Assemblers, architects, and the collapse of the formulation premium
Most of what we call knowledge work is formulation.
Not content production. Not information processing. Formulation — the act of applying individual
Speed has always been structural. AI just makes that impossible to ignore.
Most AI pilots return improvements somewhere around 10%. That's not nothing, but it's chump
If you follow the headlines, you would think the U.S. job market is unraveling. Mass layoffs. AI replacing humans. A future where hiring people is already a mistake. A
(and what it accidentally teaches us about how business actually works)
Every so often, someone becomes a teacher without intending to. In this case, it’s Sam Altman.
Not because
Most conversations about AI and innovation assume a simple replacement story. As automation improves, human work recedes. The messy becomes structured. Judgment gives way to systems.
That framing misses what
AI may accelerate some things, but that doesn't mean that the organization will go faster.
It’s common to ask why organizations don’t move faster. Speed is
If we are going to redesign organizations for an AI era, we need to be clear about one thing up front: Tools have almost always pulled people apart.
In organizatiomns,
As organizations rush into AI adoption, most of the attention is on productivity gains. Less visible—and far more consequential—is the erosion of the one capability that will actually
Every few months someone else does a "Sam Altman" and announces that AI will make agencies obsolete. The case always sounds the same. AI can research faster. AI
One of the most common misconceptions right now is the belief that the systems we have today — GPTs and their cousins — are on a glidepath to becoming actual artificial intelligence.
How Fluency Without Understanding Is Reshaping Work, Organizations, and Industry.
Managers are confronting a problem unlike anything they have seen.
Today’s AI systems are not intelligent in the human
Most leaders can name their “messy” client relationships—the ones full of surprises, shifting scopes, and long, meandering conversations (yes, including disputes and arguments) that somehow still move the work forward.
