We're excited to announce the release of Next Lab version 2.15.0! This update brings significant improvements to portfolio management and innovation tracking, along with important bug fixes based on your valuable feedback.

What's New in v2.15.0

🔍 Comprehensive Portfolio View by Default

The Portfolio view now provides a complete picture right from the start. When you open the Portfolio view, all portfolios are selected by default, giving you immediate access to a comprehensive Assumptions vs Knowledge graph that spans all innovation opportunities across your entire portfolio ecosystem. This holistic view makes it easier to identify patterns, gaps, and opportunities at scale without manual selection.

📊 Enhanced Innovation Opportunities Table

We've given the innovation opportunities table a significant upgrade:

Clear Headers: The table now features properly labeled headers for better data organization and readability

Innovation Cycle Tracking: Each opportunity now displays its current stage and step within the innovation cycle, providing instant visibility into where each initiative stands in your innovation pipeline

These improvements make it easier to track progress, prioritize resources, and maintain oversight of your innovation portfolios' momentum.

🐛 Bug Fixes and Stability Improvements

Your feedback through Frill (our feedback button) has been invaluable in identifying and resolving several issues that were impacting user experience. We've addressed these reported bugs to ensure a smoother, more reliable platform experience.

We're excited to announce the release of Next Lab version 2.11.0, packed with powerful new features that make collaboration easier and innovation more accessible. This release represents a significant milestone not just in functionality, but also in how we're building the future of software development.

What's New in 2.11.0

🔗 Chat Links: Share Your Conversations

One of the most requested features is finally here! You can now generate direct links to your chats, making it easier than ever to reference important discussions or share insights with colleagues. For teams, this feature becomes even more powerful – team members can now share team chats seamlessly, ensuring everyone stays in the loop on critical conversations and decisions.

🔄 Flexible Innovation Opportunity Management

We've added the ability to move Innovation Opportunities between My Work (MW) and team spaces, giving you more control over your project organization. Whether you want to collaborate on a personal idea or take ownership of a team initiative, the transition is now smooth and intuitive.

Important note: You can only move an Innovation Opportunity from a team back to My Work if you were the original creator. This ensures proper ownership and maintains the integrity of collaborative work.

🐛 Quality Improvements

Behind the scenes, we've addressed several bug reports to make your Next Lab experience more reliable and smooth. These fixes contribute to a more stable platform that you can depend on for your innovation work.

The AI Revolution in Our Development Process

This release marks a groundbreaking achievement in our development methodology. 90% of this sprint's code was written by autonomous AI agents – a testament to how far AI-assisted development has come and our commitment to pushing the boundaries of what's possible.

Our AI Development Journey

We experimented with multiple approaches to AI-powered coding throughout this sprint. While not every method proved successful, we discovered several techniques that worked exceptionally well. This iterative process of testing and refinement has given us confidence that AI agents can handle complex development tasks while maintaining code quality and reliability.

The Human Touch Remains Essential

While our AI agents excelled at code generation, our deployment process remains 100% human-managed. This hybrid approach ensures that we maintain the highest standards of quality control and system reliability. However, we're already planning to evolve this process – our goal for the next sprint is to introduce AI assistance into deployment workflows as well.

As always, we value your feedback. Let us know how these new features work for you and what you'd like to see in future releases. Together, we're building the future of innovation platforms – with a little help from our AI friends.

Next Lab 2.11.0 is available now. For technical support or feature requests, please contact our team through the usual channels.

We're excited to announce the release of version 2.10.0, packed with intelligent new features and important stability improvements that will streamline your workflow.

What's New

Smarter AI Chat in Instigators

Our AI chat feature just got a major upgrade. When the AI suggests drills during your conversations, it now automatically generates direct links to those drills, making it incredibly easy to jump straight into the action. No more hunting through menus or searching for the exercises you need.

Enhanced Session Generation

Planning sessions is now even more intuitive. When you ask the AI to generate a session, it will intelligently suggest flow drills for both the beginning and end of your session, helping you create more structured and effective training experiences.

Bug Fixes and Stability Improvements

This release addresses several critical issues that have been impacting user experience:

• Session and Sprint Management: Fixed issues with moving sessions or sprints to folders, ensuring your organizational workflow runs smoothly
• S7 Team Functionality: Resolved S7 compatibility issues that were affecting team operations
• Board Member Generation: Fixed the S7 board member generation process, which now works correctly when generating members individually
• Additional Fixes: Multiple other stability improvements and minor bug fixes throughout the platform

As always, we're committed to continuously improving your experience. If you encounter any issues or have suggestions for future updates, don't hesitate to reach out to our support team.

Happy innovating!

We’re excited to share that version v2.9.1 is now live! This release focuses on improving navigation, team interaction, and chat creation across workspaces.

🔧 What's New

Fixed scroll issue that prevented reaching the last team on the list.

Corrected redirection after accepting/rejecting team invitations or requesting to join a team — now it redirects properly to the Select Index page.

Chat title is now generated when starting a new conversation in Instigator or Leader mode, even if you are not inside a workspace.

Editing a session from the Play page no longer changes the active workspace.

Chart interactions fixed — switching between metric types or chart views won’t cause incorrect redirections or context loss anymore.

✅ Why It Matters

These fixes make the platform:

More stable when navigating across workspaces.

More intuitive when managing teams or sessions.

More reliable when creating or switching chats.

💬 Try it and share your feedback

Feel free to explore the improvements — and if anything doesn’t behave as expected, let us know. Your feedback helps us keep evolving the platform smoothly.

We're excited to announce that version 2.9.0 is now available! This marks our biggest feature rewrite since the launch of The Next Lab, bringing you a faster, more reliable, and more durable team management experience.

What's New in This Release

While this version focuses heavily on under-the-hood improvements rather than flashy new features, the significant code rewrite delivers substantial benefits to your daily workflow.

🔧 Major Improvements

- Multi-tab Support: You can now work seamlessly across multiple tabs

- Enhanced Team Management: Completely rewritten team handling system for better performance and reliability

- Improved Navigation: Fixed redirect issues between "My Work" and team workspaces

- New Innovation Opportunity Layout: Refreshed detail page design for better usability

🐛 Bug Fixes

This release addresses numerous bug reports and stability issues. The extensive codebase rewrite has eliminated many edge cases and improved overall system reliability.

What This Means for You

The new team management system is designed to be:

- Faster - Improved response times and smoother interactions

-*Less Error-Prone - Reduced bugs and unexpected behaviors

- More Durable - Better handling of edge cases and system stability

Help Us Test

Since this represents such a significant rewrite, we encourage you to explore all areas of The Next Lab. If you encounter any bugs or unexpected behavior, please report them to help us continue improving your experience.

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*Thank you for being part of The Next Lab community. Your feedback helps us build better tools for innovation and collaboration.*

We’ve just rolled out a fresh update packed with smart improvements:

✨ Smarter AI Chats

Say goodbye to chat IDs! Now your AI conversations are automatically titled based on the topic—making it easier than ever to find what you’re looking for.

📚 Resources + Small Bets = Big Wins

You can now attach resources directly to your small bets. Add context, inspiration, or supporting data to make your bets even smarter.

🛠️ Bug Fixes

Thanks to your feedback, we’ve squashed a few bugs to keep everything running smoothly.

Keep the feedback coming—we’re building this with you!

We’re excited to announce that Next Lab version 2.7.0 has officially been released!

🎉 What’s New in This Release?

🤖 AI Assistant in the Next Lab | Instigators Experience

You can now chat with an AI Assistant that helps you find the right drill—faster and smarter.

• Use natural language to describe your needs—no need to know drill names.
• The assistant uses RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) to search our 250+ drill database, surfacing the best-fit options for your situation.
• It can also help you design a full session tailored to a specific subject, problem area, or goal.

Whether you're working on a high-stakes innovation sprint or just looking for a warm-up drill, the AI Assistant has you covered.

📍 You’ll find it inside the Instigators experience. Give it a try and see how quickly it can spark your next session idea.

💬 AI Chat Histories in Instigators and Leaders

You can now view and revisit past chats with the AI Assistant in both Instigators and Leaders. No more losing context—pick up right where you left off.

🛠️ Bug Fixes

We’ve addressed a handful of bugs to make everything a bit smoother and faster.

💡 Example Prompts to Try with the AI Assistant

Here are some example questions to help you get started:

• “I need a drill to help a team prioritize innovation opportunities.”
• “What drill can I use to enhance lateral thinking?”
• “What’s a good drill to find the root cause of a problem?”
• “What’s a good energizer for a group that doesn’t know each other well?”
• “Can you suggest a session structure for tackling regulatory roadblocks in healthcare?”
• “I’m working with a group of first-time leaders—what drills would help them align on purpose?”
• “I want to run a 90-minute workshop focused on breaking assumptions—what should I use?”

As always, thanks for being part of building the future of Next Lab.

On this version

• Added chat histories for ai chats in my work and teams on Next Lab | Leaders
• As a team admin I can now download the information of the users that belong to my team in a csv file on Next Lab | Instigators
• A bunch bug fixes

We're excited to announce the release of Next Lab Software v2.5.0, featuring a major enhancement to your innovation workflow with our new Intelligent Innovation Assistant.

Introducing the Intelligent Innovation Assistant for Teams

The centerpiece of this release is our new AI assistant now available in your team spaces. This intelligent tool seamlessly integrates with your existing innovation data to provide:

• Context-aware insights drawn from your innovation opportunities and portfolios
• Natural language processing capabilities that understand your innovation terminology
• Actionable workflow integration letting you create opportunities, manage expenditures, and analyze portfolios directly from the chat interface

Key Features

• Create opportunities on the fly - Simply describe your idea in the chat, and the assistant will help structure it into a formal opportunity
• Portfolio analysis - Ask questions about your innovation portfolio and receive data-driven insights
• Expenditure management - Add or track expenses for opportunities through natural conversation

Additional Improvements

• Small bet linking - Enhanced reporting with small bets now linked to LFI (Learning From Investment) implications
• Improved analytics with Mixpanel integration for Innovation Assistant interactions
• Bug fixes and performance enhancements throughout the platform
• Streamlined workflow for adding small bets as LFI implications

This update represents our commitment to making innovation management more intuitive and powerful. The Intelligent Innovation Assistant learns from your team's unique innovation language and processes, becoming more valuable over time.

The update is being rolled out to all users starting today. We welcome your feedback as you explore these new capabilities!

Intelligent Innovation Assistant Command Guide

Here's a list of questions and commands you can use with your new IIS AI Assistant:

Search & Analysis

• Search for an opportunity with name: <<name to search>>
• Analyze my opportunities that are in the <<stage>> in the next cycle
• Analyze my assumptions vs knowledge
• Show me my portfolios
• Analyze my portfolios
• Analyze all my opportunities

Budget Management

• What is my global innovation budget?
• Update my innovation budget to: one million.
• Add an expenditure to <<opportunity name>> of 5,000 on July 1st 2024
• Update <<opportunity name>> opportunity budget to fifty thousand
• Update <<portfolio name>> portfolio budget to 250000

Opportunity & Portfolio Management

• Add <<assumption description>> as an assumption to opportunity <<Opportunity name>>
• Get all my opportunities in the <<portfolio name>> portfolio
• Create an opportunity with name <<opportunity name>> in portfolio <<portfolio name>> with a budget of <<budget>>

Hypothesis & Small Bets

• Add a <<small bet description>> as a Small Bet to hypothesis <<hypothesis id>> with LFI <<lfi text>>, Outcomes <<outcomes text>>, LFI Implications <<implications text>>
• Update Small bet LFI with id <<Small Bet Id>> LFI <<lfi text>>
• Update Small bet with id <<Small Bet Id>> LFI <<lfi text>>, Outcomes <<outcomes text>>, LFI Implications <<implications text>>
• Update hypothesis <<hypothesis id>> with description: <<desc text>>, result <<True|False|Untested>>, hypothesis type <<Assumption|Knowledge>>

Version 2.4.0 has been released, the IIS AI Assistant is here

We're excited to announce a significant milestone in our Intelligent Innovation System (IIS) journey – the launch of our brand new AI Assistant! 🚀

What's New?

Today, we've deployed an MVS (Minimum Valuable Solution) of our AI Assistant, now accessible directly through the "My Work" (MW) section of the Next Lab | Leader platform. This beta release represents our commitment to making innovation management more intuitive, conversational, and dynamic.

What Can the AI Assistant Do?

Our AI Assistant is designed to be your personal innovation management companion. With just a few conversational commands, you can:

Help you with Budget Management

• Check your innovation budget, just ask: "What is my innovation budget?"

• Update budget allocations with simple text commands
• Track and modify opportunity-specific budgets. Just type: "Update the Grow portfolio budget to 500.000"

Opportunity Insights

• Retrieve detailed information about specific opportunities
• Add hypotheses and insights on the fly
• Log expenditures with ease, just text: "Add a 500 dollar expenditure to opportunity "Flying Cars" on February 1st 2025"

Portfolio Analysis

• Get quick analyses of your portfolios, just say: "Analyze my portfolios"
• Understand the landscape of your entire opportunity ecosystem
• Compare assumptions against known knowledge

Example Interactions

Here are some conversations you can have with your new AI Assistant:

• "Update my innovation budget to 50,000"
• "Give me information about my opportunity 'Opportunity One'"
• "Add 'People would love this' as a hypothesis to 'Opportunity One'"
• "Analyze my Opportunities"

Beta Release: We Need Your Help!

This is a beta release, and we're counting on our innovative community to help us refine and improve the experience. We expect there might be a few bugs, and your feedback is crucial in helping us iterate and enhance the AI Assistant.

How to Access

Navigate to the "My Work" section in the Next Lab | Leader platform, and you'll find the new AI Assistant ready to assist you.

Share Your Experience

Try out the AI Assistant and let us know:

• What works well
• Any bugs you encounter
• Features you'd love to see in future releases

Your insights will be invaluable in shaping the future of our Intelligent Innovation System.

The Next Lab Team