You can’t predict the future. You can build the fitness to respond to it. #MindCandy is fuel for strategic conversation about what’s next.
State owned AI
AI sovereignty is not just about models, chips, cloud and data. It is also about narrative control. Because AI absolutism is now everywhere. AI will save us. AI will destroy us. AI is inevitable. AI dominance cannot be resisted. Get on board or get left behind.
That story is not neutral. It benefits the people building the infrastructure, setting the rules, capturing the upside and defining the future on everyone else’s behalf.
The state-owned AI debate, including ideas like AI wealth funds, is one response. If AI creates enormous value, who owns that value? If AI reshapes society, who governs the direction?
The same question applies to every business.
- https://www.ft.com/content/6212a1dc-5ebe-4037-b136-e1c29b061f8b?
- https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jun/11/ai-absolutism-apocalyptic-future
The leadership question
Are you shaping your AI future, or are you letting vendors, platforms, politicians and doom merchants define it for you?
The future fitness move
Run an AI sovereignty audit. Map your model, data, cloud, vendor, IP, governance and narrative dependencies. Then decide what you must own, what you can rent, what needs redundancy, and what story your organisation will tell about AI.
Free downloads
12 free books on strategy, innovation, intrapreneurship, AI, future trends and leadership. Each one distils the best thinking from dozens of business books into a single, actionable read. Every book is also available as a BookBuzz session, board briefing or keynote.
Citizen developers need a sandbox, not a blank check
Citizen AI can help business users solve local problems, but enterprises need bounded contextual autonomy to govern data, actions and ownership.
https://www.techtarget.com/searcherp/feature/Citizen-developers-need-a-sandbox-not-a-blank-check
AI-First Transformation: What Every Chief Data and Analytics Officer Must Do
Adopt an audacious AI-first mindset for D&A, redesign for human-agent collaboration, establish context as critical infrastructure, scale connected engineering practices, build trust as the foundation for innovation, and go beyond ROI to value compounding
https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/ai-for-data-analytics
Is Atlantic writer Ted Chiang conscious? How do we know?
If we give an LLM a prompt that reads “The following is a conversation between Julius Caesar and Genghis Khan,” it will generate a coherent dialogue between the two historical figures. But no matter how detailed the responses are, no matter how vividly they recount their respective historical accomplishments, we would never conclude that the LLM has conjured up digital re-creations of Julius Caesar and Genghis Khan, nor would we suggest that the historical figures are conscious.
https://tormentnexus.substack.com/p/is-atlantic-writer-ted-chiang-conscious
Why Employees Aren’t Transparent About Their AI Usage
A study of more than 48,000 respondents found that 57% of employees admitted to hiding their use of AI at work. Concealed use is one problem. What people are actually doing and learning in private with their prompt sequences, chained tools, and successful iterations matters more.
https://hbr.org/2026/06/why-employees-arent-transparent-about-their-ai-usage
‘No one has done this in the wild’: study observes AI replicate itself
It’s the stuff of science fiction cinema, or particularly breathless AI company blogposts: new research finds recent AI systems can independently copy themselves on to other computers.
AI Is Advancing Faster Than Our Ability to Understand It, Researchers Warn
Despite years of work on “explainable AI,” today’s most advanced systems remain black boxes for the most part. Scientists can observe what they do but cannot fully explain how they arrive at their conclusions or predict when they’ll fail.
The infrastructure beneath autonomous execution
AI execution depends on the stack beneath it. Data infrastructure, sovereignty, platforms, and open architectures are becoming the real enablers of action.
https://www.dqindia.com/data-and-ai/the-infrastructure-beneath-autonomous-execution-12037528
