As CEO Confidence Hits a Five-Year Low, The Rift House Bets That Original Thinking Is the Last Real Advantage

A new collective of proven marketing, strategy and technology leaders, joined by
unlikely minds, helps companies and brands rethink how they compete

NEW YORK and WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., Oct. 20, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Technology is rewriting what it takes for a company to stay relevant, and most are not keeping up. Only 30% of CEOs are confident about revenue growth over the next year, a five-year low, according to PwC's 2026 Global CEO Survey. Companies are spending heavily to catch up: marketing teams now put 15.3% of their budgets into AI, according to Gartner. Yet 56% of CEOs say AI has not delivered a significant financial return, and only 30% of CMOs say they are ready to scale it.

The Rift House, founded by veteran strategy, marketing and communications executive Brooke Smith, launched today on a simple premise: when every company can buy the same answers, the advantage belongs to distance from conventional thinking. Founders are no longer looking for agencies with one-size-fits-all solutions. They want partners who understand their unique challenges and can build strategies tailored to their businesses.

The Rift House was created to do just that: bring the right minds into the room, challenge conventional thinking, and develop the right formula for each brand's success.

"Historically, most leaders were promoted for having the answer," said Smith. "The moments companies are in now ask something much more difficult of them: to open up, think bigger than the problem in front of them, and bring their people through a change none of them can fully see yet. That's where our work begins."

Then there's the sameness problem. The industries built to help companies stand out are consolidating for scale: the two largest advertising holding companies became one last year, and 82% of major U.S. advertisers now run their own in-house agencies, up from 42% in 2008. The tools meant to create an edge may be making companies think alike. In a study of more than 750 BCG consultants, generative AI narrowed the range of their ideas by 41%. Meanwhile, the market keeps rewarding the opposite: brands that people see as meaningfully different command five times the market penetration, according to Kantar.

"For decades, companies grew by buying best practice: the same frameworks, the same benchmarks, the same answers their competitors were buying," Smith said. "That era is over. The big agencies and consultancies built remarkable machines for scale, and scale still matters. But what companies need now is something no competitor can buy, and you can't get one-of-a-kind thinking from a model designed to be repeated."

The Rift House deliberately combines deep business and operating experience, emerging technologies and intelligence, and unconventional outside perspectives. Every engagement is built from scratch. Every team is curated for the challenge in front of it.

Each engagement starts with an honest look at the company: what it already holds, what's holding it back, and what it can't afford to lose. From there, The Rift House brings in the right mix of people for modern business challenges, combining those who know the industry cold with diverse thinkers from outside the industry. Lasting change happens through people, not to organizations in the abstract.

"The room is where it starts, not where it ends," said Quincy Olatunde, co-founder and former global AI/data product and technology executive at NBCUniversal. "AI is rewriting the economics of business, but the real opportunity isn't simply doing the same things faster or cheaper. It's rethinking what's possible: how organizations create value, how they operate, and how they compete. That's where our work comes in: connecting breakthrough thinking to the people, systems, and business models that can actually make it real."

The Rift House is built for companies that are done being handed the same playbook as their competitors: the business whose board wants a growth story the market will believe, the brand asked to grow on a flat budget, the founder-led company that has outgrown the way it was built. The measure is the same every time: what the organization can do afterward that it couldn't do before.

"For a century, companies competed on what they knew," Smith said. "That advantage is disappearing. When every company can know the same things, the winners will be the ones that can see and think differently and change faster than the market. Both of those start with the people leading them."

About The Rift House

The Rift House brings experienced industry operators, AI and technology experts, and outliers from outside the obvious category together around moments of growth, transition and transformation. Every engagement is built from scratch around what the company needs to become next. Founded in 2026, The Rift House has locations in Winston-Salem, Brooklyn and Los Angeles. Where unlikely minds create inevitable change. Learn more at therifthouse.com.

SOURCE The Rift House