Staying Human in the Age of AI.

Image by addyfe (UrbanOrigami) using Midjourney.

A few days ago at I delivered a keynote at a SAP event at their US Headquarters in Newtown PA on Staying Human in the Age of AI. Nearly 2000 people comprised of technologists ( primarily enterprise architects) from the top 1000 global companies and leaders of SAP listened to the talk in person or via streaming.

The talk resonated and was highly rated.

Earlier this week Tim Clark wrote an article summarizing the keynote for ASUG website and newsletter. (ASUG is the only SAP customer user group officially partnered with SAP, connecting members directly to SAP expertise and innovation).

I am republishing the article and the video of the talk with permission from Tim Clark the writer and SAP.

Artificial intelligence is not just another wave of automation. It is not another productivity tool. And it is not merely the next phase of digital transformation.

According to Rishad Tobaccowala, who presented at the recent Next Generation SAP Enterprise Architect Learning Forum at SAP headquarters in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, it is something far more profound.

“I believe, with everything we already know, AI is still under-hyped,” said Tobaccowala, an author, speaker, teacher and advisor with four decades of experience helping people and organizations reinvent themselves.

That’s a striking claim in a world saturated with AI headlines, market volatility, and bold predictions. Yet Tobaccowala argued that most leaders still fail to grasp the true scale of change underway. To explain why, he first reflected back on 2019.

A Prescient Warning

When Tobaccowala wrote his first book, Restoring the Soul of Business (which was published in January 2020, just before the pandemic), its subtitle centered on “staying human in the age of data.” The original working title, he notes, was The Story and the Spreadsheet. His publisher, HarperCollins, ultimately went in a different direction.

What’s notable is not just the book’s success, but its timing. Released more than two years before the launch of ChatGPT 3.5, the final chapter already addressed AI. As generative AI entered mainstream consciousness, readers began interpreting the subtitle differently—as being not merely about data, but about staying human in the age of AI.

Today, Tobaccowala’s thesis has sharpened: this is not incremental change. What AI is bringing about is structural.

AI Is Not an Extension

Every major technology in history has extended human capability. Fire extended physical power. The printing press extended knowledge distribution. The internet scaled information sharing globally. Social media turned individuals into publishers.

“All technology up to now has extended the human brain,” Tobaccowala explained. “My basic belief is AI creates a new brain. It’s not about extending our brain. It’s a new brain.”

Previous technologies amplified human cognition. AI introduces a parallel form of cognition, he told attendees at the event, that operates independently and at speeds beyond human comprehension. The implications of this are economic and philosophical.

“All previous technologies enhanced and made valuable knowledge,” he said. “I believe AI will make knowledge completely free and not monetizable. And all of us are knowledge workers.”

The Speed Problem

The velocity of AI development compounds its disruption. Digital advertising, Tobaccowala noted, took roughly 30 years to become the majority of global advertising spend. Moore’s Law predicted computing power would double roughly every 18 months.

When his second book was published just a year ago, AI capability was doubling every 11 months. Now, he says that agentic AI capability is doubling every seven weeks.

“This is the first time that you have a technology that is outstripping human and organizational ability to keep up,” he said. “If anybody basically says, ‘I believe this is what’s going to happen,’ take it with a grain of salt.”

From Artificial Intelligence to Alien Intelligence

At one point in his presentation, Tobaccowala deliberately reframed the terminology, referring to AI as “alien intelligence.”

“The top three reasons today that people in the consumer world use AI is not to make a video or a fake picture,” he said. “The top three reasons are therapy, companionship and self-help medical care.”

In other words, people are engaging with AI systems as if they were human. “It’s not human, but it definitely doesn’t feel like or sound like a machine,” he said.

Extending the metaphor further, AI agents are not simply “agents,” said Tobaccowala. They are “replicants.”

“We are living in a world of aliens and replicants,” he said. “And we are humans.”

Computing Machines Vs. Feeling Machines

In building upon this statement, Tobaccowala reflected that AI systems are computational engines operating in binary logic. Human beings are not.

“Computers are digital, silicon-based computing machines,” Tobaccowala said. “We are analog carbon-based feeling machines.”

Ask a machine a question and it returns a direct answer. Ask a human a question and the response may be layered, emotional, or evasive.

“Human beings are not computing machines. We are feeling machines,” he said.

This distinction has profound business implications, as many technologists model the future on machine logic by assuming humans will optimize decisions purely for efficiency.

But real-world behavior tells a different story. If humans optimized purely for utility, Tobaccowala asked, why wear expensive watches when smartphones keep better time? Why own cars in cities where ride sharing is available? Why choose luxury brands if cheaper alternatives function just as well?

“Humans choose on stories,” he said. “We choose on identity. We choose on design. We choose on desire. People choose with their hearts, then use numbers to justify what they just did.”

That tension between rational optimization and emotional decision-making will shape how AI integrates into markets.

The Work Disruption Ahead

Historically, technological revolutions have created more jobs than they destroyed—over time. But Tobaccowala worries about the pace.

“My biggest fear is organizations are moving too slow,” he said. He expects 20-30% of current tasks to be “machined away” in the near term. That work will not be reassigned to humans using AI. It will simply disappear.

“Half the jobs are cut away because the machines can do it better,” he said. “That part of our job is not going to be done by anybody.”

While new roles will emerge, the transition could outpace institutional adaptation.

“No organizational design is setting up for the other world,” he said.

Alien Intelligence Plus Human Intuition

Despite the disruption he anticipates, Tobaccowala remains optimistic.

The future, he argued, belongs not to AI alone but to a combination of AI and what he calls HI: human intuition.

“Human intelligence is overrated,” he said. “It’s long been beaten.”

Instead, Tobaccowala emphasizes four uniquely human strengths: intuition, insight, imagination, and interaction.

“Only messy human beings can connect with messy human beings,” he remarked, offering an example from health care.

AI tools may analyze scans with remarkable accuracy, yet patients still want human doctors to deliver life-altering news.

Embrace, Adapt, Complement

For individuals navigating this shift, Tobaccowala proposed a three-part framework: embrace, adapt, complement.

First, embrace AI. Learn it. Understand it. Accept that it is transformative.

Second, adapt. Some portion of current work will vanish. Clinging to outdated roles is futile. “Between 20-30% of what we currently do is going to be machined away,” he reiterated.

Third, complement. Identify how uniquely human capabilities integrate with machine strengths. Tobaccowala rejects the notion that workers will simply lose jobs to other workers who use AI.

“That’s like telling a horse you’re not going to lose your job to a tractor. You’re going to lose your job to a horse who learns how to use a tractor,” he said. “That’s nonsense.”

Some work will disappear entirely. The opportunity lies in redesigning roles around what machines cannot replicate.

Efficiency Is Not the Strategy

Many enterprises focus narrowly on AI-driven efficiency and effectiveness. Cost savings. Productivity gains. Faster processes. Those improvements are measurable—and necessary. But Tobaccowala argued they are not where true advantage lies. “The real opportunities and threats are not going to come from being more efficient or more effective,” he said.

Instead, leaders must consider existential opportunities and threats.

Tobaccowala pointed to the shipping container as a historical example. Standardized containers revolutionized global trade, not merely by improving shipping efficiency but by reshaping entire cities, industries, and supply chains.

Similarly, in media, some newspapers optimized printing processes while others questioned the premise of print itself. Today, The New York Times has transitioned from 1.8 million print subscribers to roughly 12 million digital subscribers, evolving into a multimedia platform spanning audio and video.

Roots and Wings

Large organizations, Tobaccowala noted, cannot rely solely on yesterday’s strengths.

“There’s going to be some combination of yesterday’s you, which I call ‘roots,’ and tomorrow’s you, which I call ‘wings,’” he said.

AI capability alone is not a differentiator. It is infrastructure, much like electricity. What differentiates companies is how they integrate that infrastructure into new value creation models.

He pointed to emerging AI-first companies generating millions in revenue per employee as signals of a new operating model. The question for established enterprises is not whether they will remain important, but whether they will evolve.

Importance of Optimism

Despite the immediately incoming volatility that AI promises, Tobaccowala’s outlook is not dystopian, he said. “Human beings adapt,” he said. “Human beings are resurrection engines.”

Every technological upheaval has triggered fear. Every era has also generated new forms of wealth, opportunity, and innovation. AI, he believes, will cure diseases, expand access to knowledge, and create economic growth. But it demands self-reinvention.

“It’s never too late to invent tomorrow,” he said.

Staying human in the age of AI is not about resisting alien intelligence. It is about upgrading human capability, leaning into intuition, imagination, and emotional intelligence.

Here is the 35 minute talk as delivered:

“There is no room for small dreams.”

For the past five years I have been the host of a podcast called What Next? speaking to leaders, pioneers, authors, artists, scientists and many others on what is coming next in their fields and what we should prepare for.

We have recorded over 168 episodes, and it is ranked among the top one hundred global podcasts. What Next? was the idea of Chris Harrison a senior leader at the Publicis Groupe who also served as the initial show runner. While the show is produced by the Publicis Groupe, ninety percent of my guests are external. It is free to subscribe to and also free of advertising and available on all global platforms. Each episode is tightly edited by Gilly Smith an expert food writer and podcaster to less than 40 minutes to fit into the time someone may commute or work-out. Currently Camilo Miranda based in Costa-Rica is the show runner and George Turner engineers the podcast from London.

This week for the first time after 168 episodes we are republishing an episode with Maurice Levy who was the CEO and Chairman of the Publicis Supervisory Board for a couple of reasons:

1) 2026 is the 100th anniversary of the Publicis Groupe and many people might be interested in the four or five key turning points that transformed how a small French company became the most valuable, fastest growing and the largest of the marketing communication service companies until the recent Omnicom and IPG merger.

2) Today as the world changes fast and every company and industry is challenged, what learnings can we take away that can be used both by leaders and individuals to thrive?

The majority of the conversation is not about Publicis Groupe but about how to manage change, think like a start-up, the meaning of trust, how to embrace and overcome failure, how to stay forever young, the importance of passion and much more.

These days we all need an injection of optimism and a call to arms and here is a conversation that will leave you inspired with actionable steps regardless of your industry or your level of seniority.

Here is a small sampling of what you will hear:

1. No Silo. No Solo. No Bozo: This is Maurice as a copywriter.

No Silo: Organizations can no longer have silos. While we did not talk about AI at all it is clear that orchestration becomes the key in an AI age where sales, marketing, and CRM merge as does creative, data and tech.

No Solo: Teamwork has always been key and even more in a connected world, fluid, and shape-shifting world.

No Bozo: Nobody regardless of their skill, client relationship or budget control can be allowed to behave like a bozo. Cemeteries are filled with “irreplaceable” people but the world goes on.

Moving to such an organization however takes many years since human habits are ingrained. Arthur Sadoun who took over from Maurice Levy nine years ago has launched many initiatives that has led to today’s success, one of which was a country and client focused versus brand focused model which unleashed the potential energy that had been built and stored in Groupe.

2. Think like a start-up: Regardless of the age or size of a company the only way to remain relevant in changing times is to think like a start-up. Well into his 8th decade Maurice Levy launched a start-up called VivaTech into being. Today it is the largest technology conference and exhibition in all of Europe combining CES and Davos.

3. Forever Young: Youth is a mindset and not just an age. It is never too late to reinvent, to learn and to take chances.

4. Trust cannot be measured: One cannot trust someone 10% or 80%. Trust is binary. You trust someone or you do not. The best way is to begin by trusting everyone until they prove different. Without trust there is no speed or high performing team.

5. Dare to fail: Daring is key. Willing to fail and embracing and learning from failure is critical. Maurice shares his biggest failures and what he learned from them. Failure is an option. If it is not, then very few new companies or re-inventions would ever have been launched. Maurice shares his daring moves after the dot com melt down and financial crisis.

6. Optimism is key: One has to be positive if one is to pioneer or persevere. A key is to look at challenges as obstacles that one has to overcome versus problems that cannot be solved.

7. Think higher. Feel Deeper. It is key to have great passion and to strive for excellence. Benchmark against the best. While one may need to have our feet on the ground our heads should be in the clouds as we reach for the stars.

Life is too short to think small or settle for less than excellence.

There is no room for small dreams.

Much more wisdom and inspiration in just 39 minutes.

You can listen to the conversation on any podcast platform globally but the links to the Apple and Spotify streams are available here:

On Spotify:

On Apple:

Finding Career Fit For An AI Age.

Image by Scentofmoment via Midjourney

Many months ago I was given early access to the beta version of a new service which promised to help an individual better understand themselves and find ways navigate their career in ways that were aligned with and fit their personality.

Trying the beta version I was surprised at not only how easy and fast it was to use but also how accurate and revealing it was.

Today the service called myTrudy is available to everybody for free to try at myTrudy.Com

It will provide a person with their PQ which is personality quotient in less than five minutes.

It became clear to me that myTrudy’s Personality Quotient approach would be important in the AI Age where what we know and what we have done will become less important than who we are and what we can become!

This week on The Rethinking Work Show Avi Steinlauf the CEO and Co-founder of myTrudy and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic another of the Co-founders share the science, the thinking, and the ways their service can augment an individual in finding fit while also helping companies find the right talent that fits their firm.

Avi most recently was the CEO of Edmunds.com. Tomas is an international authority in people analytics, talent management, leadership development, and the Human-AI interface. He is also Chief Science Officer at Russell Reynolds Associates. The other two founders of MyTrudy are Peter Steinlauf and Dr Seymour Adler. Peter Steinlauf acquired Edmunds Publications in 1980 and launched Edmunds.Com in 1995 which grew to be the pre-eminent automobile site before being sold to CarMax. Dr. Seymour Adler has been awarded the Distinguished Professional Contribution Award from the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology in recognition of his career-long and global impact on talent assessment and development practice.

Encourage listening to or watching the entire conversation with Avi and Tomas but here are some key insights and provocations:

1. Who we are is an under-rated determiner of future career success: Our success is t based not just on our IQ or EQ or TQ(Technology Quotient) but also on our own personality or PQ ( Personality Quotient). Today in an AI age, IQ and TQ are often being outpaced by machine intelligence making EQ and PQ more important.

2. The new PQ test identifies five key traits and reveals three keys to career success: The five traits are agreeableness, conscientiousness, how extroverted one is, how open one is and emotional stability. Three keys to future career success are SDL where S is smart and ability to learn, D is drive or ability to work hard and L is likability or ability to get along with others.

3. Reinvention will be the key to career success: As we work with Alien Intelligence (AI) and Replicants (Agents) our ability to reinvent what we work on , how we work and most important how we learn and unlearn will be key. As will our ability to persist, adapt and work alongside and collaborate with messy humans. To reinvent ourselves for the future of work we will need to understand ourselves.

4. Beyond the Resume and LinkedIn: One’s resume and LinkedIn profile while important are backward looking in a world which moves forward and companies focus on hiring for future potential. A LinkedIn profile is the road we have travelled while our personality and PQ serves as a GPS to help us navigate the next turn in our career journey.

5. PQ will be key for for a world of work versus a world of jobs: We may have passed peak full time jobs in many countries but not peak work opportunities. As companies in an AI age focus on getting work done versus filling jobs, and many individuals through choice or circumstances pursue portfolio careers, a key to success will be fit. What work fits us. How can companies fit work to the skill and the personality of the candidate? How can individuals look for opportunities that fit us versus searching for jobs?

6. Persistent Career Blueprint we can all own: While the world changes fast our personalities do not. But how should we architect, sculpt and hone ourselves to remain relevant ? One way is to sprout wings around the roots of our true selves which is our personality. PQ is part of the persistent career blueprint we can all own.

Listen or watch the entire episode. It will be 40 minutes that will make you think differently about your future career, how to manage your team and how to hire for your firm. And you can access MyTrudy and the free Personality Quotient test here: https://mytrudy.com/

YouTube:

Apple Podcast:

Spotify:

And in the juxtapositions may lie the meaning.

Image: Midjourney to the prompt “juxtapositions”

1. Digital silicon-based data driven solutions. Analog carbon-based emotional challenges.

A machine computes. A human dreams.

The elegance of code is often thwarted by the messiness of people.

Algorithms find co-relations between present and historical data sets. Adventuresome people leave the beaten path and innovate by forging new connections between things that were unconnected before.

Software is written but T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) emphasized “nothing is written” in human progress.

It is imagined.

Silicon Valley believed AI could monitor and clean up the weaponized mess of social media. Lots of computing power and tens of thousands of people later the situation continues to sizzle.

People surprise and are illogical.

Math may have no meaning or it may be the closest to truth.

Meaning often has no math and for most people the real world is not enough.

Artist: Giorgio de Chirico

2. Diversity of people. The diversity of voices.

Diversity is critical.

Diversity ensures innovation as differences of perspectives, voices, and expertise find ways to connect, intersect, compete and intertwine.

Life, nature and biology are driven by diversity.

The drive to diversity whether it be gender, ethnicity, sexual preference or background is important because it is fair, just and supports ideas, value, freedom and career growth.

Even more critical is that the diverse voices are heard, and diversity is not just diversity of faces or quotas to meet benchmarks.

Artist: Vladimir Kush

3. Why we join. Why we stay.

We seek jobs and careers that will afford us money, power and fame.

And we measure our wealth, our span of control and our influence.

But we stay for connections, purpose and personal growth.

Do we feel connected to the people we work with, the purpose and values of the place we spend our lives, do we feel we belong and our voices are heard.

Most importantly do we feel we are growing as people with our skill and expertise?

We came for the numbers that we could measure on a spreadsheet.

We stayed for the stories that strengthened our heartbeat.

4. The potential of the old. The fixation on the young.

Those over 65 have increased by 50 percent in the past decade from 12 percent to 18 percent of the US population over the past ten years and now those 60 plus control 65% of all American wealth!

Those 60+ now have 47x the wealth of someone under 35. This is up from 10x five decades ago.

Modern health care indicates that a healthy 55 will not only have money but over 30 years of a physically healthy life. 100 year life spans will be normal soon. Today the growth market for most businesses in the US and in most developed markets from Europe to Japan are 50+. They do not see themselves as seniors and Covid-19 has underlined that they are open to new behaviors and brands.

But look around at the marketing in most countries which aims decades below where the money is not only in depiction but also tone of voice. Survey the ages of folks in marketing departments and agencies. It is often hard to find people of “seasoning” in most marketing areas.

Ageism is when we discriminate against our future selves.

Artist: Pablo Picasso

5. You. The other you.

A person in two moods can be more different than any two people.

You are both what you were and what you will become.

Some things change and some things stay the same.

It is hard enough to understand yourself and really difficult to understand other people.

Thus, let us be careful in both life and in business to believe we have anybody pegged.

When you have someone segmented and boxed and x-rayed. You have measured their ROI and Lifetime value. When you have them tiered and graded and valued remind yourself that someone is doing the same thing to you.

How does it feel?

And don’t you sometimes just do strange things to make their calculations crackle and burn and go all wrong?

You are both the marketer and the one marketed to.

You are both the archer, and you are the target.

Artist: John Nieto

6. Balance. Unite. Integrate.

In the digital world there are zeros and ones

In the real world there is a spectrum between zero and one.

In the fantasy world there is a yes and no for every question.

In the real world there are yes, no, maybe, depends, later, or avoiding the question all together.

The wise understand that one has to continuously manage a spectrum.

A spectrum of people, voices, opportunities, options and decisions.

The challenge is how to balance between the outcomes, unite the meaning and the math and find ways to integrate the possible with the improbable.

And to remember humans are incomplete, imperfect and impermanent.

As are all the decisions we make and the positions we take.

And in the juxtapositions may lie the meaning.

Why Creativity Will Matter More In An AI Age.

Photo by Rishad Tobaccowala

Earlier this week at the request of Sir John Hegarty, the legendary co-founder of BBH, I penned a note for his The Business of Creativity Newsletter.

Given the resonance of the short piece. I am republishing it here especially given recent events where it appears that AI is eating software and jobs…

Here are five reasons why creativity is likely to matter even more in the AI Age:

1. AI is a spur to creativity: AI is making very powerful tools affordable to everybody. A new palette with which the individual can express themselves. Increasingly the gap between idea and reality is closing. Today, one can code using English vs knowing computer languages. Every advance in technology has spurred a new canvas and possibilities for creativity.

2. Human Voice: Sir John Hegarty, in a podcast conversation with me a few months ago, defined creativity as follows: Creativity is an expression of self. Listen to the greatest creative people and you will hear them saying: “Here is what I wanted to say,” “This is what I wanted to show,” or “What I am trying to build.” This innate voice feeds on curiosity, instinct, exposure to differing perspectives, feelings, and things that do not compute. It will be a human creativity of self-expression and not a machine variation of optimization and data co-relation. AI will unleash human creativity but will not replace human creativity.

3. Human Choice: The French Philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote, “We choose with our hearts and use numbers to justify what we just did.” The most valuable brands differentiate on craft, provenance, storytelling, design and desire, which are all about how someone feels. All these are driven by creativity versus computation.

4. The Age of Poetry vs Plumbing: Most digital media, which are today the dominant media, has in the past been optimized on finding the right person at the right time in the right place. It has optimized for plumbing because technology had not enabled matching this with the right interaction until now. With generative and other AI tools, we are now likely to be able to not just be relevant, but to resonate by marrying math and magic at scale. We will enter the age of Poetry and Plumbing, and not just Plumbing.

5. Conversational Interfaces Spur Storytelling: Until now, most media has been search, streaming or scrolling, but now the new interface will be conversations. One of the most intriguing findings of a human interaction with a chat bot is the depth and range of conversation. It will allow for responses to be far more calibrated and human by marketers. They will rely on actual preferences vs modeled or guessed preferences, allowing for greater impact.

This is a new age of two-way storytelling.