I am a big fan of Barry O’Reilly. His “Unlearn” is a classic. That’s why I picked up “Artificial Organizations: Build Better Judgment, Speed, and Results with Human and Machine Intelligence”. A must-read for leaders.
Efficiency?
According to McKinsey’s State of AI 20254, nearly 80% of organisations say efficiency is the primary objective of their AI initiatives. Yet the companies generating the most value are the ones that explicitly set growth and innovation outcomes alongside efficiency.
Thinking!
“Artificial Organisations “ helps you reframe AI from productivity to thinking. AI augmented leadership. AI isn’t primarily a productivity tool. It enables a judgment system. Used well, it makes leaders better. Authority increases. This is not automation. It is judgment infrastructure.
Merge with AI
Artificial organisations don’t start with technology. They start with leaders who choose to lead differently. It’s about how leaders think, decide, and lead when you combine human and machine intelligence. You do not have a choice.
The problem for leaders
- Slow signal detection
- Fragmented information
- Weak synthesis of decisions
- Data overload
Augment decision-making
In the age of AI, experience only compounds if it is augmented. Otherwise, it calcifies. It is not automation, it’s better judgment. Good leaders aren’t outsourcing their decisions. They’re augmenting their decision-making. This creates two forces:
- Decision velocity, how quickly you move from question to insight, to decision, to action.
- Decision advantage, how informed, accurate, and context-rich those decisions are
Speed without insight creates chaos, while insight without speed results in irrelevance.
Instinct and insight
The trick is to combine the best of both worlds. Human instinct + machine insight = better outcomes. Using just-in-time information. Leaders with judgment systems augmented with AI push decisions to the right level because information arrives ready—not weeks later. If you’re leading the same way you did two years ago, you’re already behind. You will need to embrace AI.
How do your work
AI adoption does not start with tools. It starts with you and your traits. When you start with who you are and how you do your best work, everything else becomes simpler and more scalable. How do you actually do your best work:
- How do you think?
- Where do you add value?
- What strains your judgment?
- Which parts of your work no longer deserve your attention
Different leaders perform best by being: verbal: talking, debating, questioning out loud, storytelling, visual: writing, sketching, diagramming, receptive: listening, reading, observing, physical: walking, prototyping, analytical: contemplating, problem-solving, facilitating, role-playing, etc.
What are your traits?
Most people never stop to examine their traits, yet it’s your natural behavior, preferences, and information patterns that determine everything. You already have ways of: creating information (writing, drawing, talking, thinking out loud), capturing it (notes, slides, recordings, memory), leveraging it (dashboards, summaries, messaging), reusing it (pattern recognition, strategy), recalling it (informing decisions, sense-checking), etc.
The Trait–Task–Tool (3T) Model
The simple rule: Automate the repeatable. Amplify the creative. AI is built for the necessary, time-suck tasks. You are built for high-leverage tasks. When you automate time-suck administration, you create space for the work only you can do. Focus on high-leverage tasks.
The tools
Only decided on the tools after you know: your natural traits (how you work) • your highest-leverage tasks (where you create value). Then start small: meetings usually are the first domino, the one step that changes everything. If you do nothing else after this blog, do this: capture your work as data. One meeting, one conversation, one reflection at the end of the day. Not perfectly, not publicly, just intentionally. Once your work becomes something you can see, search, and synthesise, an asset you can return to, your thinking begins to compound.
The real shift
The real shift will come when you stop treating meetings, conversations, and fleeting thoughts as moments and start treating them as information assets. That alone will make the difference (it did for me, after reading Barry´s book, I downloaded 1200 mindcandy prompts, and the insights are amazing).
Then use Capture–Transcribe–Synthesise–Act (CTSA) and structured prompting to reduce cognitive drag before critical moments. Preparation then becomes deliberate.
AI as judgment infrastructure
The trick is to use AI as judgment infrastructure, as a thinking and sparring partner, as a debater, as a challenger, as a strategic tool, as your scenario planner, as your assumption smasher, as your question stormer, as an idea capturer, as a sense checker, as an augmented extension of yourself. Basically, the old rule still applies. Rubbish in, rubbish out. Feed your thinking partner with quality information and then use it to help you make the call.
Measurable improvement
No, AI doesn’t replace judgment. It creates the conditions for better judgment. And it is measurable:
- How quickly does raw data become usable intelligence that brings you clarity?
- Do you detect patterns earlier?
- Are you acting on leading indicators rather than lagging indicators? After you act, how long before you know whether it worked?
- How often do you revisit or unwind major calls?
- How consistently do you externalise decisions, direction, and reasoning?
Organised intuition
Barry comes up with a lovely phrase. Organised intuition. Augmented natural intelligence. I wrote a book about AI (free download here) and have come to the conclusion that natural intelligence (in all its forms) is infinitely smarter than AI. A combination of both, natural intelligence augmented by AI, would be a perfect combination. Mastering intuition to compete with AI. Merging is better.
Some tips
- Turn every interaction into an asset.
- Presence is now a leadership advantage.
- The problem isn’t data. It’s synthesis.
- Leverage AI to frame the problem.
- Do not treat AI as a search engine.
- Use disconfirming questions.
- Stop mistaking activity and output for progress.
- Time back is not the point. Leverage is.
- Start a prompt library.
Augmented experience
The leaders who struggle most are often the most experienced. They’ve been rewarded for intuition, decisiveness, and pattern recognition. AI doesn’t replace judgment; it exposes how judgment is formed. What distinguishes effective leaders in the age of AI isn’t foresight. It’s having the combination of human lessons and machine capabilities that compound.
Go for it
But first, you must participate. When you do something profound happens: You think more. You frame better questions. You kill weak ideas earlier. You see patterns before others do. Your creative-to-administration ratio shifts. In practice, leaders can double their creative judgment work from 20% to 40% within weeks.
Then scale
Judgment becomes an advantage the moment it stops living in one leader and starts shaping how the organisation decides. Imagine everyone in your organisation applying this. Imagine the impact. Judgment that lives in one leader is fragile.
Judgment that scales becomes an advantage.
