Insights

Buying AI tools for staff is just one approach Management consultants love a two-by-two matrix. This one is odder than most, because the part that matters is a diagonal. AI tools sit in the top-right corner: assistants for research, writing, coding and analysis, used mainly by individuals and teams doing knowledge work. Decision systems are in the bottom-left are: mechanisms that help run processes across a business and shape choices made by senior managers. Both may use simi

The danger isn’t that AI takes over, it’s that humans will stop bothering The take-over by AI, when it comes, may be remarkably dull. No wild-eyed robots storming Parliament or screens suddenly going blank in City trading rooms. No superior computer will announce that mankind has been relieved of its duties. Artificial intelligence doesn’t need to take control for humans to lose it. It’s much more likely that a chain of small, sensible choices will get us there. Arguably, it’

Learning will make them more different Same, same, same, everywhere AI is being sold aggressively, the costs are falling like a stone, and so it’s getting everywhere. Stanford University reported that inference cost at roughly GPT-3.5 quality dropped more than 280-fold between November 2022 and October 2024. So it’s not surprising that most businesses have it in one form or another. Having AI isn’t different. That’s not all that’s getting rather “me too”. For all practical pu

AI return is usually decided before the tool is bought There is a pattern I keep seeing with AI: A business starts with the product. Which model. Which vendor. Which licence. Which use case looks impressive enough to get through the next leadership meeting. That feels practical. It is usually the first mistake. The better question comes earlier: where, exactly, does the business need to change? Not where could AI be used. Not where could a pilot be demonstrated. Where does ma

When wages get expensive, capital gets creative. Four centuries of evidence show the same feedback loop at work today. The Pattern That Keeps Repeating For the past four hundred years, wages and technology have chased each other in a recurring loop. When labour markets tighten and pay rises, businesses find it profitable to invent machines that replace workers. Those machines raise output per worker but destroy the livelihoods of people whose skills they have made redundant.

Artificial intelligence is advancing faster than most firms can think, let alone act. Systems that once looked experimental now reshape markets in real time, turning comfortable business assumptions into historical curiosities in a matter of months. The question for leaders is no longer whether to engage, but what sort of organisation they intend to run once the dust settles. From tinkering to direction Many firms are busy launching pilots, buying tools, commissioning dashboa