Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 6

SPOS #995 – Nelson Repenning On Delivering Real Results At Work

Welcome to episode #995 of Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast.

Nelson Repenning has built his career at MIT Sloan and Shift Gear by asking a simple but haunting question: why do so many smart, capable organizations fail to get the right work done? In his new book, There’s Got to Be a Better Way, Nelson (along with his co-author, Don Kieffer) introduces dynamic work design: a practical framework that helps leaders move beyond broken systems and toward better execution. In this conversation, we explore the five principles behind this approach: solving the right problem, structuring for discovery, connecting the human chain, regulating for flow and visualizing the work. We talk about how businesses become addicted to heroics and strategic ambiguity, and how this culture often traps people in cycles of fire-fighting and busywork that look productive but deliver little. Nelson shares stories from his experience applying these principles in casinos, hospitals, biotech labs, and even homeless shelters (environments where urgency is real, resources are stretched and clarity can make or break outcomes). We also discuss how leadership often overcomplicates productivity with reorgs and top-down mandates, instead of fixing the structural design flaws that block meaningful progress. Nelson is quick to point out that the work isn’t just about doing more: it’s about doing it better… and that better means aligning actual workflow with the outcomes organizations care about. He reflects on his early days as a student at MIT and why dynamic work design is less a management fad and more a necessary shift in how modern teams operate. If you’re tired of watching your best people get burned out chasing KPIs while nothing fundamental improves, this episode offers a clearer path. We also get into the tension between change management and change design, and why the latter matters more in a world flooded with noise, complexity and well-intentioned but ineffective solutions. This is a sharp and focused take on work culture from someone who’s spent a lifetime challenging the systems beneath it. Enjoy the conversation…

Running time: 1:00:22.Hello from beautiful Montreal.Listen and subscribe over at Apple Podcasts.Listen and subscribe over at Spotify.Please visit and leave comments on the blog – Six Pixels of Separation.Feel free to connect to me directly on Facebook here: Mitch Joel on Facebook.Check out ThinkersOne.or you can connect on LinkedIn.…or on X.Here is my conversation with Nelson Repenning.There’s Got to Be a Better Way.Shift Gear.MIT Sloan.Follow Nelson on LinkedIn.

Chapters:

(00:00) – Introduction to Nelson Repenning.
(02:55) – The Journey to System Dynamics.
(05:55) – Bridging Theory and Practice in Organizations.
(09:14) – The Challenge of Success and Anomalies.
(11:54) – Dynamic Work Design: From Manufacturing to Knowledge Work.
(15:06) – The Role of AI in Knowledge Work.
(18:12) – Manufacturing’s Future and National Security.
(20:58) – The Integration of Design and Manufacturing.
(32:01) – The Complexity of Manufacturing and Supply Chains.
(33:14) – Dynamic Work Design: A New Approach.
(35:34) – Identifying and Solving the Right Problems.
(39:28) – The Disconnect Between Management and Ground Realities.
(42:14) – Adapting Management Practices for Hybrid Work.
(45:33) – Visual Management in Knowledge Work.
(52:44) – Regulating Flow to Prevent Overload.
(58:41) – The Psychological Hurdles of Change.

Download the Podcast here: Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast – Episode #995.

Before you go… ThinkersOne  is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

Six Links That Make You Think #788

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (Just Evil Enough, Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, Interesting Bits, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, FWD50, and Scaletechconf; author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (Rebus Foundation, PressBooks, LibriVox) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person “must see.”

Check out these six links that we’re recommending to one another:

Did The ‘Friends’ Pilot Predict The Matrix?- Heidi Regan – YouTube. “The TED Talk you didn’t know you needed.” (Alistair for Hugh). A Film For The Future Remix – Coldplay . “We were so busy talking about KissCamGate and the excellent PR pivot with Gwyneth Paltrow, we missed the interactive remix app for one of their tracks. Looking at the band’s LinkTree is a reminder of just how widespread a tour or album launch is these days.” (Alistair for Mitch). The General Theory Of Enshittification – Paul Krugman . “Paul Krugman casts an economist’s eye on Cory Doctorow‘s notion of enshittification, the process by which great services designed for their users transition to benefitting their business customers (over their users), then squeeze their business customers to maximize profit, then (maybe) die. Twitter is a great example, but social media in general fits this model. Krugman argues this principle applies to any business that relies on network effects, and tries to put some preliminary math to the process.” (Hugh for Alistair). Scapegoating The Algorithm – Dan WIlliams – Asterik . “Has social media ruined everything? Or are there deeper problems in our/American politics?” (Hugh for Mitch). Waymo, Texas Culture, Airline Lounges, OpenAI And Uber Eats – Rory Sutherland – Modern Wisdom – YouTube . “He’s back! I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it: I love Rory Sutherland. The way his brain works is this blend of polymath curiosity, mischief and sharp insight. It feels like listening to someone remix reality in real time with a swanky accent. So glad to see him back on the Modern Wisdom podcast. He jumps from maps easing anxiety to the psychology of airline lounges, to why food delivery UX often misses the mark. But what sticks with me is how he reframes everything. He doesn’t try to out-engineer the world, he rethinks the rules we’re playing by. He makes you realize that the smallest tweaks in context… how something feels, not just what it does… can be more transformative than any big-budget innovation. He’s not just a brilliant thinker… he’s a brilliant rethinker. And he’s wildly entertaining to boot. When I think about how you’re trying to get the word out on your book, Just Evil Enough, I feel like the way Rory thinks is a perfect pairing. Countless moments of insights and he drops some interesting books and thikers to follow.” (Mitch for Alistair). Scientists Hit Quantum Computer Error Rate Of 0.000015% — A World Record Achievement That Could Lead To Smaller And Faster Machines – Tristan Greene – LiveScience . “Every so often, a breakthrough comes along that feels like a quiet revolution, and this one, while microscopic in scale is seismic in implication. Scientists have achieved an error rate in quantum computing so low it practically redefines precision. That matters because quantum computing is the rocket fuel for AI, biotech, climate modeling (or any problem too complex for today’s machines). With this kind of fidelity, we’re edging closer to systems that don’t just live in labs but actually work in the wild. Smaller. Faster. Smarter. It unlocks a world where AI doesn’t just guess but understands, where drug discovery accelerates, where logistics and problem-solving happen in real time. And while I’m excited, I’m terrfied too. When innovation moves faster than regulation or even comprehension, we risk racing into a future we haven’t fully thought through. The speed is thrilling, but it’s also disorienting… yay for discovery… and yikes!” (Mitch for Hugh).

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on X, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.

Before you go… ThinkersOne  is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

TikTalk – Welcome To The Algorithm’s Accent

We used to create content to be understood.

Now, more often than not, we create for more clicks.
It starts small…

An article we optimize for Search Engines.A TikTok caption that uses phrases created by others that gets the culture clicking.A perfectly polite email drafted by ChatGPT.An article where the words feel oddly… AI-generated.

Suddenly, more and more people (and companies) are speaking this way… mistaking performance for personality.

No one told us to start speaking like this.
We just watched it “work.”
We saw the likes, the comments, the little check marks of approval.
And we learned… quickly.

Welcome to the algorithm’s accent.

TikTok has made the weirdest sentence structure in the room the most effective (check out this article: Algorithm On Fleek: How TikTok is Transforming the English Language).
ChatGPT is now changing vocabulary choices in written and spoken communications (check out this article: People Are Starting to Talk More Like ChatGPT). 
Memes aren’t just jokes anymore… they’re new grammar guides.
And what’s weirder is that ChatGPT is giving us the opposite impulse.

Where TikTok turns language up, ChatGPT turns it down.

Everything gets smoothed… flattened.
Polished to the point where it no longer sounds like a person… just a person who doesn’t want to offend (or sounds like everyone else).
One platform teaches us to speak creatively to fit a new culture.
The other blands us like HR manuals in a dress shirt.
And the net effect?

Our voices are slowly being replaced by performance.

We’ve been through this before.
The telephone changed how we greet each other.
Email rewired our sense of brevity.
Autocorrect made us all bad at spelling… but better at catching typos.

Still, this moment feels different.

Because for the first time, we’re not just using the tools.
We’re absorbing their personalities… it’s becoming a new kind of “voice”.
Think about how ChatGPT writes…
We all see the use of words we had not (typically) used before: “delve,” “comprehend,” “meticulous,” “swift,” “boast.”
We’re now using The Dash Test (if there’s an em dash, that means it’s AI generated).
Now scroll your inbox… now listen to yourself speak in a meeting.

The algorithm isn’t just watching us.

We’re watching it back… and copying.
And for marketers, leaders, creators?
That has serious implications.

Brands used to chase culture… now they chase cadence.

They want to either beat the algorithms or bend it to their will.
But here’s the problem (maybe opportunity):
Language isn’t just a wrapper for ideas anymore… it is the idea.
You change your tone, you change your message.
You change your rhythm, you change your meaning.
You change your language, you change who you are.
And if the goal is clarity without humanity?

Congratulations… the AI machines are winning (hello, AI slop).

But if you still want to sound like you?
Here’s what I think matters:

Write a little slower.Speak with more quirks.Don’t sand down your style to match the prompt.Don’t let the algorithm dictate the word choice or the flow.And maybe let the/some typos live? (this one makes me cringe).

Because the backlash is already here.

We see people thinking and creating in authentically human ways.
As a middle finger to the algorithm.
Even if it “costs them” visibility.
Some creators (but not enough) now seem to crave what the algorithm can’t optimize:
The glitch… the pause… the breath between thoughts that tells you someone’s “really” there.

TikTok and ChatGPT are teaching us to speak the same.

But real language?
It was always about being felt.
So ask yourself this:
If your words weren’t being scored by the machine…
Would you still say them the same way?

Or is the algorithm already ghostwriting our voice?

This is what Elias Makos and I discussed on CJAD 800 AM.

Mitch Joel · TikTalk – Welcome To The Algorithm’s Accent – The Elias Makos Show – CJAD 800

Before you go… ThinkersOne is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

This Might Not Work – A Manifesto For Modern Builders

“I’m not sure.”

How often have I said this to myself?
How often have I said it out loud?

Not being sure is the place where I live.

Am I right about the concept of “vibe content” (not sure… and the LinkedIn comments provide no additional guidance).
There’s a strange kind of panic that sets in when you’re not 100% sure what you’re doing.
Not clueless… just uncertain… unsteady.

I remember showing ThinkersOne to a very prominent Thinker, and they didn’t see the value. 

I reiterated back to them that they might be right.
This might not work… we’re not sure.
That this is the job of an entrepreneur to potentially… maybe… be right.
It’s like walking through fog but everyone else seems to have a map you didn’t get.

It happens to me more than I care to admit… mid-project… mid-decision… mid-conversation… mid-night.

But something Vicki Tan said in our conversation stuck with me…
She believes the best ideas come from that place… the not-sure place.
Not being sure isn’t a weakness… it’s a signal.
It’s the sound of something real taking shape… a form of tension… of ambiguity… of the space between what we know and what we’re about to discover… or create.

Business culture has fetishized certainty.

Make the plan… stick to the plan… move fast… correct course and don’t look back.
But the most meaningful work (the most honest ideas) don’t arrive in a flash of certainty.
They emerge slowly… they simmer… they detour.
They show up as fragments, doubts, scribbles and half-sentences you almost didn’t write down (or share in spaces like this).
And still… most of us apologize for them (I might be doing that right now).

We soften our language… we bury the unpolished stuff…

We try to sound thoughtful when maybe we should just be thinking… out loud… in the open.
It’s not easy to do.
Don’t believe me (scroll through the comments… it takes thick skin).

I’ve been sitting with this question all week:

What if not being sure is the point?
What if that friction you’re feeling (that hesitation to think out loud) isn’t a failure of clarity, but the very condition that makes clarity future-possible?

I needed that reminder… maybe you did too?

(Vicki’s a brilliant designer and Thinker. We talked about her book, Ask This Book A Question, on this week’s episode of Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast).

Before you go… ThinkersOne is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

Vicki Tan On Life’s Big And Little Decisions – This Week’s Six Pixels of Separation Podcast

Episode #994 of Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to:

Vicki Tan has designed experiences for some of the most influential companies in the world (Pinterest, Airbnb, Headspace, Lyft, Google) and her work has always focused on helping people make better choices in complex environments. Her new book, Ask This Book A Question, continues that mission in a radically creative form. This isn’t your typical self-help guide. It’s an interactive journey through the beautiful mess of human decision-making, shaped by the science of cognitive bias, the power of storytelling and the playfulness of visual design. Vicki explores how our mental shortcuts shape everything – from whether we leave our job to how we fall in love – and how reframing our questions can unlock more clarity than any answer ever could. She talks about the tension between intuition and logic, the real-world costs of not understanding our own biases and the way interface design and behavior design intersect in both delightful and dangerous ways. In this epsiode, she also digs into the deeper story behind the book: How she collaborated with artists to visualize psychological concepts and why she believes our decisions deserve more compassion than critique. This episode is for anyone who’s ever overthought a text message… or stood paralyzed in a grocery aisle… or wondered why being human feels so confusing sometimes. Which is to say: it’s for all of us. Enjoy the conversation…

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via Apple Podcast or whatever platform you may choose):  #994 – Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast .

Before you go… ThinkersOne  is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

SPOS #994 – Vicki Tan On Life’s Big And Little Decisions

Welcome to episode #994 of Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast.

Vicki Tan has designed experiences for some of the most influential companies in the world (Pinterest, Airbnb, Headspace, Lyft, Google) and her work has always focused on helping people make better choices in complex environments. Her new book, Ask This Book A Question, continues that mission in a radically creative form. This isn’t your typical self-help guide. It’s an interactive journey through the beautiful mess of human decision-making, shaped by the science of cognitive bias, the power of storytelling and the playfulness of visual design. Vicki explores how our mental shortcuts shape everything – from whether we leave our job to how we fall in love – and how reframing our questions can unlock more clarity than any answer ever could. She talks about the tension between intuition and logic, the real-world costs of not understanding our own biases and the way interface design and behavior design intersect in both delightful and dangerous ways. In this epsiode, she also digs into the deeper story behind the book: How she collaborated with artists to visualize psychological concepts and why she believes our decisions deserve more compassion than critique. This episode is for anyone who’s ever overthought a text message… or stood paralyzed in a grocery aisle… or wondered why being human feels so confusing sometimes. Which is to say: it’s for all of us. Enjoy the conversation…

Running time: 54:55.Hello from beautiful Montreal.Listen and subscribe over at Apple Podcasts.Listen and subscribe over at Spotify.Please visit and leave comments on the blog – Six Pixels of Separation.Feel free to connect to me directly on Facebook here: Mitch Joel on Facebook.Check out ThinkersOne.or you can connect on LinkedIn.…or on X.Here is my conversation with Vicki Tan.Ask This Book A Question.Follow Vicki on Instagram.Follow Vicki on LinkedIn.

Chapters:

(00:00) – Introduction to Vicki Tan and Her Journey.
(02:57) – Balancing Work and Writing.
(05:55) – Understanding Product Design.
(08:56) – The Role of Luck in Career Success.
(12:00) – The Importance of Asking Questions.
(15:01) – The Process of Writing a Book.
(17:49) – Cognitive Biases and Decision Making.
(20:52) – Cultural Perspectives on Risk.
(24:10) – Engaging with the Book and Its Purpose.
(28:23) – The Polarization of Society and Technology’s Role.
(29:16) – The Evolution of Music Consumption and Its Implications.
(32:16) – Designing for the Future: The Role of Creators.
(37:25) – Risk Tolerance and the Art of Quitting.
(41:41) – Navigating Decision Fatigue in a Complex World.
(46:08) – The Impact of AI on Decision Making.
(52:20) – Understanding Time and Decision Making in a Vortex of Choices.

Download the Podcast here: Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast – Episode #994.

Before you go… ThinkersOne  is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

Six Links That Make You Think #787

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (Just Evil Enough, Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, Interesting Bits, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, FWD50, and Scaletechconf; author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (Rebus Foundation, PressBooks, LibriVox) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person “must see.”

Check out these six links that we’re recommending to one another:

Digital Safety Guide For Domestic Violence Survivors – Liz Howard – The Multiverse School. “One of the people I follow online, Liz Howard, is an AI teacher, tech explainer, activist, and extremely smart technologist. Among many other things she’s done is this document designed for survivors of domestic violence. In an era of encroaching technology, when someone dangerous has access to your physical devices, they can turn them against you in myriad ways. 85% of domestic violence survivors experience some kind of tech-based harassment. This no-nonsense document contains an exhaustive list, and it’d be good if more people see it. Sharing this mostly because I wanted folks to have access to it if they know someone who needs help.” (Alistair for Hugh). Detection Of Cancers Three Years Prior To Diagnosis Using Plasma Cell-Free Dna – American Association For Cancer Research . “The sooner we detect cancer, the more likely we are to beat it. This study (paywalled, but it contains a synopsis) shows that cancer DNA shows up in blood plasma as much as three years beforehand. With better sensitivity, we can tackle these diseases sooner. Today, cancer is often a co-morbidity (meaning we have it but die of something else first). So the challenge, of course, is whether we have the resources to do so – particularly with our already-stressed medical system. Still, it’s a reminder that technology can also help us.” (Alistair for Mitch). Algorithm On Fleek: How TikTok Is Transforming The English Language – Adam Aleksic – Lit Hub . “Language and TikTok.” (Hugh for Alistair). Your Face Tomorrow – Michael W. Clune – Harper’s Magazine . “How much of what we care about today (say privacy) will not matter in the future because of tech.” (Hugh for Mitch). The Media’s Pivot To AI Is Not Real And Not Going To Work – Jason Koebler – 404 Media . “I don’t think I spent enough time realzing just how badly AI will impact media companies… shame on me. Media companies are struggling as AI tools like ChatGPT implode website traffic and, in turn, will harm journalism jobs. Still, it would be imporassible for media executives to also not push AI as a solution to stay profitable. Which means (you guessed it) cutting staff and relying on tech giants more and more. What’s the best strategy here? This journalist believes that media companies need to focus on building real relationships with readers and highlighting human work, not just chasing AI efficiency. And while I can’t disagree with this perspective, it’s hard to believe that it’s the solution and not just a band-aid. Woe is the future of media…?” (Mitch for Alistair). Popular Podcasts Like Joe Rogan And Theo Von Are All Video Now. Who Is Watching? – Joseph Bernstein – The New York Times . “How long has it been since we’ve debated the topic: What is a podcast? Welp… here we go again. It’s clear that the most popular podcasts are… eseentially… TV shows… but on YouTube. Whether you’re watching the talking heads ramble on or playing them in the background. It’s a new day for podcasts and YouTube is the main platform for video podcasts. Still, most people still listen to audio-only version (I’m sure Tom Webster has all of the actual data to share). Still, we can’t deny this video-first shift, which is everything from how podcasts are now made to who watches them and, maybe, most importantly, what a ‘podcast’ even means in today’s media landscape” (Mitch for Hugh).

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on X, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.

Before you go… ThinkersOne  is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

Authenticity As The Last Human Advantage?

There’s a strange irony about visibility… especially these days.

Most of us spend years trying to be seen… to have our work noticed.
To stand out… to prove ourselves… to make our point.
And then the moment we step forward… we freeze.
We filter… we shrink… we wonder if we’re “too much”… or maybe “not enough.”
What’s wild is that this isn’t about ego.

It’s about safety.

For years, I’ve talked about the tension between personal brand and professional presence.
I’ve encouraged people to be personable and questioned those who got too personal.
How much to share… how loud to be… how vulnerable to get.
I’m not sure I even know the answers to these questions for myself anymore.

Editing this week’s episode of Six Pixels of Separation – The ThinkersOne Podcast with Angela Chee reminded me that many of us were never taught how to hold space for our own voice… let alone share it.

Angela’s story is about more than being heard… it’s about owning your only-ness.
That unique blend of history, culture, experience, identity and perception that can’t be replicated.
That unique blend that (for the time being) AI can’t mirror back at the world.
It’s one thing to say we value authenticity.
It’s another to be the first in the room to actually live it… especially when you’ve never seen it modelled before.

I find myself thinking about how often we mask our best ideas behind the language we think people expect from us.

We don’t show up fully… we show up safely.
And that has consequences… I know it has for me.
Not just for our careers… but for the kind of culture we create.
For the teams we lead… the products we build… the next generation who’s watching.

There’s power in turning down the noise of perfectionism and tuning into what’s uniquely yours.

I think about how Jake Karls and the rest of the Mid-Day Squares leadership share their story… so open… so real.
That’s not soft… that’s not self-help fluff… that’s leadership.
I’m jealous of them because I’m scared to let that side show.
I use cute lines like “I’m living a post-status lifestyle” (which can be both true and a way to deflect my own anxiety about putting myself out there).
If you’ve ever felt like you’ve had to edit who you are just to fit in…
Or worried that sharing your story would somehow make you “less professional”…

This one’s for you… and this one’s for me (because I feel like that often).

I’ve been trying to be more open in this space lately.
I’m taking it one small step at a time… and challenging myself to leap just a little bit more.

I hope that you do the same…

Before you go… ThinkersOne is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

The Rise Of Agentic AI

For a while now, we’ve treated AI like a tool.

A clever one… a fast one… often an annoying one.
But still… a tool.
You ask and it answers. 
You prompt and it spits. 
You feed it words and it feeds you back something to work with.

But that’s not what’s happening anymore.

We’re about to cross a line.
Not with a bang… but with a whisper.
A small update here… a quiet launch there… a twist on a few tools that people are already tinkering with.

But when you zoom out?

It’s not a tool anymore.
It’s an agent.
It doesn’t just respond… it plans.
It doesn’t just react… it executes.
It doesn’t just answer… it acts.

We’re in what I’d call the “pinhole to floodgate” moment of Agentic AI.

We cracked the door open… you can peak… and the light is already coming in.
The new generation of AI (take a look at OpenAI’s recent launch of ChatGPT Agent) can chain tasks together, hold goals in memory and navigate uncertainty (and websites) to accomplish open-ended instructions.

These systems don’t just help you work… they are a worker.

And unlike human workers, they don’t sleep…
They don’t wait for approval… they don’t stop until the task is done… or broken.
And yes, they’re clunky… slow… requiring a ton of supervision… and they’re getting it woefully wrong right now.

But every company in the AI arms race is pointing their smartest minds at this exact shift.

It feels less about getting to super intelligence and more about getting to agentic work.
Because if you can be agentic, will anyone care if it nails whatever definition we have for “super intelligence”?
And while it might be not so good right now, nothing about AI ever resides in stasis.

But this is where my brain is currently spinning:

When your digital assistant becomes an employee… then a team… then a manager…
What does that make you?
Where does agency lie when the agent now has some agency of its own?
When we’re just overseeing the actions with minimal input (err… prompts).
We’re not just building smarter systems.
We’re training them to do our tasks… and then delegate.

This isn’t just AI that mimics intelligence.

It’s AI that decides.
That sequences.
That adapts.
That learns your needs.
That gets better at the doing because it’s able to see, search and click at scale.

Maybe soon we won’t be prompting a single model, but managing networks of agents?

Each with a specialty, a role and a mission.
And like all tech shifts, we’ll act like this is gradual.
Until suddenly… it’s not.

What was it that Kevin Kelly said: The future happens very slowly and then all at once.

Suddenly your competitor launches a product in days instead of months.
Suddenly your inbox is triaged by an AI… who knows your priorities better than you do.
Suddenly your kid’s homework isn’t just written by a bot… it’s critiqued, revised and defended in conversation… by the same system (that’s also teaching your kid how and why it did what it did).

This is (maybe) the quiet inflection point.

The one we’ll look back on and say,
“That’s when it changed. That’s when AI went from mirror to mover.”
And the question we’ll ask then (that maybe we should be asking now):
If your business, your creativity, your leadership is still built around static tools or this belief that these skills are solely the domain of us in our protein forms…

What happens when the rest of the world starts building with agents?

This is what Elias Makos and I discussed on CJAD 800 AM.

Mitch Joel · The Rise Of Agentic AI – The Elias Makos Show – CJAD 800

Before you go… ThinkersOne is a new way for organizations to buy bite-sized and personalized thought leadership video content (live and recorded) from the best Thinkers in the world. If you’re looking to add excitement and big smarts to your meetings, corporate events, company off-sites, “lunch & learns” and beyond, check it out.

Welcome To Vibe Content

We used to ask, “Is this good?”

Now we ask, “Did a human make this?”
The tools exist… all of them.
Text, images, audio, video… short form, long form, snackable, scrollable, shopable.
And yes… generative.

Anyone with a prompt and a pulse can make something.

So we’ve entered the age of suspicion.
Not about what was made, but about how it came to be.
It may be a new class of content that doesn’t beg for your rational judgment, but your emotional download.
In the early days of music sampling, purists screamed: “That’s not music. They’re just copying and pasting.” 
Now? Sampling is canon… it’s the language of modern music.
In publishing, we’ve long accepted that most speeches, op-eds and books were touched (or fully written) by someone other than the name on the cover.
An editor… a ghost writer… a comms team.

But something new is happening.

Scroll through LinkedIn and you’ll see it.
Less commentary on the idea… more interrogation of the process.

“Was this AI?”“What prompt did you use?”“Which tool?”

Even my own posts spark these kinds of comments… not about the insight itself but whether I made it “by hand.”

We’re not just consuming content anymore… we’re reverse-engineering it.
That’s a fundamental shift in context.
We don’t just read or watch to learn and grow.
We read or watch to decode… to dissect.
To see if the human is still there.
Or if the whole thing is just a well-dressed generative hallucination.

Here’s the tension… 

I’ve been writing in this rhythm, with this structure, for close to six years.
I stole the formatting from Seth Godin (short and punchy) and iterated on it (can business content sound and be more poetic and have a different flow?).
I wanted it to be punchy… prose-first… scroll-stopping.

But now the machines do it too.

Not because they invented it.
Because they ingested it (and not just from me).
My writing (and the writing of thousands/millions of others) is part of their models.
From my side, that’s twenty-plus years of articles, interviews, podcasts, books and more.

So when someone uses AI and ends up with something that sounds like me, it’s not copying… it’s a form of reflection.

We’ve reached a moment where your content style can be absorbed, replicated and posted back to you… without ever being stolen.
At least not in the traditional sense.
Because here’s where it gets legally (and ethically) murky…
If my voice (the structure, tone and pacing I’ve crafted for decades) now lives in a model that millions of people use… what part of that belongs to me when the output is always different?

Who owns this?

This is where copyright and IP law are colliding with a completely new kind of authorship.
Not “original” in the classic sense.
But also not quite derivative… and certainly not accidental.
If you trained a machine on thousands of hours of Steven Spielberg and it made a movie with Spielberg pacing and Spielberg lighting and Spielberg storytelling (but no actual Spielberg) what do you call that?

Right now, we’re in the gray zone.

The models ingest.
The creators give prompts, tweaks, remixes and get outputs.
And the courts?
They’re not built for this pace (or even how to think about it)… not yet (but when… and are they even talking about it?).

Which means we’re going to spend the next few years fumbling through what attribution, authorship and ownership mean in a world where everyone can create without “creating.”

I’ve been thinking about a line from a recent New York Times article titled, How A Video Studio Embraced AI And Stormed The Internet, on Doron Dor and his AI-generated video studio:
“A.I. artists like Mr. Dor argue that the tools are actually a purer form of expression, offering the most direct link between the artist’s brain and the end result.” 
That hits.
Not everything needs a full crew, a shoot, a post-production workflow or a team of editors.
If you can vibe it (think it, say it, type it), you can build it.
That’s the promise of vibe coding…
This in-between layer of creation where you don’t need to “code” the thing yourself… you just need to feel it clearly enough to direct it.
It’s not cheating… it’s expressing… it is a form of expression.

Welcome to Vibe Content.

Vibe Content is where the feel of the final output matters more than the format.
Where how it resonates emotionally beats how it was made technically.
It’s not about craft in the traditional sense… it’s about signal, tone, rhythm and reaction.
You don’t need the tools or training (the system’s got you covered), just a clear sense of what you want to say and how you want people to feel.
Whether made by hand or by prompt, vibe content wins only if it lands.

We used to think content was content.

But it’s bifurcating (a term that Ann Handley floated my way).
There’s the content that solves a task… fast, clean, done.
And then there’s the content that says something… about you, your brand, your taste, your voice.

One is signal… the other is signature.

AI is going to dominate the signal stuff in the near-term.
Your inbox replies, your meeting notes, your next “just checking in” email, your text messages.
It’ll know what to say and how you’ve said it before.
It’ll finish your sentences before you start thinking.

And honestly? Good. That’s not where the magic was anyway.

The signature work?
That’s still human… still messy… still full of choices and risks and doubt.
Still worth doing.
Still, AI is getting pretty good at that too (but will always need all the vibes)

This might be the moment where writing becomes more like math.

We’ll still do it… but we’ll also let the machine carry the ones and balance the equations (thanks, calculator!).
The question isn’t: Will AI replace writing?
The question is: What kind of writing are we even talking about?

The truth is, we’re still early. 

This is the phase where people care about how the content got made.
Where prompts and plugins and provenance still matter.
Or, as my good friend Ron Tite said to me: “There is still a ton of work to make the output match the vision. It’s just a different type of work.”

But not for long.

The market won’t care who or what made the vibe in a Vibe Content world.
It will care if it moves you.

Soon, the only question that will matter is: Do you like it or not? (same as it ever was).

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