I didn't write a to-do list after my time off

Hello,

This is Simon with the latest edition of The Weekly. In these updates, I share key AI related stories from this week's news, list upcoming events, and share any longer form articles posted on the website.

I've just come back from a few days off work, and in that time my email and Slack messages have built up. I'm sure we all recognise the feeling. Typically, we'd take some time to work through it all, making notes on what needs following up and building a to-do list of actions.

I didn't do that today. Instead, I asked Claude to review my email and Slack and make the list for me. Because we've got a large number of other systems connected to our Enterprise edition, it was pretty easy for Claude to trawl through all those messages and come back with a list.

I wanted to go a little further than a basic to-do list, though. I also asked Claude to triage those messages and turn the list into an Artefact I could tick each task off in.

When you're presented with a long list of action items, it can feel overwhelming, and you're left unsure where to even begin. Having Claude build me a basic app that broke the list into segments — Urgent, Important, and When You Have Time — really helped me prioritise my day.

I did read back over the list before I started, and I moved one or two things. Claude has a fair bit of my history to draw on, so the triage was mostly right — which is exactly why it's worth checking. A wrong call in the "When You Have Time" pile is invisible: you don't discover the thing that should have been urgent, you just never get to it.

What's great about Artefacts is that they stay in my Claude account for as long as I want them, and once I've worked my way through the list, I can simply delete it. And because this is just a personal to-do list, it's not something I need to share with colleagues, so there's no maintaining it or keeping it current once I'm finished with it.

The other thing that's key here is that my IT department have allowed us to connect Claude to our internal systems. If I couldn't get Claude to look through my email and Slack, the whole exercise would be meaningless. I've got 10+ systems hooked up, and because we're on Anthropic's Enterprise plan, we have confidence that our data is secure and isn't used to train their models. If this isn't something you've got set up at work today, it's worth making the case for.

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In this section, I’m going to bring to you a real world example of AI use.

Visa announced it is cutting approximately 2,600 jobs — around 7% of its global workforce — primarily from its technology and product teams, Bloomberg reported on July 28. CEO Ryan McInerney said AI has "helped to streamline routine tasks and speed up product development" and is now "shaping the way work gets done at Visa." The cuts fall on a company with roughly 34,100 employees and more than $34 billion in annual revenue.

Why it matters: Visa is not a tech startup — it is a 65-year-old financial infrastructure company. When a firm of this profile explicitly ties headcount reduction to AI efficiency, it signals that AI-driven restructuring has moved well beyond Silicon Valley and into the mainstream corporate playbook. Expect similar announcements from financial services peers in the quarters ahead.

The EU AI Act's transparency obligations under Article 50 became legally enforceable on August 2, 2026. Any organisation deploying AI-powered chatbots or generating synthetic media for EU audiences must now immediately and clearly disclose this to users. The full penalty regime is in force: fines reach up to €35 million or 7% of global annual turnover for the most serious violations. A separate deadline for standalone high-risk AI systems has been pushed to December 2027 following the European Parliament's approval of the "Digital Omnibus on AI" amendment in June, but the disclosure rules face no such delay.

Why it matters: Any business that uses an AI chat interface for customer service, or publishes AI-generated content for EU markets, is now operating under binding law with real financial consequences. Legal and compliance teams that have been monitoring developments are out of runway — the grace period has ended.

A 2026 Global Enterprise AI Report from Publicis Sapient found that while 91% of businesses report using AI and AI agents are now involved in 53% of enterprise work, only 18% of organisations have fully integrated AI into their operations. Fewer than a quarter of companies have moved 40% or more of their pilots into production. A separate PwC survey of CEOs found that only 12% reported hitting both a revenue gain and a cost reduction from AI investment. Perhaps most starkly: 54% of C-suite executives said adopting AI is "tearing their company apart."

Why it matters: The gap between AI deployment and measurable business value is the defining challenge for organisations in 2026. Most companies have acquired the tools but lack the processes, governance, and capability to produce results — and the frustration is felt at the top. For leaders being pressed to show AI returns, this data provides both context and a useful benchmark: if your organisation is struggling, it is far from alone.

Thanks for reading, and see you next Thursday.

Simon,

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