed our business », »One day, they won’t call you anymore ». This is partly due to some reality TV influencers (not all can be painted with the same brush) accepting dubious partnerships, such as drop-shipping, online betting, cosmetic surgery, financial products, etc. And their communities struggling to identify with their extravagant Dubai lifestyles. In the end a loss of their famous power of influence.

However, labeling reality TV influencers as the sole representatives of influence is an oversimplification of this ecosystem. Among French influencers, those from reality TV form a minority in terms of volume. In France, over 80% of content creators have communities of fewer than 50,000 subscribers. Their engagement rate, i.e., the level and quality of interactions with their community compared to their content, often surpasses that of influencers with more subscribers.

This engagement arises from the evolving relationships that bond these communities with their content creators. It’s no longer just about following someone for their image, style, or news, as was the case with reality TV influencers. Content creators gain influence through a trust-based relationship built on genuine shared passions and tangible added value. The subjects of these passions have significantly expanded in recent years, encompassing gastronomy, humor, art, entrepreneurship, and ecological issues.

Generation Z: The Driving Force of Change

Young creators play a pivotal role in this expansion. Gen Z, connected and creative, prioritizes authenticity. Nevertheless, they have not distanced themselves from influencers. According to a 2023 study by Appinio and JIN, more than half of young people follow influencers daily, if not multiple times a day. We are witnessing a resurgence of the « community » concept, with tighter-knit groups than ever.

Young influencers fully integrate into their communities’ conversations and develop various ways to stay close to their subscribers, including discussion channels, a trend widely adopted on Instagram.

Therefore, brands and consultancy agencies have a significant interest in understanding these communities and collaborating with content creators to provide authentic and valuable solutions. While the purchasing power of this age group is less, as Gen Z prioritizes their desires and wishes, brands are turning to loyalty, a lever driven by the community and the influencer who unites it.

In the end, one in two young people claims to have purchased a product based on an influencer’s recommendations. Brands and agencies must understand and integrate these community movements because they are becoming the norm for everyone, especially with Digital Moms in early childhood. The era of reality TV influencers is fading in favor of authentic content creators who share common passions, and brands stand to gain by prioritizing them.

Regulation: An Opportunity for Brands to Restore Trust

Faced with this crisis of trust, governments and regulatory bodies worldwide are taking action. In France, the first law aimed at combating abuses and scams and regulating the activities of influencers on social media was passed before the summer. This regulation marks a crucial first step in restoring trust in the world of influencers.

Could we go even further? Of course, regulation, labels, and recent certifications are just the initial building blocks of the necessary framework for responsible influence. Many issues remain unaddressed: What protection is there for children visible on the accounts of influencer parents? How can influencers be made aware of the ecological impact of their recommendations and mobilized around ecological transition issues? How can the relationship between brands, agencies, and influencers be improved?

The responsibility of the influence sector will be realized through strong cooperation among all stakeholders, or it won’t happen.

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