Last week, I spoke with a business leader who’s excited about AI. But as we talked, it became clear that there’s a wide gulf between enthusiasm and creating value for a particular business. Most people’s impression of AI is based on limited use and media hype. Take the recent Ghibli-fication mania: millions are smitten with the idea of seeing themselves as a Miyazaki character. (I’m one of them!) And it’s understandable: the outputs are impressive. But AI can do more than make beautiful drawings or write compelling essays. As I’ve argued before, these aren’t the best uses for AI. Instead, we should use it to augment our abilities. But how? It’s hard to see beyond the outputs — especially since doing so entails getting more abstract. I’m still thinking about how to explain it, but three ideas are key: Businesses consist of information flows. Information exists to support decisions. Information can be optimized for better decision-making. Let’s unpack them. First, your business consists of information flows. Whatever your business is, it runs on information: how it’s captured, produced, shared, and processed. A proposal? Information. The request behind it? Also information. A standup meeting? An exchange of information. Your business creates value when it uses information effectively. Sure, that’s not the only way it creates value: the things you make and services you provide are key. But information is essential. Why? Because of the second point: information is in service to decision-making. The proposal helps the prospect decide whether to work with you. Research helps you decide whether to enter a new market. The meeting helps determine next steps. Third, information can be optimized. When I say “information,” you may think spreadsheets and databases. But that’s structured information. Most business information — conversations, documents, emails — is unstructured. Consider that meeting. It may have some structure: an agenda, list of attendees, start and end time. But the stuff you care about — what people say — isn’t structured. Even if you transcribe it, you must still think about what it means for you. AI can help tame the messy information flows that make up real work. Efforts to formalize them often kill spontaneity, nuance, and context. And even if they didn’t, there’s so much information that it’s been hard to make sense of it. But now we have AI. Don’t let the charismatic drawings distract you. That’s only a superficial application — and commodifying art is bad for our souls. Instead, focus on using AI for tasks that were previously impossible or impractical: working with vast amounts of unstructured information, playing out what-if scenarios at scale, and augmenting your team’s expertise. Information architects can help. We’ve been mapping information flows and making sense of unstructured information for decades. If you’re exploring how AI could create real business value — not just flashy outputs — let’s talk.

Nicolay Gerold interviewed me for his How AI is Built podcast. Our conversation focused on information architecture – with an interesting angle: Nicolay’s audience consists primarily of engineers developing AI products. What can these folks learn from IA to create better AI products? Conversely, what can IAs learn from engineers? And does information architecture matter at all in a world where these technologies exist? Tune in to find out: Spotify Apple Podcasts YouTube

In Episode 6 of the Traction Heroes podcast, Harry and I explored Chesterton’s fence — a simple yet profound idea that has important implications for leaders navigating complex, high-stakes changes. The gist: when change is needed, don’t start by destroying what you don’t understand. Assume things are the way they are because of reasons. Once you understand the reasons, you’re more likely to avoid unintended consequences when making changes. Here’s the passage I read from Chesterton’s The Thing: In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.” This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense. The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable. It is extremely probable that we have overlooked some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and mysterious. There are reformers who get over this difficulty by assuming that all their fathers were fools; but if that be so, we can only say that folly appears to be a hereditary disease. Catastrophic outcomes happen for many reasons. One of the worst is what Harry called stupidity: “a result of a series of actions that lead to an outcome that’s the opposite of what you say you want, under conditions of self-deception.” Perhaps if more people knew about Chesterton’s fence there would be less suffering caused by stupidity. As always, I learned a lot from bouncing these ideas off Harry. Among other things, he responded with an intriguing followup book. Perhaps that will be the subject of a future episode. Stay tuned for more!

Louis Rosenfeld interviewed Harry Max and me for his Rosenfeld Review podcast. The subject? Harry and my podcast, Traction Heroes. We recorded this conversation late in 2024, before we’d shared the first episode. This interview lays out Traction Heroes’s backstory. It’s fitting that we shared it in Lou’s show, since he published Harry’s book Managing Priorities and my Living in Information and Duly Noted. The Rosenfeld Review Podcast (Rosenfeld Media) · Traction Heroes with Harry Max & Jorge Arango Listen on SoundCloud