By Bryan Kirschner, Vice President, Strategy at DataStax Insight, expertise, and know-how. Discernment, comprehension, and adeptness.  Acumen, sagacity, and skill. Judgment, shrewdness, and savvy. These words all capture variations on a theme: Applying knowledge is how people create value. Two of the most important levers for creating superior value arise from the “insight” domain (coming up with better ideas) and the “know-how” domain (delivering better execution). Today, for example, anyone who uses their iPhone to place an order for Amazon Key In-Garage Delivery is enjoying the result of organizations and their leaders who aced creating superior value during the last two decades of digital transformation. I have no doubt that as consumers, we’ll soon enjoy new generative AI (genAI)-driven experiences that move the needle on delightfulness, efficiency, or both. But if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you, your colleagues, your team, or all three are in the business of coming up with ideas for and figuring out how to deliver valuable genAI-driven experiences. Making the most of any new technology depends on shifting the mindset of people and retooling processes. (We cover this topic in the white paper: From Productivity Paradox to Abundance Agenda: Jobs, growth, and inclusion with GenAI.) In this first of a short series of articles, we offer a way to inspire individuals to take a growth mindset toward the opportunity genAI presents. Augmentation excellence and excellent augmentation Because this dynamic is just as relevant when acting altruistically as individuals as it is when mobilized at massive scale in pursuit of profit in a Fortune 500 corporation, we’ll use a story that is (literally) close to home: a parent and child. Google’s “Dear Sydney” 2024 Olympics-themed ad for its Gemini LLM-powered chatbot was controversial. That’s a shame, because its first half sets the stage for a great introduction to the potential of genAI. Let’s begin with how the ad started and where it rubbed people the wrong way, and then get into a revised ending. The setup of the ad-as-aired is a father and daughter. The daughter wants to write a fan letter to her favorite athlete: Olympian world-record holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. The pivotal moment of the father’s lead-in is: “She wants to show Sydney some love, and I’m pretty good with words, but this has to be just right.” Just after that point (at the 33 second mark), he proceeds to tell Gemini to “help my daughter write a letter telling Sydney how inspiring she is and be sure to mention that my daughter plans on breaking her world record one day.” Critics attacked that bit for reasons we won’t rehash here. Instead, let’s imagine a different version of the ad. In this one, the father still opens with “She wants to show Sydney some love, and I’m pretty good with words, but this has to be just right.” But then after that, what he says to the AI is: You are an experienced, patient, caring elementary school English teacher. I am a caring father. My 10-year-old daughter wants to write a fan letter to her favorite athlete. It is very important to my daughter that the letter be “just right.” She wants to fully convey her admiration and how the athlete inspires her. Think step by step. First, suggest 3 to 5 tips for helping young people with writing in general. Second, suggest 3 to 5 tips for making a fan letter heartfelt and engaging. Finally, suggest 3 to 5 tips for reducing my daughter’s anxiety about getting the letter just right and making this into a fun shared experience between us. This story demonstrates two broadly applicable principles. We call the first “augmentation excellence.” That means having the skills to put genAI to good use and caring to put in the effort to use them. Our dad shows some solid prompting skills. And while it’s beyond the scope of this article, the applicable knowledge gained through our hands-on experimentation with genAI was head and shoulders above simple web searches (e.g., “how to help a child with writing”). The second is what we call “excellent augmentation.” By this we mean a savvy or delightful use of genAI: something that causes a team to say, “we’re so glad we did that,” or a customer to say, “that was amazing.” In our testing, the prize went to noting that if the daughter would be helped by being able to read other fan letters, a dad with augmentation excellence skills could quickly generate a couple dozen diverse simulated ones. If she sat down to write her own, inspired by passages about which she says, “I really like the way they expressed…” or, “this really reminded me of something I like about Sydney,” that’s excellent augmentation. Augment your excellence If you’re committed to being your best self at anything from coaching direct reports, making client presentations, or even doing something fun with your kids, we hope genAI is a bigger part of your plans than before you read this vignette. You might even be in a position to catalyze or lead an organization-wide genAI journey. For you, we’ll tackle how to adapt processes to scale the use of genAI, foster alignment, and get on a path to organizational excellence above and beyond personal know-how in our next article. Learn more about DataStax. About Bryan Kirschner:Bryan is Vice President, Strategy at DataStax. For more than 20 years he has helped large organizations build and execute strategy when they are seeking new ways forward and a future materially different from their past. He specializes in removing fear, uncertainty, and doubt from strategic decision-making through empirical data and market sensing. source

By Craig Clough ( January 21, 2025, 10:34 PM EST) — A University of Southern California professor told a California federal jury Tuesday that the Apple+ show “Servant” borrowed at least 10 original elements from an independent film, and likened the theft to someone stealing from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit play about Alexander Hamilton by claiming the historical figure is fair game…. Law360 is on it, so you are, too. A Law360 subscription puts you at the center of fast-moving legal issues, trends and developments so you can act with speed and confidence. Over 200 articles are published daily across more than 60 topics, industries, practice areas and jurisdictions. A Law360 subscription includes features such as Daily newsletters Expert analysis Mobile app Advanced search Judge information Real-time alerts 450K+ searchable archived articles And more! Experience Law360 today with a free 7-day trial. source

While coaching poorly played Little League Baseball early in the morning doesn’t sound like a good time, I love it — and the experience has taught me valuable lessons about imperfection, compassion and acceptance that have helped me grow as a person and as a lawyer, says Alex Barnett at DiCello Levitt. source

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Incident response, the process of responding to system disruptions and slowdowns, is a critical aspect of IT operations. It’s also an activity that traditionally involves a lot of manual, time-consuming processes. That’s a challenge Harness is taking aim at with a new incident response service. The technology enters early access today as a module on the company’s eponymous platform. Harness got its start in 2017 with an initial focus on continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) automation for DevOps. In the years since, the company has expanded into a software delivery platform with multiple modules. In fall 2024 Harness broke into agentic AI, initially to help support software development. Now the company is extending that same core agentic AI foundation for incident response. The new solution also benefits from licensed capabilities originally developed by development workflow vendor Transposit. Tina Huang, cofounder of Transposit, along with many members of her team, joined Harness in September 2024. The goal with Harness Incident Response is to accelerate the mean time to resolution (MTTR) for an incident.  “When you think about what DevOps platforms have been up until now, it’s largely been about helping you structure those deployments,” Huang told VentureBeat. “I think the very natural place to go after that is, ‘How do I hand-hold your deployments after they’ve hit production?’” How Harness enables autonomous incident response with agentic AI At the core of Harness’ Incident Response module is the company’s AI agent architecture, first introduced in September 2024.  Jyoti Bansal, Harness CEO and cofounder, explained to VentureBeat that its AI agents are designed to provide autonomous assistance, going beyond just alerting engineers to incidents. Traditional incident response technology uses an approach known as a playbook. IT teams, often working with site reliability engineers (SREs), define playbooks that lay out step-by-step processes for recovering from different types of service disruptions. Rather than relying solely on pre-defined playbooks, the agentic AI agents can suggest actions, identify potential root causes and even create new playbooks on the fly.  “The agentic workflow is suggesting the actions that should be taken,” Bansal said. Huang explained that AI agents execute multiple steps that are critical to help organizations respond faster to incidents. Even before a playbook can run, there is a certain amount of triage that needs to occur, Bansal explained. General triage can, for instance, identify what services are impacted or determine both upstream and  downstream dependencies that will also be impacted by the incident. Harness’ system has agents that are aware of and plugged into multiple systems, and that can collect information automatically, including information and discussion from Slack channels. That information can then help other agents to alert humans and provide autonomous assistance.  While the system has a high degree of automation, Huang emphasized that humans are still in the loop. But instead of a human being alerted to a problem and then having to figure out if there is a playbook —and if so how to run it — the system recommends the remediation and the human only needs to approve it. Incident response requires more that just technology The Harness Incident Response module can run on its own, meaning organizations don’t already need to be running any other Harness modules. Bansal expects, however, that the combined offering — which could enable integration with multiple other workflows including DevOps or chaos engineering — could be beneficial. Chaos engineering is the process of injecting unexpected variables and events in an application to see how it responds. Harness has had a chaos engineering module as part of its platform since 2022. Huang explained that as part of the incident response platform, an organization can run ‘fire drills’ alongside the chaos engineering module to test different scenarios. “Incidents happen infrequently, and they are often the unfortunate result of something that you didn’t catch earlier on,” said Huang. “We want to enable a very proactive approach to incident response.” How enterprises will benefit from agentic AI driven incident response  One Harness customer using the incident response module is Tyler Technologies, which develops software for the public sector. The company has been using the Harness platform for continuous deployment, cloud cost management and feature flag development. The addition of incident response could help solve a key challenge the faces, explained Jeff Green, Tyler Technologies’ CTO. “Our primary challenge is really integrating all the operational data, metrics and processes, then correlating them into a single unified approach to managing incidents and automating our response to them,” he told VentureBeat. “Our portfolio includes over 100 products built on different technologies using a wide variety of devops tools and platforms.” The incident response capability will complement existing operations Tyler Technologies is already doing with Harness. For example, being able to correlate deployments with incidents, or feature flags with incidents.  “We think the AI capabilities being infused into the product will save a lot of time by helping us with root cause analysis, identifying ways to mitigate or resolve incidents, and with incident prevention,” said Green. “Much of this work today is done by humans pulling data from multiple sources, scouring logs and application performance monitoring (APM) data and looking for patterns, all tasks that AI is better suited to.” The ROI of agentic AI for incident response Another Harness customer evaluating the incident response module is Omar Alwattar, Sr DevOps engineer at InStride.  Alwattar told VentureBeat that his firm has been using the Harness Continuous Delivery module. He noted that when it comes to incident response, his organization has two key challenges: preventative monitoring and root cause identification. The new Harness incident response tool is interesting to his company, he said, as it will help with faster issue identification and automated fix suggestions. “In terms of ROI, the most significant impact would be on downtime reduction, as it directly influences SLA adherence and customer satisfaction,” Alwattar said. “Additionally, by automating aspects of incident response, our

Like a tag that warns sweater owners not to wash their new purchase in hot water, a virtual label attached to AI content could alert viewers that what they’re looking at or listening to has been created or altered by AI.  While appending a virtual identification label to AI-generated content may seem like a simple, logical solution to a serious problem, many experts believe that the task is far more complex and challenging than currently believed.  The answer isn’t clear-cut, says Marina Cozac, an assistant professor of marketing and business law at Villanova University’s School of Business. “Although labeling AI-generated content … seems like a logical approach, and experts often advocate for it, findings in the emerging literature on information-related labels are mixed,” she states in an email interview. Cozac adds that there’s a long history of using warning labels on products, such as cigarettes, to inform consumers about risks. “Labels can be effective in some cases, but they’re not always successful, and many unanswered questions remain about their impact.”  For generic AI-generated text, a warning label isn’t necessary, since it usually serves functional purposes and doesn’t pose a novel risk of deception, says Iavor Bojinov, a professor at the Harvard Business School, via an online interview. “However, hyper-realistic images and videos should include a message stating they were generated or edited by AI.” He believes that transparency is crucial to avoid confusion or potential misuse, especially when the content closely resembles reality.  Related:Breaking Down Barriers to AI Accessibility Real or Fake?  The purpose of a warning label on AI-generated content is to alert users that the information may not be authentic or reliable, Cozac says. “This can encourage users to critically evaluate the content and increase skepticism before accepting it as true, thereby reducing the likelihood of spreading potential misinformation.” The goal, she adds, should be to help mitigate the risks associated with AI-generated content and misinformation by disrupting automatic believability and the sharing of potentially false information.  The rise of deepfakes and other AI-generated media has made it increasingly difficult to distinguish between what’s real and what’s synthetic, which can erode trust, spread misinformation, and have harmful consequences for individuals and society, says Philip Moyer, CEO of video hosting firm Vimeo. “By labeling AI-generated content and disclosing the provenance of that content, we can help combat the spread of misinformation and work to maintain trust and transparency,” he observes via email.  Related:Why Enterprises Struggle to Drive Value with AI Moyer adds that labeling will also support content creators. “It will help them to maintain not only their creative abilities as well as their individual rights as a creator, but also their audience’s trust, distinguishing their techniques from the content made with AI versus an original development.”  Bojinov believes that besides providing transparency and trust, labels will provide a unique seal of approval. “On the flip side, I think the ‘human-made’ label will help drive a premium in writing and art in the same way that craft furniture or watches will say ‘hand-made’.”  Advisory or Mandatory?  “A label should be mandatory if the content portrays a real person saying or doing something they did not say or do originally, alters footage of a real event or location, or creates a lifelike scene that did not take place,” Moyer says. “However, the label wouldn’t be required for content that’s clearly unrealistic, animated, includes obvious special effects, or uses AI for only minor production assistance.”  Consumers need access to tools that don’t depend on scammers doing the right thing, to help them identify what’s real versus artificially generated, says Abhishek Karnik, director of threat research and response at security technology firm McAfee, via email. “Scammers may never abide by policy, but if most big players help implement and enforce such mechanisms it will help to build consumer awareness.”  Related:Why Every Employee Will Need to Use AI in 2025 The format of labels indicating AI-generated content should be noticeable without being disruptive and may differ based on the content or platform on which the labeled content appears, Karnik says. “Beyond disclaimers, watermarks and metadata can provide alternatives for verifying AI-generated content,” he notes. “Additionally, building tamper-proof solutions and long-term policies for enabling authentication, integrity, and nonrepudiation will be key.”  Final Thoughts  There are significant opportunities for future research on AI-generated content labels, Cozac says. She points out that recent research highlights the fact that while some progress has been made, more work remains to be done to understand how different label designs, contexts, and other characteristics affect their effectiveness. “This makes it an exciting and timely topic, with plenty of room for future research and new insights to help refine strategies for combating AI-generated content and misinformation.”  source

By Sarah Abrams ( January 23, 2025, 3:27 PM EST) — With the increasing creation and sophistication of artificial intelligence tools, this article examines the impact of party and court reliance on AI for case law, policy language interpretation and expert analysis. The impact to insurers and insureds is broad in scope, and consideration of a uniform standard, like Frye, is warranted for determining whether AI-generated content should be admissible…. Law360 is on it, so you are, too. A Law360 subscription puts you at the center of fast-moving legal issues, trends and developments so you can act with speed and confidence. Over 200 articles are published daily across more than 60 topics, industries, practice areas and jurisdictions. A Law360 subscription includes features such as Daily newsletters Expert analysis Mobile app Advanced search Judge information Real-time alerts 450K+ searchable archived articles And more! Experience Law360 today with a free 7-day trial. source

After over 12 years of leading Forrester’s research on agile and, from 2011, publishing a biennial Forrester report on the global state of agile adoption, we have just published The State Of Agile Development, 2025: It’s Still Relevant, With Benefits And Challenges. In this blog, I am just quickly highlighting some of the key takeaways to hopefully motivate you to go and read the full report if you are a Forrester client. So let’s go … Agile — The Disputed Champion Of Modern Business, Still Going Strong In times when everything changes so quickly and artificial intelligence, especially generative AI (genAI), captures the imagination of tech enthusiasts and professionals alike, one technology that remains a foundational pillar of the tech industry is agile. Consider the narrative of a tech startup navigating the tumultuous waters of market demands and rapid innovation. At their core, agile methodologies enable this team to remain adaptable, collaborative, and efficient. Drop that team in an enterprise and multiply the team by 10, and what happens? Can those 10 teams still strive together in the same way as the tech startup team? Well, yes and no. But the new report reveals a striking insight: Despite the buzz around agile’s supposed decline, a commanding 95% of professionals affirm its critical relevance to their operations. This statistic, coupled with the 58% of business and technology professionals prioritizing agile adoption, paints a clear picture: Agile is not just surviving; it’s still thriving and not going away, yet it does need improvement. Agile’s Journey And Collaboration Is A Testament To Resilience Agile’s resilience is underscored by its widespread and enduring adoption across many organizations. In fact, a significant majority, 61%, report deploying agile practices for over five years, demonstrating a strong enduring commitment to its principles over older methodologies such as waterfall, which continues to see a decline. This dedication to agile reflects a broader industry trend toward valuing collaboration and flexibility over rigid hierarchies and siloed organizations. Agile teams, characterized by diverse roles including developers, testers, and scrum masters, embody this shift toward a more inclusive and dynamic approach to product development. Our survey data also proves that organizations could achieve even greater success by fully embracing agile’s collaborative ethos, values, and principles and investing in the leadership necessary to guide this cultural shift. Leaders have to do more than just commit to agile; they must lead the change! Agile Leadership Requires Foresight And Emerging Tech Adoption Despite agile’s proven benefits, the data shows that organizations face challenges in scaling agile practices and fostering a culture conducive to its adoption. Proficiency levels among teams vary, with only 7% achieving full proficiency for great agile practices but quite a higher number just being average or good, indicating room for more improvement. Overcoming these hurdles requires a strategic blend of agile frameworks tailored to each organization’s unique needs, coupled also with a commitment to modernizing all angles of the organization with continuous learning and adaptation. Businesses are not immune to that change, and there is quite more to do there. Moreover, the integration of agile with emerging technologies like generative AI and TuringBots offers a promising avenue for enhancing agile’s impact even further. TuringBots, AI, and genAI-infused tools not only streamline routine tasks but also provide valuable insights that can refine sprint planning and project prioritization. With nearly half of the respondents already leveraging genAI in their agile practices, the future of agile seems destined to be intertwined with technological advancements, driving innovation and efficiency in software development. Agile Remains An Unshakable Foundation As the tech world continues to evolve at a breakneck pace, agile values, principles, and practices stand as testament to the enduring need for adaptability, collaboration, transparency, and speed. Agile’s widespread adoption and the challenges it faces reflect an approach that is not static but dynamic, one that clients need to continuously evolve and adapt to meet the demands of an ever-changing industry landscape. Will the integration of agile and AI technologies herald a new era of software development, one where efficiency, innovation, and quality are paramount? I hope it will. As organizations navigate the complexities of digital transformation, agile remains an unshakable foundation, guiding teams toward success in the age of AI and beyond. Over the years, our research has also shown that client organizations cannot make this transition alone — you need valuable partners to work with you. This is why I see the strong connection of this research with my recently published Forrester Wave™ evaluation of modern application development services, of which agile services are mandatory table stakes. Read the full report to access more data and understand our thinking behind it. Also, reach out to me ([email protected]) or schedule an inquiry or a guidance session to get help — I’m here to assist you. I also want to thank my great senior research associate, Merve Kandemir, for her dedication to this research and amazing work to get it published. source

By Sarah Jarvis ( January 24, 2025, 10:44 PM EST) — For companies pushing forward with their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives amid a torrent of attacks from President Donald Trump and his allies, there are myriad potential risks ahead — and murky questions about the legal parameters of Trump’s anti-DEI agenda…. Law360 is on it, so you are, too. A Law360 subscription puts you at the center of fast-moving legal issues, trends and developments so you can act with speed and confidence. Over 200 articles are published daily across more than 60 topics, industries, practice areas and jurisdictions. A Law360 subscription includes features such as Daily newsletters Expert analysis Mobile app Advanced search Judge information Real-time alerts 450K+ searchable archived articles And more! Experience Law360 today with a free 7-day trial. source

By Christopher Cole ( January 23, 2025, 5:29 PM EST) — A Republican lawmaker introduced a bill Thursday that would give the Federal Communications Commission authority to auction the airwaves and direct the government to turn over at least 2,500 megahertz for private sector or shared use in the next five years…. Law360 is on it, so you are, too. A Law360 subscription puts you at the center of fast-moving legal issues, trends and developments so you can act with speed and confidence. Over 200 articles are published daily across more than 60 topics, industries, practice areas and jurisdictions. A Law360 subscription includes features such as Daily newsletters Expert analysis Mobile app Advanced search Judge information Real-time alerts 450K+ searchable archived articles And more! Experience Law360 today with a free 7-day trial. source

By Patrick Hoff ( January 24, 2025, 4:47 PM EST) — A Texas federal judge on Friday paused a SpaceX lawsuit challenging administrative proceedings against the aeronautics company over its refusal to hire refugees and asylees, after the U.S. Department of Justice said it was considering ways to resolve the case…. Law360 is on it, so you are, too. A Law360 subscription puts you at the center of fast-moving legal issues, trends and developments so you can act with speed and confidence. Over 200 articles are published daily across more than 60 topics, industries, practice areas and jurisdictions. A Law360 subscription includes features such as Daily newsletters Expert analysis Mobile app Advanced search Judge information Real-time alerts 450K+ searchable archived articles And more! Experience Law360 today with a free 7-day trial. source