Lattice CEO: AI will flatten the difference between entry level staff and the C-suite

I posed that question recently to Sarah Franklin, the CEO of Lattice, an AI-powered HR platform for managing employee performance that was co-founded and led by Altman’s brother Jack, who’s now executive chairman. Franklin spent 16 years at Salesforce before joining Lattice as CEO 18 months ago to help grow the $3 billion unicorn.

“We’ve been trained that the workforce is a pyramid. You go to college to get a job on the bottom rung, and you work your way up a ladder to the top,” she told me. “Now, we are all at a very different point. We’re all at the same place. There’s no difference in knowledge levels that we all have, whether you’re an entry-level employee or an executive.”

AI has flattened the knowledge hierarchy, forcing leaders to learn new tools and reimagine everything from business models to job descriptions.

Franklin made waves right away by introducing employee records for “digital workers”—a.k.a. AI agents—only to back down after a backlash that claimed it was disrespectful to her human employees.

Nonetheless she’s convinced that leaders and AI agents will soon be working side by side. “The AI is helpful at really giving us eyes where we don’t have them, removing our blinders, helping us see and understand better,” she says. So while a boss may just see a salesperson achieving quota or a ‘mediocre’ colleague, the AI may surface that the quota was met despite some poor behaviors, or that the mediocre performer is actually stellar at helping their peers.

With 89% of CEOs exploring, piloting, or implementing agentic AI at their companies, according to the most recent Fortune/Deloitte CEO SurveyI’d love to know what’s working for you. Drop me a line at diane.brady@fortune.com.

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Also, we’d love to get your nominations for companies to consider for Fortune’s 2025 Change the World list, which features companies that are doing well by doing good. You can see last year’s honorees here. The deadline for applications this year is Tuesday, July 29. The list will be published in late September, and will appear in the October/November issue of Fortune magazine. Use this Google Form to nominate a company, including your own. And if you have questions, reach out to our editors at changetheworld@fortune.com.

More news below.

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com

Top news

Israel-Iran ceasefire lasted less than 2 hours

President Trump announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran last night, and at 7.10 a.m. London time Israel said it agreed to the pact. But at 8.31 a.m., the BBC reported Iran fired a fresh round of missiles into northern Israel. Israel’s defense minister vowed “Tehran will shake” and ordered the IDF to respond forcefully. Iran denied it fired upon Israel. It looks like we are back at square one in the Middle East. Live updates here.

Trump insults Powell, again

Just after 1.30 a.m. EST, Trump posted another rant against Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on social media. Powell is due to testify to Congress today. Trump wants Powell to cut interest rates, but with inflation above the Fed’s target, and the economy showing signs of tariff-induced weakness, the Fed has kept rates on hold. “Europe has had 10 cuts, we have had ZERO. No inflation, great economy – We should be at least two to three points lower. Would save the USA 800 Billion Dollars Per Year, plus. What a difference this would make. If things later change to the negative, increase the Rate. I hope Congress really works this very dumb, hardheaded person, over,” the president said.

Jeff Bezos will marry Lauren Sanchez today

Fortune’s Lily Mae Lazarus takes a look at what is likely to be in the prenup agreement.

Traffic safety regulator asks Tesla about erratic Robotaxi incidents.

The NHTSA is concerned about videos on YouTube showing the autonomous cars driving the wrong way down one-way streets, braking suddenly, and responding to parked cars that aren’t impeding their progress.

Are IPOs back?

Almost 100 companies have gone public since the start of the year, the most in any time since 2021. Analysts, however, say that while conditions are getting better for the IPO market, “it’s still pretty selective.”

Ai frequently chooses blackmail

A new report from Anthropic found that AI systems from leading tech companies chose to resort to blackmail as much as 96% of the time when faced with the threat of being shut down in controlled environments. Anthropic researchers noted that “The consistency across models from different providers suggests this is not a quirk of any particular company’s approach but a sign of a more fundamental risk from agentic large language models.”

Workday sued for screening resumes with AI

Derek Mobley says he made more than 100 job applications via Workday’s software but was rejected every time. His lawsuit hopes to find out whether the software is discriminating against him based on his age, race, or disabilities. “There’s a standard bell curve in statistics. It didn’t make sense that my failure rate was 100%,” he said.

Nvidia chief’s massive compensation plan begins

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will sell $865 million of stock by the end of the year in a planned series of sales that are part of his compensation.

The markets

• S&P futures were up 0.83% this morning despite news that last night’s ceasefire agreement between Iran and Israel appears to have been almost immediately broken with more missile attacks. Brent crude declined to $68 per barrel this morning. The S&P 500 index closed up 0.96% yesterday. Stoxx Europe 600 was up 1.3% in early trading. South Korea’s Kospi was up 2.96% this morning. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up 2%. China’s CSI 300 was up 1.2%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 1.14%. The VIX “fear” index retreated more than 10%.

From the analysts

• Goldman Sachs on tariffs, “the dog that didn’t bark”: “Our projection for the 2025 increase in the effective US tariff rate has stabilized at around 14pp over the past two months, dramatically higher than the 2pp increase in the first Trump administration but significantly below the 20pp we assumed for two hours on April 9. Stabilization in the tariff outlook has helped financial conditions ease and pushed statistical measures of policy uncertainty down from the highs. It has also led us to shave our December 2025 core PCE inflation forecast to 3.4%, boost our 2025 US growth forecast to 1.25% on a Q4/Q4 basis, and cut our 12-month US recession probability to 30%,” per Jan Hatzius.
• Wedbush on Tesla’s Robotaxi launch: “Going into it, we expected to be impressed but walking away from it, all there is to say is that this is the future. We took two approximately 15 minute rides around Austin and the key takeaways are that it was a comfortable, safe, and personalized experience. The ride itself was completely smooth, and it was indistinguishable that the car was driverless as there was never a moment in the vehicle where we felt as if it did something irrational,” per Daniel Ives and team.
• JPMorgan on the Fed: “We believe, however, that the labor market—which Chair Powell argued is “not crying out for a rate cut”—will be the primary arbiter of action. In the face of labor market softening that threatens recession, we see the Fed easing and looking past a tariff-related inflation shock that is perceived as transitory,” per Bruce Kasman et al.
• EY-Parthenon on U.S. slowdown: “The US economy is poised for a summer slowdown. Economic activity was artificially boosted early in 2025 as businesses and consumers rushed to front-load purchases ahead of anticipated trade restrictions. While the sharp reversal in imports will provide a mechanical lift to Q2 GDP growth, this earlier pull-forward sets the stage for a pronounced demand cliff in the second half of the year. Both consumer spending and business investment are expected to decelerate significantly,” per Gregory Daco.

Around the watercooler

Anthony Pompliano strikes deal to create publicly-traded Bitcoin treasury company by Catherine McGrath

Gen Z is facing a job-market bloodbath—but JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon says employers are still chasing students who studied these fields by Preston Fore

Melinda French Gates says some tech titans siding with Trump are doing ‘what some comms person’ tells them instead of living by their values by Eleanor Pringle

Tesla robotaxi finally launches but hiccups include long wait times, Pokemon-style hunts for the car, and even driving in wrong lane by Christiaan Hetzner

CEO Daily is compiled and edited by Joey Abrams and Jim Edwards.

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