For someone who spends a lot of time working with AI and building AI / ML systems, the last week was almost the complete opposite. It was all travel, presentations and workshops with various clients and being deep in the messy work of innovation and strategy.
AI had a role to play in some of the prep work, and definitely helped with note-taking, summarisation, concept tagging afterwards. However, the act of getting a bunch of smart domain experts in a room, with decades of collective experience, to test out ideas, debate approaches and to shape strategy is still an area where humans excel.
Some AI maximalists are probably thinking, "sure, but I can have multiple agents collaborate and compete to develop strategy in a simulation". Yes, you can - and I'm working on tools that do exactly that. However, just as an LLM produces beige content when unguided, these tools can augment the process but can’t replicate the intuitive leaps that happen when high-performing teams tackle big challenges together.
There's also a point here about colocation and synchrony. You can Teams-meet all you like, and for routine work that's perfectly fine. But for deep, creative or strategic work get your best brains in a room, without distractions, and have them spark off each other in unexpected ways.
As more AI assistance rolls through orgs, I'd like to see more focus not just on automating the low-value work (capturing minutes, tracking actions), but also on amplifying the high value work.
For example, imagine AI tools that support facilitators by spotting topics that haven’t had enough airtime, reducing recency bias, or ensuring everyone’s voice is heard. Great facilitators do this instinctively, but not every team has access to that skill. Likewise, tools that automatically cluster concepts and opportunities could be useful timesavers (the way Figma FigJam does when it's behaving).
While I’m definitely pro-AI and want to see broader, smarter adoption across organisations, I’m also firmly pro-human and especially pro-creativity. The future I want to see is one where AI removes the toil and gives teams more time for creative, highly rewarding, and impactful work.