Everyone wants to talk about what AI can do.

Faster outputs… lower costs… more scale.
That conversation is already crowded… and increasingly shallow.
What far fewer business leaders are asking is the harder question…

What is AI doing to us?

That’s where my focus has been shifting… especially as I speak on stages at leadership and industry events in 2026.
Because the biggest constraint I see inside organizations right now isn’t infrastructure.
It’s not data… and it’s definitely not tools.

It’s cognition.

AI doesn’t just automate tasks… it exposes how we think.
It reveals our shortcuts.
Our assumptions.
Our addiction to speed over sense-making.
Our tendency to cling to familiar mental models even as the environment around us is clearly changing.

Not-so-quietly, the center of advantage is moving.

Results are no longer driven by who has the most advanced technology stack.
They’re being driven by who can hold complexity and change without collapsing into old patterns that used to work.
And that’s uncomfortable.

Because it means the real work ahead isn’t technical… it’s elastic.

Can a leadership team revise a culture without feeling threatened?
Can decision-makers slow down long enough to see second-order effects instead of reacting to surface signals?
Can organizations let go of consumer behaviors, business assumptions and success metrics that once delivered results… but now create drag?

AI isn’t just a tool… it’s a truth serum.

And what it’s revealing is sobering.
Some teams are learning faster than their tools.
Others are being exposed by them.
The gap between those two groups isn’t talent or budget… it’s how willing they are to rethink how they interpret the business reality we currently find ourselves in.
That’s why I don’t believe 2026 will be remembered as a digital transformation milestone.

It will be remembered as the true beginning of a cognitive industrial revolution.

This is also why there’s been such urgency around getting my keynote onto stages around the world.
AI isn’t just changing how work gets done… it’s changing how decisions get made and how people buy.
Events that frame AI as a tools story will age quickly.
The conversations that will matter are the ones that help leaders rethink how they interpret complexity… challenge outdated mental models… and build cognitive capacity before chasing the next wave of hype.

Because when technology accelerates faster than thinking… strategy breaks.

And the organizations that will win in 2026 won’t be the ones who adopted AI tools.
They’ll be the ones who invested early in better thinking.
I was grateful to be included in this recent piece by Speakers Spotlight (my speaking bureau for close to twenty years) exploring AI and technology trends for 2026.
If this is the kind of conversation you want your audience, leadership team or organization engaging with… that’s exactly what I’m focused on bringing to stages right now.

Let’s talk.