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The home of corporate innovation

Innovation takes inspiration.
Being innovative takes a system.
We built it.

Discover the technology, the expertise and the resources for corporate innovation in the AI era, in one place. Meet Ainna AI, our agentic innovation platform, and explore our advisory programmes, toolkits and books. Start your journey to the Innovation Mode.

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Meet Ainna, the AI innovation agent.

Building got free. Judgment didn't. Watch Ainna frame a rough brief, grade it honestly, and hold its line when you push back.

How strong is your startup idea? · The Innovation Mode on YouTube

New editionInnovation Toolkit 4.0

Innovation,
by the book.

Eight in-depth templates and one real problem carried through all of them, from the sponsor’s brief to the go/no-go decision. Your team learns from filled-in documents, not blank ones.

8Innovation templates
9Sample documents
20AI prompts
IM-9Idea assessment model

Learn more → See the worked case

€249 one-time purchase · Instant download · Perpetual licence for your organisation · Free for students and educators

Sample Problem Definition from the worked case, first page

The worked case, step by step

One hypothetical yet realistic case, with every template filled in and the reasoning explained.

The Six Innovation Deficits

Is innovation actually working in your company?

For most organisations, the honest answer is: not really. Programmes generate activity but few products; the pipeline of validated concepts reaching customers stays thin. The cause is rarely ambition or budget. It’s a missing architecture. We’ve seen the pattern across industries and codified it as the six Innovation Deficits, published in Innovation Mode: Designing Innovative Companies in the Era of Artificial Intelligence, the framework we assess your organisation against.

Where to Start

Are your leaders equipped to drive innovation?

Most leaders want innovation to work, but lack a corporate innovation system to make it repeatable. No diagnostic, no shared playbook, no performance framework, no sequenced masterplan, no AI-native operating model. Three patterns dominate the Leadership Deficit: complacency from past success, willingness without innovation expertise, or expertise without C-suite backing. Equip leadership with the right system, and the other deficits become tractable.

Is your organisation designed for innovation, or against it?

Most company structures actively block innovation: fragmented business units, excessive hierarchy, vague accountability, broken knowledge transfer. R&D operates in isolation from product and customer-facing teams; critical market insights never reach the people who can act on them. Together, these patterns form the Organizational Design Deficit.

Are your innovation capabilities a working system, or fragments?

Determination isn’t enough. Most organisations lack the tools, processes, and AI integration to deliver. Legacy infrastructure blocks frequent releases and in-product experimentation. Specific capabilities exist in isolation, with no orchestration layer tying them into a working innovation function. This is the Innovation Capabilities Deficit.

Is your innovation connected to real market signal?

When a company stops listening to the world outside its walls, innovation drifts. The pattern shows up as an inability to systematically scan markets, engage customers, process feedback, and run experiments. Innovation teams build sophisticated solutions to problems that don’t exist, particularly when a technology function leads the agenda. This disconnection is the Real-World Connection Deficit.

Do you have the talent, and the culture, to innovate?

Innovation requires specialised skills (product design, rapid prototyping, user research, business experimentation) that don’t exist or develop naturally. Combined with a culture that punishes risk-taking, organisations face gaps on both fronts: missing the people, missing the conditions. These gaps make up the Talent and Cultural Deficit.

Can you turn validated concepts into real products, fast enough?

What ultimately defines success: the ability to build, launch, and grow in-market assets and real products fast enough to reach product-market fit. Without venture-building capability, opportunities wait for implementation, get outsourced to vendors, or get assigned to teams without the capacity or skills to deliver. What’s missing is the venture-building function itself: the Venture Building Deficit.

The advisory programmes diagnose which deficits are present and score them against the 7-level Innovation Maturity Index. But three of the six (capabilities, market connection, venture building) are infrastructure deficits. Infrastructure isn’t advised into existence. It has to be built. Ainna is the platform ↓

Agentic innovation, defined

Agentic innovation describes a new class of system that has a dual nature: it helps organisations innovate, by streamlining processes such as market scanning and organisational alignment, but it also innovates on its own.

From Innovation Mode by George Krasadakis, the first published architecture for agentic innovation in a corporate context. Read the full definition → In the Innovation Dictionary

The Agentic Innovation Platform

The AI-native system that runs corporate innovation.

Ainna is the agentic system specified in Innovation Mode, the first published architecture for agentic innovation, running in production. Autonomous discovery surfaces opportunities. The Judge scores each one across viability dimensions; the Panel challenges it from the perspectives that matter. What survives arrives as a defensible case: board-ready decks and PRDs, in minutes, not months.

For organisations, Ainna deploys as internal innovation infrastructure: white-labelled, in your own cloud, carrying your innovation agenda. Explore Ainna Enterprise →

Book Your Demo → Explore Ainna.ai →

Executive Advisory

From mandate to masterplan,
in eight weeks.

Two programmes for the leader who owns the mandate: one architects the innovation function the AI era demands, the other delivers a board-ready AI strategy. Both are led personally by the author of Innovation Mode, start with a free call or a three-week, fixed-price assessment, and include copies of the book for your leadership team.

01Corporate Innovation Advisory

Architect the innovation function the AI era demands.

An AI-powered innovation function, diagnosed from your context, shaped with your leadership team and sequenced into a masterplan your board can back.

8weeks
6modules
4board-ready deliverables

Deliverables

Innovation Readiness AssessmentWhere you stand on the 7-level Innovation Maturity Index, and the structural deficits holding you back.
Innovation Performance FrameworkKPIs that track real capability, not vanity metrics.
Innovation PlaybookOne shared, branded way of innovating that your teams can execute.
Innovation MasterplanThe next 24 months, sequenced across the Six Phases of Innovation Transformation.

Designed for CxOs and innovation leaders with programmes, labs and hackathons under way, but a thin pipeline and little real-world evidence.

Start with a free 30-minute call, or the three-week Innovation Maturity Diagnostic, its fee credited in full to the programme. Request the diagnostic →

Explore the programme → 8 weeks · 6 modules · Remote or hybrid

02AI Strategy Advisory

A board-ready AI strategy in eight weeks.

Built from your context and framed with your key stakeholders: the use cases worth backing, product concepts your teams can build, and a masterplan ready to act on.

8weeks
8–12use cases
3–5product concepts

Deliverables

AI Readiness AssessmentData, talent, infrastructure and leadership alignment, assessed objectively.
AI Use Case PortfolioOpportunities scored on impact and feasibility, so investment follows value.
AI Product ConceptsSpecifications your teams can build, not slides to interpret.
AI Innovation MasterplanThe next 12 to 24 months, phased and ready for board approval.
Executive AI BriefingA board-ready strategy for leadership alignment and investment.

Designed for CxOs whose board expects an AI strategy, with pilots under way but no clear priorities, sequence or measures yet.

Start with a free 30-minute call, or the three-week AI Readiness Assessment, its fee credited in full to the programme. Request the assessment →

Explore the programme → 8 weeks · 7 modules · Remote or hybrid

Complementary by design: run one, or sequence both. Not sure where to start? A 30-minute strategy call settles it. Arrange a Strategy Call →

Hackathon Masterclass

Planning a corporate hackathon? Do it right.

The Hackathon Masterclass turns the hackathon method from Innovation Mode into a 90-minute video, with every template to run your own. Run it in-house, or design it with us.

Self-Serve · Coming soon

The Masterclass

The 90-minute video and every template: brief, decks, scoring workbook, judge pack and communications library. For teams running the hackathon themselves.

Advisor-Led

The Masterclass, Live

Your hackathon designed with us from end to end: a discovery call and questionnaire, a plan refined with you, a calibration session with your judging panel and a debrief after the event.

Bespoke

Programmes at Scale

For hackathons as a capability: multi-event and multi-region programmes, train-the-trainer, custom rubrics and themes, judging and chairing, and a permanent operating model.

Explore the Masterclass → Design it with us → Read the Framework →

The Methodology

Innovation Mode: Designing Innovative Companies in the Era of Artificial Intelligence, book cover

Innovation Mode

Designing Innovative Companies in the Era of Artificial Intelligence

The executive operating manual for building AI-powered innovation functions. Opens with the diagnostic framework (the 6 Innovation Deficits) that explains why innovation programmes fail. Builds upward through organisational design, culture, AI-powered capabilities, and a sequenced masterplan of 70+ interventions mapped to the 7-level Innovation Maturity Index.

1. Innovation (Re)Defined

7. Opportunity Validation

2. The Innovative Organization

8. Opportunity Realization

3. People and Culture

9. Innovation Performance Measurement

4. Innovation Capabilities: Powered by AI

10. The Innovation Masterplan

5. Innovation Workshops & AI

11. Final Remarks

6. AI-Powered Opportunity Discovery

Innovation Mode Publishing · 434 pages · 11 chapters · Author’s Edition

Buy the Book · €39 →

"There’s a moment in every organization’s life where it hits a wall. Not because it’s run out of ideas, but because it’s run out of clarity… That’s what George Krasadakis offers in Innovation Mode. Not just a book but a blueprint for what it really takes to build innovative companies in today’s world."

Alex Adamopoulos · CEO, Emergn (from the Foreword)

"It is remarkable how the first edition correctly foresaw the pending rise of AI in our lives, work, and daily language… The book provides an excellent overview and reference point about people, culture, and capabilities as the key pillars of innovation and practical ways to discover, validate, and realize opportunities on the road to innovation."

Dr. Mathew Hughes · Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, University of Leicester (from the Foreword)

"Very practical and inspirational for executives, leaders, middle-level managers, and teams willing to transform their vision to actual execution. Must-read and must-use."

Achilleas Stergioulis · Director, INTRASOFT International

"A practical guide for how to tap your organisation’s creative energy, and transform it into an innovation-driven pace-setter."

Bart Manning · Head of Sales & BD, Unity

"An inspiring and must-read for every organisation that doesn’t wish to sit on the sidelines while someone else steals their share of the market."

Sue McGill · SVP, ATB Ventures

"A must-read for innovation managers, top-level corporate executives, and entrepreneurs!"

A. Tzoumas · CTO, SciFY.org

Frameworks & Tools

Put the method to work.

Frameworks from the book. Templates used by innovation teams globally. Two free ebooks of practitioner perspectives on innovation and AI.

Practitioner Toolkit · New edition

Innovation Toolkit 4.0

Eight editable templates for problem framing, ideation, IM-9 idea assessment, product concepts, experiments and workshops, with a worked case that shows every document filled in and 20 AI prompts.

Word · Excel · PowerPoint · €249 · Free for students and educators Learn more → Frameworks & Reference

Innovation Maturity Index

The 7-level diagnostic that scores where your organisation stands today, and where the architecture would take it. Used to anchor every advisory engagement.

Explore the framework → Hub

Corporate Hackathon Hub

Everything on corporate hackathons: the guide, planning and running one step by step, measuring success, how to win one, and the masterclass and advisory behind it.

Explore the hub → Reference

Innovation Dictionary

73 terms defined, from Adjacent Innovation to Venture Building. The shared vocabulary that keeps cross-functional teams aligned.

Open the dictionary →

Free Ebooks

60 Leaders on Innovation cover

Free · 286 Pages

60 Leaders on Innovation

22 questions answered by 60 senior executives on how innovation actually works inside global enterprises.

Download free ebook →

60 Leaders on AI cover

Free · 17 Chapters

60 Leaders on AI

60 thought leaders on AI’s transformative impact across healthcare, finance, manufacturing, and beyond.

Download free ebook →

Also Available

Design Sprint Guide → Innovation Workshop Templates → Problem Statement Template → Business Idea Template → Business Experiment Template → Product Concept Template → The Innovation Blog → The Innovation Newsletter →

For the Academic Community

We actively support teaching and research.

Professors, researchers, and student programme leaders work at the source of the next generation of innovators. We make our published frameworks, toolkits, and reference materials available on special terms when the use is educational.

The Innovation Mode book for MBA, entrepreneurship, and innovation management courses
The Innovation Toolkit and supporting templates for student programmes
Ainna access for course workshops and student venture work, by arrangement

Tell us about your course or programme. You’ll hear back from the founder.

The Academic Programme →

Frequently Asked

Questions we get asked most.

Most corporate innovation programmes fail because they lack architecture. There is no diagnostic to establish where the organisation actually stands, no performance framework that distinguishes real capability from vanity metrics, and no sequenced intervention plan. Hackathons generate momentum but rarely a product pipeline. Internal labs launch with energy and lose relevance within a year. Innovation Mode identifies these structural gaps as the 6 Innovation Deficits: Leadership (the root cause), Organizational Design, Innovation Capabilities, Real-World Connection, Talent and Cultural, and Venture Building. Most struggling organisations carry three or more simultaneously, and the advisory programmes treat them directly rather than layering more activity on top.

Agentic innovation management is the practice of running an organisation’s innovation function with autonomous AI agents: systems that continuously discover opportunities, assess viability across multiple dimensions, challenge assumptions from the perspectives of stakeholders and personas, and produce decision-ready documentation, with humans setting direction and making the decisions. It differs from traditional idea management software, which collects and routes employee ideas but leaves discovery, evaluation, and documentation manual. The first published architecture for agentic innovation in a corporate context appears in Innovation Mode; Ainna.ai is that architecture running in production, generating pitch-ready decks and PRDs alongside its assessments. Innovation Mode Limited is the company; Ainna.ai is its platform, with self-serve plans and white-labelled enterprise deployment in the customer’s own cloud.

They solve different halves of the same problem. Three of the six Innovation Deficits are organisational (leadership, organisational design, talent and culture), and those are treated through the advisory programmes. The other three (capabilities, real-world market connection, venture building) are infrastructure, and that infrastructure is what Ainna provides. The strongest engagements combine the two, as two delivery forms of the same system: the advisory installs the operating model in your organisation, and the platform runs it day to day. If you’re unsure where to start, a Strategy Call settles it in 30 minutes.

Innovation maturity is the degree to which an organisation has embedded innovation into its strategy, culture, processes, and technology. It is assessed through a multi-dimensional diagnostic: the Innovation Maturity Index, published in Innovation Mode, scores the organisation across six dimensions mapped to the 6 Innovation Deficits (leadership, organisational design, capabilities, real-world market connection, talent and culture, and venture-building infrastructure) and places it at one of 7 levels, from Inactive (Level 1) to Innovation-Native (Level 7). Most organisations overestimate their maturity. The Corporate Innovation Advisory programme delivers this as a board-ready Innovation Readiness Assessment, anchoring a 24-month transformation masterplan.

A fractional Chief Innovation Officer (sometimes offered as CInO as a Service) delivers the strategic output of a full-time Chief Innovation Officer without the permanent hire: an Innovation Readiness Assessment, an Innovation Performance Framework, a branded Innovation Playbook, and a 24-month transformation masterplan. The Corporate Innovation Advisory programme provides this in a focused 8-week engagement. It is designed for organisations that need senior innovation management leadership at speed.

Innovation advisory builds internal capability: diagnostics, playbooks, and masterplans the organisation’s own teams execute. Traditional innovation consulting produces recommendations that sit on a shelf. The Corporate Innovation Advisory programme produces specifications: a performance framework, a sequenced masterplan of 70+ interventions, and a branded Innovation Playbook, your organisation’s operating manual for innovation (methods, templates, decision frameworks, AI tool integration, role definitions, and shared terminology) that answers one question: how do we innovate here? The output is a transformation programme leadership owns, not a deck a vendor delivers.

The diagnostic and roadmap phase takes 8 weeks through the Innovation Mode advisory programmes. The transformation itself is a multi-year journey mapped to the Six Phases framework: Power-Up, Spark, Connect, Empower, Scale-Up, and Embed. Each phase corresponds to a maturity level transition. The roadmap includes 70+ sequenced interventions covering leadership alignment, culture change, capability building, AI integration, and organisational design, so the organisation knows exactly what to do at each stage and in what order.

Building an AI strategy follows a structured methodology: AI readiness assessment, stakeholder and latent needs mapping, competitive intelligence, technology scanning, use case prioritisation, AI product concepts, rapid prototyping, and a phased 12–24 month implementation roadmap. Together these produce a prioritised AI use case portfolio and a board-ready AI strategy: the deliverables of the AI Strategy Advisory programme, in 8 weeks. Ownership matters as much as method. AI strategy is a CEO-level accountability, but the operational owner varies by organisational maturity: the Chief Technology Officer or a dedicated Head of AI in early-stage adoption, the Chief Innovation Officer or a Chief AI Officer with direct board reporting in more mature organisations. What matters more than the title is clear ownership: a single executive responsible for the use case portfolio, the implementation roadmap, and the governance framework. Ambiguous ownership is the single most common reason AI strategies stall.

A corporate hackathon succeeds or fails in its design, not on the day. The framework in Innovation Mode treats it as a complete lifecycle: defining the theme and design parameters, structured execution, judging against defined evaluation models and scoring rubrics, and, most critically, a post-event realisation path that carries winning concepts into validation and development. The most common failure mode is treating the hackathon as a standalone event: energy peaks, winners are announced, nothing ships. Performance should be measured as a funnel (participation, artifacts produced, concepts validated, concepts commercialised) linked back to the event. The Hackathon Masterclass, coming soon, teaches the complete method, with every template to run your own.

Innovation Insights · Q02 · 5 min

Collaboration or competition? What really drives innovation in organizations?

Both. Competition drives innovation when it is healthy: ideas compete, people collaborate, under a protocol of twelve rules.

The answer and the reading behind it All questions

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Product, MVPs and prototyping

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