Insights

AI can change how work gets done. But first, leaders need to decide what is worth changing, which rules apply, and how people will work with it, writes Daniela Gorza of Maigent.

Innovation and technology leaders from four companies — all in regulated industries — discuss today’s use cases; deployment challenges; and their advice for others.

Deirdre Walters argues that one of the biggest opportunities for innovation leaders today is vertical integration: creating a continuous connection between strategic business choices, consumer understanding, technical development, and commercial execution.

We scoured the 2026 winners lists of the top awards for the most innovative companies in the world... and put together this list of the companies that show up on three or more of them.

InnoLead’s Impact conference brought together three leaders who build new businesses inside large companies. They shared advice about how they identify new opportunities, how they move quickly, and how they keep leadership support over the long timeframe it can take for new ventures to generate return-on-investment. 

“In most companies, financial metrics are the default language for decision-making on core business innovation projects,” writes Noel Sobelman in the new book Innovation Portfolio Management. Unfortunately, “projecting ROI when entering brand-new territory with no history to draw on is, at best, guesswork,” he says. Here’s his advice.

InnoLead interviews Sun Life exec Laura Money about how she prioritizes AI projects; some of the concrete outcomes they’re seeing so far; and why Sun Life has joined other Canadian companies to form the AI Consortium.

Speakers at our recent Impact conference share advice on getting new tech across the gap from demo to deployment.

How can AI be useful in business-to-business innovation? By identifying the right problems to solve, write Ranjan Dash and Suresh Chandran.

Remember the emergence of e-commerce in the 1990s? Keep an eye on the horizon for agentic commerce, says Carol Juel, executive vice president and CEO of Synchrony Financial’s Digital Platform.

In a session at the most recent Impact conference last month, we looked at some of the reasons why it might make sense to partner with a startup rather doing everything in-house — and a few metrics and indicators that can let you know whether or not your approach is working.

If AI software is going to take over a bevy of repetitive tasks and processes, then what should organizations be doing with the time that frees up? We talk with business school prof David Schonthal.

We talk with Perdue Farms CIO Mark Booth about the company’s AI journey, including what future concerns are keeping him up at night.

R&D teams tend to understand their products with precision — but not always the people those products are designed for. Deirdre Walters explains how to address that…

When digital transformation gets stuck, the reason is rarely a lack of technology, writes Marcus East. More often, new technology is being added to organizations that still operate through outdated systems, rigid structures, and old assumptions about how work should get done.

We talk to the music retailer’s CEO and CIO about innovation and AI — and maintaining a strong connection to customers.

In this excerpt from the new book How Change Really Work, the authors caution that “take up” of change and new ideas among your colleagues is never automatic, but must be earned. Then they present five steps for earning it.

This month, Mitsubishi Electric U.S. is opening a new innovation hub in Boston. What’s the goal? We talk to two leaders…

To survive in an environment where average business model lifespans have collapsed, corporate innovators must move from unstructured ideation to the rigorous discipline of successful venture capitalists, write Ranjan Dash and Suresh Chandran

From supersonic aircraft to heavy trucks to robotic surgical assistants, this year’s Impact Awards focus on companies that are moving their industries forward. Here are the 15 finalists…

Innovation can’t exist in a culture that doesn’t allow for playfulness, says Piera Gelardi, author of the new book The Playful Way. Yet the environment in many workplaces today is shaped by plenty of non-playful dynamics. So what do you do?

Corporations are diverting resources from innovation to fund AI initiatives. What does this mean for innovation managers? The co-authors of a new book explain.

Corporations are diverting resources from innovation to fund AI initiatives. What does this mean for innovation managers? The co-authors of a new book explain.

GenAI isn’t just about creating new efficiencies, writes Itai Green in this excerpt from his new book. It’s about shifting the company’s DNA toward an innovation mindset.

Every project in a big organization projects attract layers of stakeholders, each with their own interests, fears, and mental models. In this excerpt from his new book, Misha de Sterk offers advice on managing that dynamic.

The design process as we knew it is most certainly dead, writes Todd Reily in his latest piece for InnoLead. What’s replacing it?

Because the cost of “making it real” has dropped to near zero, you can stop prototyping just the “best” idea, writes Todd Reily. Instead, you can prototype a whole portfolio of potential solutions.

Innovation at scale requires three different leadership roles, says author Linda Hill: architect, bridger, and catalyst. One is in especially high demand…

In this excerpt from their new book, Diana Joseph, Dan Toma, and Esther Gons discuss two kinds of antibodies that often emerge to attack open innovation initiatives.

We talk with Jason Gowans, Chief Digital & Technology Officer, about digital strategy and AI case studies at $6 billion Levi Strauss & Co.