Welcome to the 15th edition of The Strategy Playbook, your short, direct line to AI, automation, and business strategies that win. Every issue delivers quick field-tested insights and proven frameworks you can deploy immediately. No theory, no filler, just proven plays to shorten cycles, increase conversions, and scale with control.
Alex Mont-Ros
The Strategy Ninjas
Take the AI Fluency Assessment to see where you stand and what to build next.
Where Do You Rank in AI Fluency?
Most teams are dabbling with AI. Few are deploying it with precision.
That’s why we created the Strategy Ninjas AI Fluency Assessment, to help you measure how effectively you're using AI, and exactly what to build next.
AI Fluency Ranks:
Explorer (0–30)
You're testing the limits of what's possible; the curiosity phase.Operator (31–50)
You're using AI with purpose, but still tactically, starting to build consistency.Architect (51–70)
You’re building scalable workflows, systems, and repeatable automations.Director (71–85)
You’re leading with AI, automating, integrating, and driving strategy across teams.Commander (86–100)
AI isn't just a tool, it’s a teammate. You’ve systematized strategy, scale, and leverage.
Your score isn’t about how much AI you use. It’s about how strategically you use it.
AI in Action: What You Need to Know This Week
Strategic shifts in AI that leaders and operators should act on now.
1. Agentic AI enters mainstream enterprise adoption
Cisco and OpenAI announced a major partnership to deploy AI agents broadly across enterprise engineering, making AI-native development a core practice. Separately, SAP highlighted how agentic AI is reshaping commerce through autonomous discovery, payments, and customer loyalty. (Sources: https://openai.com/index/cisco ; https://news.sap.com/2026/01/agentic-ai-reshaping-commerce-discovery-payments-trust)
Why it matters: These aren't experiments—they're production deployments. In real estate and consulting, this means AI can soon handle multi-step processes like pipeline monitoring, compliance checks, and client communications with minimal oversight, freeing you to focus on relationships and strategy.
2. CES 2026 showcased major leaps in AI compute
AMD's keynote emphasized accessible AI chips for broader adoption, while NVIDIA's Rubin platform and embedded AI in gadgets (smart glasses, home devices) demonstrated faster, more private on-device processing.
(Sources: https://mashable.com/article/ces-2026-amd-keynote-takeaways ; https://www.ces.tech/topics/artificial-intelligence)
Why it matters: Better hardware means everyday tools (phones, laptops, CRM apps) will run sophisticated AI locally—faster responses, less cloud dependency, and higher privacy. Clients will expect your deliverables and updates to match this speed and seamlessness.
3. Frontier models deliver faster, with focus on practical business use
Meta's new dedicated AI team delivered its first key models internally this month, signaling accelerated progress toward advanced reasoning. Meanwhile, OpenAI's leadership emphasized 2026 as the year of "practical adoption" in enterprise, health, and science.
(Sources: https://www.reuters.com/technology/metas-new-ai-team-has-delivered-first-key-models-internally-this-month-cto-says-2026-01-21 ; https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-cfo-friar-2026-year-practical-adoption-ai-2026-1)
Why it matters: The gap between prototype and production is closing fast. For transaction-heavy businesses, this translates to reliable AI for complex tasks like contract analysis, risk forecasting, and automated reporting—without needing a data science team.
Sources To Consider: Apple Newsroom | Google Gemini Updates | TechCrunch AI | Anthropic News | The Verge - Tech | AI Everything Workspace | OpenAI Research | WSJ Tech News | VentureBeat AI
The Digital Assistant (SOP Creator)
→ Pain Point:
“Everything in our company lives in people’s heads.”
Most growing businesses struggle with:
Tribal knowledge
Inconsistent execution
Slow onboarding
Vendors constantly “doing it their own way”
AI initiatives failing because there is no clean source of truth
Founders and leaders become the human instruction manual:
Explaining the same processes over and over
Fixing the same mistakes
Reviewing work that should already meet standards
Bottlenecking decisions and quality control
You need:
A “Gold SOP” standard for every core process
A way to document processes once and reuse them everywhere
Clear instructions for team members and vendors
Clean, structured knowledge to train AI and automations properly
But in reality…
Processes are in Slack, Notion, Google Docs, and people’s memories
Everyone does the “same” task differently
Vendors miss steps because instructions are vague
New hires take months to become effective
AI can’t be trusted because the inputs are messy and incomplete
You think:
“There has to be a way to turn how we operate into a real system — not a collection of explanations.”
→ Solution: The Strategic Process Guardrail
This isn’t another document folder.
It’s an AI Assisted Solution powered by a Custom GPT called The SOP Assistant inside ChatGPT
It sits within your ChatGPT account and becomes the single go-to for creating SOPs for your business quickly!
Deploy this AI Assistant so that:
Standardizes Knowledge
Every process is captured in a consistent “SOP” format.Extracts Processes From Reality
You describe how work is done. The SOP Assistant turns it into a clean, structured SOP.Enforces Standards
Work is executed against the SOP, not personal interpretation.Trains Humans and AI
The same SOPs are used for:Onboarding
Vendor instructions
Quality control
AI agents and automations
Centralizes the Brain
The way your company operates lives in a place where you host all of your documented processes, not in people’s heads.
→ Execution Plan
Standardize the “Gold SOP”
Define the required structure: purpose, scope, steps, checks, edge cases, outputs.Capture the Reality
Use the SOP Assistant custom GPT to interview your team and extract how work is actually done.Normalize and Clean
The Assistant rewrites everything into consistent, clear, enforceable SOPs. Then copy/paste the final version and save it in your document drive (Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.) your business uses.Stress-Test
Give the SOP to:A new hire
A vendor
An AI agent
If they can’t execute it correctly, the SOP isn’t done.
Operationalize
Make SOPs the gatekeeper for:Training
Delegation
Automation
Scaling
→Problem Solved: From Tribal Knowledge to Operating System
From “Just Ask Jim” to “It’s in the SOP”
This replaces:
Repeated explanations
Inconsistent results
Slow ramp times
Founder bottlenecks
With:
A real operating system
Predictable execution
Faster onboarding
Scalable delegation
→ The Result
One Source of Truth: How the business actually runs
Zero Guesswork: Everyone follows the same playbook
AI-Ready: Clean, structured knowledge that AI can finally use
Scalable: You can grow without knowledge breaking
ACCESS THE CUSTOM GPT: SOP ASSISTANT BY CLICKING THE BUTTON BELOW
*Note, to access CustomGPTs, you may need to upgrade your ChatGPT account to “Plus”
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