THE NEW CORPORATE INNOVATOR · A FIVE-WEEK BRIEFING FROM AUCCTUS
Your innovation function was designed before AI.
Someone's going to redesign it, and it should be you.
Jacob Dutton
Global Head of Next Gen Innovation, Aucctus. Formerly SVP Innovation at one of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds, and Managing Director of Innovation at IPG.
Ask most innovation leaders what AI has done for growth and they'll struggle to tell you. Boards are starting to ask, and in our study of 119 teams, 97% use AI but more than half have no formal way to measure what it's done. When nobody in innovation can answer, finance or the AI office answers for them, and they usually start from cost.
It doesn't have to go that way. The teams that built AI into how the work runs, from the first signal to the funding call, look very different. They were six times more likely to have cut their cycle times by a quarter or more, and 69% of them let AI inform which bets get backed and which get killed, against 20% of everyone else. Teams using it as a personal assistant are doing barely better than teams that hardly use it.
The difference is in how the work is set up: the funnel, the gates, who does what and how you're measured. Most of it was designed for a time when looking properly at an opportunity took weeks and twenty serious bets were out of reach. Redesigned, it looks quite different: a more senior team looking properly at far more options, killing harder, and keeping a record of what it learned so the next reorg doesn't wipe it. Whoever redraws it decides what the job becomes, including yours.
Over five weeks I'll take you from the job you were hired for to the one that's coming. You'll finish with a one-page case for how your function should work, with your name on it, ready for your leadership team before your 2027 plans are locked.
FROM PEOPLE WHO'VE WORKED WITH JACOB
“Jacob is a strategic powerhouse. Everything he delivers is packed with insights, a result of his tireless energy and commitment to his craft.”
Nick McDonald, Philips
“What stands out most is his ability to take often complex/bewildering trends, ideas and models and make them simple for corporate clients to digest and adopt.”
Tom Hemmings, Big Ideas Group
“I’ve worked with Jacob on my innovation pipeline, and he’s a really great partner to unlock structured, breakthrough thinking.”
Marni Allen, Walgreens
What you'll get
The first three weeks work out what's changing in the job: what AI has already changed, where your edge comes from, and how good calls get made now. Week four turns that into the function you want to be running, roles included, and week five gets it signed off. Each week adds one part to a one-page case with your name on it, ready for your leadership team. Send it to me when it's done and we'll go through it together.
The five weeks
How to work out what AI has already changed about your job
Start with your own week. Most teams have let AI into research and early concepts and kept it well away from testing, scaling and funding calls. 88% use it in research. By the time something's ready to scale, it's 18%.
You'll leave knowing where AI is in your work and your team's, where it isn't yet, and what you want the time it frees to go on before someone else decides.
How to become the person who knows what only your company knows
Every competitor has the same models, and they give everyone much the same answer. What changes the answer is evidence nobody else has: your customers, your tests, your sales and what your company has already tried.
You'll leave knowing which of that evidence matters most for your pipeline, and how to become the person who owns it, inside your company's rules on AI.
How to become the person whose calls leadership trusts
When every business case looks polished, polish stops telling leaders anything. They back the person who can say what a decision rests on, and who remembers what was backed and killed last time.
You'll leave with a simple way to grade the evidence in a case, and a decision record you can start this month.
How to design the function you want to be running
Almost half of teams have changed nothing about roles, gates or measures since they started using AI, and they're getting very little from it. This week you redraw yours: how many bets you run, what each gate asks for, the four roles you need and what you stop paying for.
You'll leave with a one-page sketch of the function you want to be running in 2027, and where you fit in it.
How to get it signed off, and make sure you own it
A good design isn't enough if the CFO, the business units or the AI office get there first. This week maps who has to say yes and what each of them needs to see, including the numbers you'll be judged on and who owns AI in your pipeline.
You'll leave with the one-page case for your function, with your name on it.
Who's writing
Jacob Dutton is Global Head of Next Gen Innovation at Aucctus. He's spent 18 years building innovation strategies, functions and teams, and launching new ventures, products and services, inside companies like Salesforce, Microsoft and P&G. Most recently he led innovation, R&D and emerging technology across 20+ companies at one of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds. He founded two venture studios, Interpublic's in New York and Curzon Street Ventures in the UK, and teaches innovation management to 200+ practitioners on Maven.
“Most of the innovation teams I've helped build were set up for different tools and a different pace. The people running them now get to decide what comes next, and this series is how I'd go about it.” Jacob Dutton - Global Head of Next Gen Innovation @ Aucctus
Questions
Who's it for?
Innovation, NPD and R&D leaders at big companies that grow through new physical products, from food and apparel to crop inputs and industrial goods. Especially if you run a pipeline, or answer to the people who fund one.
Isn't this just more AI content?
No. It's about your job, and AI is the reason it's changing. Every week draws on our study of 119 innovation teams and on what I've seen running innovation across twenty-plus companies, and it's straight with you about where AI helps today and where it doesn't yet.
How much time does it take?
About half an hour a week, reading included, and every week's work goes straight into your case.
Is this a sales pitch?
No. It comes from Aucctus and you'll see how we think, but every week works without our software. If you finish, there's one last email on how we do this at Aucctus. If you want to talk about the platform before then, reply and ask.
What happens after week five?
The series ends. Send me your finished case and we'll spend thirty minutes pressure-testing it together, one to one, with the questions your leadership team is likely to ask. If you can't share it outside your company, tell me and we'll go through it on the call instead.