Hey there,
When the White House is shipping American AI stacks, Gartner is flagging the AI-era as HR hassle, and tariffs are changing overnight, operations is exactly where risk hides.
See how this edition turns that chaos into a fast risk plan and a Strategic AI, Talent, and Tariff Shock Risk Radar so your ops don’t just absorb shocks—they cash in on them.
Use this as your daily COO huddle to turn AI, HR, and tariffs into signal.
In this issue:
Playbook of the Day
American AI Stack Ops Debrief For COOs
Goal: Turn the American AI stack push into a 15-minute daily debrief on how exports, sovereignty, and agent standards shift tomorrow’s intelligence risk.
Who: COO/Head of Operations, leads for AI intelligence, security/standards, trade/exports, and regulated ops for (health, energy, gov); same time daily.
Before the debrief (3 mins):
Each lead adds 2–3 bullets on that day’s American AI exports, National Champions, Tech Corps activity, and sovereignty & standards signals.
The host tags items on stack deployments, financing/de-risking, or NIST agent standards likely to hit your infra, markets, or partners soon.
During the 15 minutes:
Today in 5 Minutes: Each lead proposes an AI stack move, one sovereignty or standards risk, and a changed metric; exports, partners, or security.
Risks in 5 Minutes: Flag when efficient AI exports, has weak boundaries, or uses agentic tools creating serious ops risk, and assign a single owner.
Tomorrow in 5 Minutes: The host locks a minimal list of next-day actions on stack validation, partner controls, and standards/playbook updates.
Rules: Don’t rewrite AI strategy or start new projects here. Focus on today’s signals and name clear owners to watch the stack, take the call, and lead tomorrow.
Latest News
⚙️White House American AI Stack Exports
Published: 02/23/2026
White House encourages Trump's AI exports: ‘American AI stack’ bundles such as hardware, cloud, models, cyber defenses, Tech Corps volunteers, and ‘NIST’ agent standards. OSTP's Kratsios at India Summit rejects global control, favoring the U.S. backed sovereign setups via Commerce, Treasury funds, EXIM for allies' health, energy, & gov ops.
Upside: COOs are using a strategy to deploy modular U.S. AI stacks for resilient ops sovereignty, merge secure models and hardware with partner platforms, adoption barriers are cut, and lead AI sovereignty in important sectors such as; defense and health analytics despite global tech races.
Impact: Transforms fragmented deployments into interoperable AI engines, boosts efficiency, security, and exports, as White House emulates to forge trusted global standards, accelerating the intelligence ROI, and position U.S. firms as preemptive guardians in agentic AI-driven markets.
🧠 Gartner’s 2026 HR Trends for ‘AI-Era’
Published: 02/22/26
Gartner' feature shows that FAI is shaking up HR in 2026 with messy layoffs, stress, low‑value work, fraud risks, job changes, and new pay conflicts over digital clones. HR leaders need to rebalance roles, treat people fairly, protect wellbeing, treat hiring and screening more carefully, retrain staff, and stay in control of what AI is allowed to decide.
Upside: COOs gains a strategy to counter AI setbacks, merging talent post-RIFs, making boundaries for mental resilience, targeting stressful processes for AI uses, redesigns, blending human & AI recruiting against fraud acts, and compensating digital replicas. ensuring sustainability.
Impact: Transforms AI into ops reality by prioritizing process pros/critical thinkers over tech wizards, fortifying employment brands, preempting skill erosion re-hires, and building AI-proof strategies that drive growth, cut costs, and secure intelligence workflows in economic nationalism.
🤯 Tariff Whiplash: COOs On Shock Strats
Published: 02/21/2026
Business Insider reports that after the Supreme Court rolled back Trump’s tariffs, a new 10% import surcharge followed, making COOs’ jobs even harder. Now having to constantly rework sourcing, pricing, and factory plans with nonstop uncertainty. Tariffs may be made in Washington, but they land in the COO’s inbox, where margin & expectations are juggled.
Upside: For COOs in globally exposed, intelligence based businesses, this chaos is a catalyst to build tariff-resilient models as diverse sourcing, flexible contracts, with dynamic pricing, and scenario engines that treat policy shocks as routine inputs. Strategizing protects orgs from whiplash.
Impact: In a tariff-heavy era, COOs become the primary shock absorbers for policy risk, keeping plants running and margins intact as rules flip. Treating trade volatility as a permanent design constraint will define tomorrow’s COO intelligence, with networks built to reroute and reprice.
Prompt of the Day
Strategic AI, Talent, and Tariff Shock Risk Radar
Trigger Event | Action | Use Case Example |
|---|---|---|
Start of the week. | Scan AI, tariffs, people risks. | Quick view of where AI exports, surcharges, or talent gaps may hit ops. |
Before leadership/ops sync. | Pull key AI and workforce topics. | Flag AI bets, RIF/rehire and tariff calls needing top-team input. |
When a project feels unstable. | Note AI, talent, and policy blockers. | Identify if drag is AI workslop, gaps, fraud, or suppliers—and fixes. |
After a surprising incident. | Log event, AI systems, people, shocks. | Rapid postmortem on AI/insider/tariff hits to update playbooks. |
Month-end / quarter-end planning. | Map AI, staffing, trade vs. capacity. | 30–90 day risk map on where to pause, invest, or reskill. |
Prompt
“Act as my Strategic AI, Talent, and Tariff Shock Risk Radar. Using our Experian–AtData identity work, CHC-style community ops, Gartner’s AI-era HR shifts, and tariff whiplash pressures as context, (1) flag the top 3 AI, workforce, and trade-exposure risks for the next 30 days, (2) highlight early warning signals to watch this week, and (3) suggest 2–3 concrete mitigation steps I can assign today.”
Know your people and your business. Insist on realism. Set clear goals and priorities. Follow through. Reward the doers
One last Thing
Structural shocks from exported AI stacks to tariff surcharges and AI‑driven RIFs—can be an upgrade, not just more turbulence to tank morale and margins.
Use AI deployment, decisions, and trade move as a signal to scan, asses, and assign.
Turning volatility into a repeatable operating rhythm for stability is top priority.
Until next edition,
Chloe Rivers
Editor-in-Chief
COO Intelligence
P.S. Interested in sponsoring a future issue? Just reply to this email and I’ll send packages!