The rules of the game change in real time,
It's time for a major transformation in AI that must be proven through results.
What businesses and leaders need most is
This is the latest, living, breathing AX case!

“The moment we finalize our AI roadmap, it will be outdated.”
These words from the head of a large corporation's strategic planning office symbolize the harsh reality facing countless leaders today. Every company is unaware of the need to adopt AI.
However, most organizations remain confused when faced with the questions, "What, how, and where should we start?" Lack of confidence in AI investments and the absence of an implementation strategy are quickly leading to a competitive vacuum.

"AX Strategy Masterclass" goes beyond abstract technical discourse and demonstrates concrete ways to transform AI into a strategic weapon for your organization, through real-world AX cases from 18 global companies evolving with AI. The author, who spearheaded AI and digital transformation at KT and BC Card, emphasizes:
"In the AI ​​era, competitiveness will not go to the company with the most robots, but to the company that most cleverly designs the boundary between humans and machines."

This book is not a guide on how to 'introduce' AI.
This is a strategy book that guides companies through the process of establishing their own survival principles.
For leaders who are prepared to design the direction of change rather than fear the pace of change, this book will surely be the key to opening the first page of the next era.

The most fundamental dilemma a leader faces is simple.
“If machines can do everything perfectly, why do we need human leaders?” This is not a question of efficiency or productivity, but a question of existence.
Some futurists call leaders of this era “meaning creators.”
If machines are in charge of the 'how', humans are in charge of the 'why'.
Therefore, future leadership will shift from being task-centered to being purpose- and value-centered.
Ethics, risk management, social responsibility, and upholding the organization's purpose for existing are key strategic points.
Ultimately, the machine's job is to perform all physical and cognitive tasks, while the leader's job is to answer the question "why" and uphold the community's values ​​and purpose.
This shows that leadership in the AI ​​era is not simply management, but rather an act of creating meaning and direction.
--- p.40

APD is a micro-automated fulfillment center installed inside or adjacent to a store, and is a key system that instantly transforms the store into a “hyper-regional delivery hub.”
The way it works is very systematic.
First, automated robots quickly pick popular items in high-density storage areas, and then employees add fresh produce or large items to workstations.
After that, automatically stored items according to the order time are shipped for pickup or delivery, and in the case of express orders, they are processed within 3 hours.
Walmart announced that this store-based automation has reduced its net shipping cost per order in the US by 40%.
Building on this strategy, Walmart is transforming into a nationwide (4,700-store) intelligent fulfillment network that pure-play e-commerce companies like Amazon will struggle to replicate.
This is a representative example of Walmart maximizing its offline store strengths with digital and automation technologies.
--- p.63

Another growth driver for Best Buy is its AI-powered advertising platform, Best Buy Ad.
Best Buy Ads provides advertisers with its rich customer data through integration with the existing independent advertising platform, TradeDesk.
AI's precise targeting capabilities offer advertisers new possibilities.
Best Buy's combination of purchasing data and AI's pattern recognition enables sophisticated advertising execution based on actual purchase intent and lifestyle, going beyond simple demographic targeting.
For example, by analyzing the purchase history of game consoles and gaming accessories, it is possible to identify real gamers and target them based on their purchasing patterns.
This is showing a much higher effectiveness than traditional digital advertising.
The advertising business is expected to significantly contribute to improving overall profitability with its high margins.
--- p.101

The reaction in the corporate market was much clearer.
Deloitte announced that Firefly reduced the time it took to create client proposals by 40% (as of Q3 2024).
In particular, the IP disclaimer has reduced the legal team's review time by 90%.
Pepsi heavily utilized Firefly-generated visuals in its 2024 Super Bowl campaign.
“We were able to test more versions while reducing production costs by 60 percent compared to traditional methods,” said Todd Kaplan, vice president of marketing.
Paramount Plus uses Firefly to create thumbnails and promotional images, generating over 2,000 assets per month.
“Our compliance team is very pleased with the content credentials because they can clearly manage the provenance of all our images,” said Creative Director Sarah Chen.
What was important to them was not only creative quality but also legal security.
A marketing executive at a Fortune 500 company said:
“We were impressed with the image quality of Midjourney, but our legal team pointed out copyright risks.
Adobe's IP disclaimer was crucial for us." --- p.166

But John Deere's true competitive edge lies in its network effects, not its individual technologies.
The network effect is a phenomenon in which the value of a service increases exponentially as the number of users increases.
775,000 connected machines and 455 million acres of data from operations centers create more precise AI models, which in turn attract more users, creating a virtuous cycle.
Just as Google's search data creates better search results, John Deere's agricultural data becomes more valuable the more it's used.
--- p.241

The Lumi platform is designed to serve as a unified data foundation for these two killer apps.
By building a single, robust, centralized data platform, American Express can achieve economies of scale and scope and develop reusable services and common data governance patterns that benefit both fraud prevention and marketing.
These dual use cases make the business case for investing in Lumi's partnership with NVIDIA even more compelling.
This investment wasn't just for fraud detection or marketing, but to build core, real-time AI capabilities that power the entire business.
--- p.323

As of 2024, Teladoc serves approximately 100 million U.S. integrated care members and generates $2.57 billion in annual revenue.
More than 60 AI models are running in production, helping make millions of medical decisions every day.
But behind these numbers, a fundamental question remains: How will the nature of medicine change when AI goes beyond simply being the eyes and ears of doctors and begins to replace them with judgment? And do we want that change?

--- p.406