The multiplier: Abundance reveals AI's true potential

Right now, most people use AI moment-to-moment, for minor things. There are glimpses, especially in OpenAI's $200 tier, of the next phase: it working while you aren't there (or while you go make a tea.)

But our consideration of this technology's potential has become curiously beholden to its daily reality. We used to talk about AI as sci-fi magic, now it's "can it make my Powerpoint slides."

I think to understand where we are going, you need to factor in the idea of abundance.

You won't ask a product to make you a prototype of an app. You'll ask it to work on 5. Or 10. Or 50.

You don't have to keep correcting the mistakes it's adding to one of those tasks or workflows. You just kill off the branches that aren't working, in favour of those making progress.

You don't replace a worker with an AI, you replace work with a multiplier. Many experiments, many potential routes explored, with an orchestrator guiding them. The power of the editor leveraged and adding value.

I think this also recognises something often missing in business today – the element of luck. Yes, you can listen to your customers, make decisions based on what you infer from their needs.

But getting it right or wrong depends on endless factors – and I would argue often comes down more to personal inspiration (what imagination can you apply to solving their problems, instead of just hearing their words?) than many successful people feel comfortable accepting.

The clearest way to think about AI's future is not some singular Artificial General Intelligence you work with. But a fleet of explorers giving you more options than you ever had before.

This will rely more than ever on the person in control making the final decision. Taste, choice, decisiveness – these will drive success.

And to me, that makes work more human than ever.