Why Most AI Strategies Are Built Backwards
Most AI strategies don’t fail because they are wrong. They fail because everyone involved is right. IT wants control. Legal wants safety. Leadership wants an edge. And while alignment is negotiated, momentum evaporates. AI does not reward perfect planning. It rewards lived leverage. Until someone experiences real cognitive relief, strategy remains theatre.
Make the Impossible Possible
When creating a structured video becomes easier than drafting a long email, behavior changes. Video stops being a department and becomes a capability. AI tools like Synthesia don’t just improve communication: they lower the cost of expression to the point where “impossible” becomes routine. And once someone experiences that shift, the question is no longer whether it’s human enough. It’s whether you’re willing to let competitors normalize a capability you’re still debating.
AI is the First Cognitive Revolution
AI is not steam power for the mind. It is something fundamentally different: a tool that amplifies cognition before it replaces it. Unlike past revolutions that automated muscle and logistics, AI enhances judgment, synthesis, and context handling — for now. Whether this becomes a mass replacement event or a leap toward collective wellbeing depends less on the models and more on how we choose to adopt them.
Moving from Features to Cognitive Leverage
AI doesn’t transform organizations by itself – empowered employees do. When used as cognitive leverage instead of content automation, AI reduces friction in context switching, preserves continuity, and turns survival-mode multitasking into sustainable performance. The real shift isn’t licensing tools – it’s issuing cognitive leverage.
Enablement Is the Laziest Form of Transformation
Instruction is the ugly twin of true inspiration. It tickles the surface but often masks deeper frustrations, turning valuable tools into burdens. Genuine transformation ignites not with manuals but through immediate relief from pain. Trust, born from real proof of personal value, fuels adoption. Stop enabling; start leveraging. Transform or stagnate.
Rethinking Time as Engagement Infrastructure
The Pebble Timeline challenges conventional thinking about productivity by revealing how cognitive load stifles engagement. Instead of adding tools, it reduces friction by managing temporal context seamlessly. For organizations, the key to empowerment lies in recognizing time and attention as shared resources, not individual burdens. Are we ready to rethink our approach?