Three Artificial Intelligence Waves Business Executives Can Plan For Right Now
Straight ahead: Pre-AI, Mid-AI, and Omnipresent-AI
As I observe executives reacting to rapidly improving artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, it occurs to me that three waves of change can be anticipated, one that can be managed starting immediately and two that should be mapped in expectation of their arrival.
The waves are:
Wave 1: Pre-AI Disruption (2025-?)
Wave 2: Mid-AI Disruption (?-?)
Wave 3: Omnipresent-AI Disruption (?-?)
It is imperative that leaders develop the foundational knowledge, cross-functional skills within their organizations, and adaptable plans to thrive amid each wave.
Without those learnings, skills, plans—and the mindsets that accompany each—pain is possible.
Economic pain from missed opportunities and career upskilling, reskilling, or job loss.
Organizational pain from failing to account for AI’s influence in every facet of work.
Psychological pain from within and without as you and your team wrestle with the existential possibilities AI poses—some great, some less than great.
Let’s examine each wave in turn.
Wave 1: Pre-AI Disruption
You will notice that in the above list, this wave is the only one for which I have assigned a start date. This is the wave many industries are facing right now, and those that haven’t been materially affected soon will be.
Certainly, some companies already have been very public that they are upskilling their workforce, applying AI broadly via experiments, and even laying off people because of efficiencies gained by AI tools. You can Google (or ChatGPT!) the recent reports of any of the major global consulting firms and their case studies documenting these realities.
This is an instructive snapshot, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg.
The effects of AI to date are modest, the creeping dread palpable, the scorn and disbelief spilling out into the open.
Yet hearken back to my recent post about the large AI labs’ goal of building artificial general intelligence—and believing full well they’ll get there. Workplace inertia on AI is real and understandable, but it might not be so for much longer as the true potential of these technologies becomes unavoidable.
If a machine could, in due time, do the job of Ph.D.-level employees across your entire organization, might that be a signal that we are entering an era of substantial disruption?
I believe the answer is yes.
Which brings us to the next wave.
Wave 2: Mid-AI Disruption
We don’t know when this one will start, but there’s plenty of reason to believe (at least, in my self-studied opinion) that some combination of scaling laws, billions of dollars of investment, and highly motivated computer scientists will produce AI systems unrecognizable compared to what we have today.
In other words, vastly more capable.
If you think ChatGPT writes bad haikus, you’re perfectly entitled to that opinion. And as an aspiring novelist myself (horror, if you must know), there are cases in which I believe AI should stay out of the way entirely. There is beauty and excitement and insight and creativity and artistry that—in my view—should be the exclusive purview of humans, for all time.
The robots should keep their grubby hands off.
Yes, some artists will gladly use AI tools and build with them. That’s their prerogative, and I suspect there will be an audience for whatever they produce. Just like lots of folks generate and buy stock photos of canned office workers mugging for the camera during their weekly staff meeting. It’s not high art, but it’s cheap and meets the needs of marketers on lean budgets.
Each of us must wrestle with the ethics of the infusion of AI into everything. We have a right to do so loudly, as free speech mercifully permits.
But none of our lectern-thumping, in favor or in opposition, will prevent the coming of the Mid-AI Disruption. To individual careers. To leaders and their teams. To families. To organizations. To entire industries, communities, nations, humankind at large.
I’ve been a journalist for nearly two decades, and nothing I’ve covered has made me as excited and as scared as AI, specifically whatever is just beyond the place where we can see clearly.
But just because you can’t see the future doesn’t mean you can’t do a solid job preparing for it.
If you are in high school, or in college, or fresh into your career, or a seasoned office warrior, your time is now. Especially if you lead and manage people.
All y’all are going to face some big decision points in the Mid-AI Disruption.
Lay the groundwork.
Understand what AI makes possible and what its drawbacks are.
Grasp what kinds of functionalities are somewhat to very likely coming next.
Then, prepare for various AI capability levels and infusion into your everyday life to ensure economic, organizational, and psychological well-being through it all.
Because in Wave 3, all of this starts to look very, very different, I suspect.
Wave 3: Omnipresent-AI Disruption
There is no possible way to know what sort of life and work exists when the Omnipresent-AI Disruption arrives. At that point, the most powerful AI systems will be present everywhere, at least as the developers of the technologies envision it.
What we can know for sure, though, is that Human Disruption Preparedness is not only important but essential if we are to preserve the beauty of human work, human relationships, and human ingenuity.
Yes, AI can be a healthy and positive part of that—I’ve experienced it myself. But we cannot assume everything will go smoothly, and we must think sober-mindedly about possible downside to mitigate the risk of those things happening.
In the Omnipresent-AI Disruption world, I hypothesize that there will be magnitudes of order more automation or partial automation, up to the executive level of organizations and across all industries, with significantly less human intervention, knowledge labor, and manual labor.
This could mean widespread worker displacement, starting with office roles and expanding into manufacturing ones as AI is embodied in robots.
This could mean a Renaissance in entrepreneurship for enterprising human beings. It could level the playing field for literally anyone with access to a computer to build amazing products and services to the great benefit of society.
It could mean a renewable energy revolution. It could mean (I kid you not—the AI congregants love this stuff) colonization of space.
Plus, all kinds of other things.
Nobody knows. We just know it will be different. And probably weird. And hopefully wonderful. And probably rife with new challenges.
What You Can Do About It Right Now
When his neighbors worried fire would take their homes and businesses, Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have remarked, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
I think leaders would do well to heed that advice as they consider how AI will affect their personal lives and businesses in 2025.
To “cure” AI and make it go away isn’t the goal, or at least it’s not a particularly productive one.
Instead, a better focus might be prevention of risks and capitalization of opportunities through planning.
This might look like:
Defining what human purpose means to you, your family, and your organization in an era of AI disruption
Brainstorming AI-aligned ways your organization will handle hiring and upskilling
Writing a “no compromise” list of areas in which AI will not be permitted
Studying the current and future capabilities of AI to stay alert and ready
Experimenting with AI tools and comparing notes with your colleagues
None of this has to be a scary exercise. Sure, there’s plenty of uncertainty.
But you know what’s certain? Your ability to think critically.
And the reality that we’re in this together.
Because all of this is without precedent.
Let’s write history together.