3 AI Stories That Matter in 2026: From $1.5M Agentic AI Results to Alexa's Biggest Upgrade

Dr. Ryan Ries here. Happy 2026. I hope you were able to take some time away during the holidays to relax and refresh. I spent my holiday with the family in Italy! 

I figured for this week’s Matrix, we can kick off the year with a few recent news stories that caught my eye.

A retro burnout antidote to consider

If you don’t feel quite as refreshed from the holiday season, you might try digging out your retro 80s gaming systems.

Researchers from Imperial College London and Kyushu Sangyo University have just published findings that I found pretty interesting. Playing Super Mario Bros. and Yoshi games sparks what they call "childlike wonder"—and that wonder directly reduces burnout risk.

The sample size for this survey was small, but researchers found that the joy from playing these games initiates a psychological restoration process. The warm aesthetics, cheerful music, and low-pressure environment were seen to replenish cognitive resources.

We're in an "always-on" digital culture where burnout is so frequent. I personally feel that each of us needs to find our unique antidote to burnout, but if you haven’t found one that works for you yet, you might try retro gaming!

Amazon just launched Alexa+ & It’s Pretty Sweet

Big news from Amazon: Alexa+ dropped this week!

The “new” Alexa is conversational in a way that changes how you can interact with AI. You can interrupt mid-sentence, and it adapts (which isn’t always the case with AI). You can switch topics, and it maintains context. You can start a conversation on your browser, continue it on your phone, and finish it on your Echo device.

From my perspective, this has some really cool use cases.

Persistent context across every device means Alexa+ remembers your entire conversation history, making it feel less like giving commands and more like working with an always-available household assistant.

After reading some articles, here are just a few examples of where I could see Alexa+ being handy:

Streamlined Event Planning

• Plan entire parties from start to finish including inspiration, checklists, invitations, shopping lists
• Example: Plan a "LEGO themed dinner party" on your browser during lunch, add specific dietary needs via your phone on the commute home (speaking aloud, not texting while driving!). Then you finalize the music playlist on your Echo while cooking dinner

Seamless Vacation Planning

• Start researching destinations on your computer browser
• Continue on your phone to browse flight options and add travel dates to your calendar
• Pick up on Echo or Fire TV to book hotels or activities—Alexa+ remembers everything you discussed and your flight details
• (And if you need Italy recommendations, let me know)

Natural Meal Planning Across Your Day

• Ask "What's an easy dish we can all eat?" on your Echo in the morning. You could’ve previously shared with Alexa+ everyone’s dietary preferences and restrictions, so it’ll adjust for that
• Continue the conversation on your phone at the grocery store to adjust the ingredient list
• Finish on your Fire TV in the kitchen with step-by-step cooking instructions

If you want to give it a try, during the Early Access period, it's free for Prime members. Let me know what you think if you try it out.

How SaaStr Built an AI Workforce (And What It Actually Cost)

Last but certainly not least, Jason Lemkin published an article about SaaStr's journey deploying 20+ AI agents in six months.

SaaStr went from zero AI agents to running eight-figure revenue with single-digit headcount. They're using AI for everything: outbound sales, customer support, speaker reviews, content generation, RevOps automation.

Their AI SDR (using Artisan) sent 15,000 messages in 100 days with 5-7% response rates, which is well above the 2-4% industry average. Their inbound AI BDR (using Qualified) now books qualified meetings automatically. Their custom-built speaker review system eliminated $180K in annual agency costs while processing thousands of applications 24/7.

They deployed specialized agents across their entire operation, including Gamma for dynamic sales decks, Momentum and Attention for automatic Salesforce updates, and “Digital Jason” (using Delphi) for 139,000+ advisory conversations. They're the top-performing customer for both Artisan and Qualified across their entire customer bases.

This AI workforce has resulted in $1.5M in just two months of full deployment.

I was really glad to see Jason include the management aspect of the AI workforce in his article. He said managing these agents now consumes 30% of their Chief AI Officer's time. Every single agent requires weeks of intensive training. The first 1,000 emails were manually reviewed. Today, they still spot-check for 20-30 minutes daily. Domain warming takes 2-3 weeks before you can even start sending at scale.

Jason said the cost of this AI workforce amounts to over $500,000 per year. This includes tool licenses, training time, daily management, information triage, custom development, and the hidden costs of culture change.

The article also talks about five critical mistakes that Jason made during the development of this AI workforce:

1. Underestimating daily management requirements
2. Deploying too many agents too fast (they can only absorb 1.5 new agents per month)
3. Insufficient vendor due diligence
4. Inadequate information triage (AI works 24/7 but humans can only process 3-4 insights daily)
5. Overlooking the human cost of AI-first operations

Check out the full article, it’s a great read.

The Connection Between These 3 Stories

These three stories seem unrelated at first: retro gaming, enterprise AI deployment, and a consumer voice assistant. But they're all wrestling with fundamental questions: 

How do we design technology that enhances human capability without exhausting it?

How do we augment human capability without destroying human sustainability?

I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on these stories, particularly the SaaStr deployment. And, as always, if you’re interested in chatting through your own company’s agentic AI deployments, let me know. I’m all ears!

Until next time,
Ryan

Now, time for this week's AI-generated image and the prompt I used to create it.

Wide view along a dusty keyboard: tiny muppet workers in uniform push brooms between giant keys and mop the top of the Space bar, a miniature wheelbarrow full of crumbs nearby; shot on Nikon D850, 1:1 macro lens, diffused desk lamp lighting, photorealistic detail.