Arnaud's note

Every Wednesday, a personal note: field experience, the example of a company getting it right, the essential takeaways, and concrete recommendations for your business.

Arnaud Quintin is the founder of YPrtnrs. A transformation practitioner, he has delivered programmes inside major organizations, from the boardroom to the front line, from diagnosis to results. He signs his notes and perspectives here.

Arnaud Quintin on LinkedIn →

A ten-person firm goes deep on AI as often as a five-thousand-person one.

September 23, 2026

In December 2025 the European Central Bank asked 5,067 companies across twelve euro area countries how they would describe their own use of AI. Around 70 percent reported some use. Broken down: 27 percent not using it, 33 percent using it very infrequently or in pilots, 31 percent moderately, 7 percent significantly, and 2 percent unsure. One survey, one question, one base, and a central bank has no interest in the number landing high or low.

"We use AI" has stopped meaning anything.

September 16, 2026

In 2025, 20 percent of EU enterprises with ten or more employees used at least one AI technology, against 13.5 percent a year earlier and 8.1 percent in 2023. This is Eurostat, one survey, one definition, twenty-seven countries. Eight technologies are counted, from text analysis to autonomous robots, and nobody at Eurostat has an interest in the number going up or down.

Your first AI project is smaller than you think.

September 9, 2026

A few weeks ago the chief executive of an industrial mid-market company told me he was waiting. Not for the technology, he said. For the money. In his head, a serious AI project meant several hundred thousand euros and a program running two or three years. So it sat in next year’s plan, exactly where it had sat the year before.

AI drafts. You sign.

September 2, 2026

Over coffee last month with the managing partner of a firm. He tells me, with real pride: “My teams draft three times faster than a year ago.” I believe him. I ask one question: “And who reviews it before it goes to the client?” A silence. Then: “Everyone reviews their own.”

Your teams are already using AI. Without you.

August 19, 2026

A lunch, a few months ago, with the CEO of a fine industrial SMB. He tells me: "AI? We're not there yet. I'm waiting for things to become clearer." Twenty minutes later, his sales director shows me on his phone how he prepares his client meetings: he pastes the client's history into a free AI and asks it for a meeting plan. Client data, in a tool nobody vetted. The CEO was stunned.

Read-only snapshot of the Institute's published content as of 2026-10-05.