Reflections from 2024: Innovating when the ground is moving
It is interesting to read back on old posts sometimes. One I came across is titled: AI Changes Everything. Way back in June 2024 I travelled to Boston to speak at FEI: Front End of Innovation conference, invited by old friend Seth Adler to speak about how AI was about to change everything. FEI has a long history of bringing together innovators, R&D and product leaders, strategists, and insight teams to focus on the messy, early stages of innovation where ideas are still fragile and undefined.
We are in the earliest of times
In that 2024 talk, and in the companion piece I wrote, “AI Changes Everything”, I argued that we are not even at “the end of the beginning” of AI. We are in the earliest of times, when bold utopian and dystopian claims are being thrown around, and when businesses are still trying to work out whether AI is a durable shift or another passing fad like NFTs. From my vantage point I could foresee that AI will have a profound long‑term impact on how we live, work, educate, fight wars, grow food and collaborate with both humans and machines.
FEI felt like a live cross‑section of that moment. In the corridors and sessions you could hear the tension between excitement and uncertainty: people sense that “AI changes everything,” but they are still trying to understand what that actually means for their teams, customers, and governance.
AI at the front end of innovation
My session explored how AI is changing the front end of innovation - the fuzzy space where we scan horizons, frame problems and test early ideas. Rather than treating AI as a magical idea machine, I framed it as a partner in sense‑making: a way to widen our search, see patterns and interrogate assumptions, while still relying on human judgment, ethics and context to decide what matters.
This is where robust data foundations, good governance, and clear boundaries for experimentation become critical. Many of the leaders I spoke with at FEI shared stories of pilots that never scaled, tools adopted without proper oversight, or cultural resistance that turned AI into either a novelty or a threat. What emerged was a shared recognition that AI adoption is as much a people and institutions problem as it is a technology problem - a theme I explore further in my ongoing writing and podcast work.
Innovation in the “trough of disillusionment”
In “AI Changes Everything” I referenced the Gartner hype cycle and the looming Trough of Disillusionment (I always prefer to call this the Slough of Despond). FEI confirmed that many organisations are already entering that phase: the first wave of experimentation had collided with reality, and now the hard work was just starting.
For me, this is not a cause for pessimism. It is an invitation to innovate more thoughtfully. It is the moment to move beyond hype toward durable practices: investing in capability uplift, building interdisciplinary teams, putting governance in place, and learning how to use AI to augment rather than replace human expertise. FEI 2024 made it clear that those who treat this as a long‑term systems shift - not just a tool rollout - will be better positioned for what comes next.
Looking ahead
Leaving Boston, I felt a mix of realism and cautious optimism. The conference reinforced my belief that while AI may change almost everything about how we operate, the fundamental questions of innovation remain the same: how we create value, how we steward risk, and how we design institutions that can adapt over time.
