In July we published the first editions of our research series, built from instrument questions inside the application flow for our executive events. Today we published the August editions, built the same way, from the same questions, asked of the people who came through the doors in the weeks since: 6,055 unique registrations across 15 events, deduplicated to 5,311 executives, founders, and investors.
Three things moved in 30 days. AI purchase authority consolidated upward: business-unit sign-off halved while the share of companies where nobody owns the AI purchase doubled to 14 percent. Budget clarity got worse, not better: the share of finance leaders with no clear AI budget rose from 23 percent to 34 percent. And the payback window stretched: under-six-month ROI expectation fell six points while "not sure" rose eight.
Put those together and you get the thesis of the August set: authority is consolidating faster than accountability. The same month that moved the AI signature toward the CEO also widened the uncertainty that signature answers for.
There is also a new room in the data. Our first instrumented investor gathering produced 245 responses, and the investors' answer to who increasingly owns AI buying across their portfolios was the CEO, at 51 percent. Operators inside companies say the same thing from their side. When two audiences that never see each other's answers agree, we pay attention.
Seven reports are live: CFO, CMO, CISO, CEO, YC Founder, Investor, and the Executive synthesis, plus a statistics page with every number in citable form.
The September editions will be built at the August events. If you want to be in the data instead of reading it, the calendar is here.
Last updated: August 1, 2026
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Read the August Editions
Seven reports built from 6,055 registrations across 15 events, with the base on every figure and a statistics page with every number in citable form.