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Thordur Arnason
Thordur Arnason
Global Head of AI Enablement & GTM
The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed.
William Gibson, 1992-ish
The future is here
– but unevenly activated
Thordur, 2022
FAFO
Stop f***king around
Start finding out

"AI Plus", Beijing, Aug 26th 25

State Council guideline: expand AI across research, industry, public services, and governance.

By 2027: AI agent adoption above 70%.
By 2030: Adoption above 90%. Intelligent economy as growth engine.
By 2035: Comprehensive intelligent economy and society.
State Council PRC
1
We are on a sharp curve of rising capabilities and falling costs
Mustafa Suleyman, "The Coming Wave" 2023

THINK IN
DOG YEARS

This is where the friction lives.

Business ritual Human time AI time
Sprint 2 weeks 2 days
Quarterly review 3 months ~2 weeks
Annual budget 1 year ~7 weeks
3-year strategy 3 years ~5 months

Your sprint is a weekend. Your strategy covers one summer.

Jobs and organizations
Applications
AI models
Cloud infrastructure
Chips & computing
Energy
The six layer cake of AI, Arnason 2026
2
It's always about lowering the floor and raising the ceiling

What BI just activated

Free for all 21,000 students, faculty, and staff via Google Workspace for Education

NotebookLM

Your research department

  • Upload 50 sources (PDFs, Docs, YouTube, audio)
  • Every answer grounded and cited
  • Audio Overviews: AI podcast from your sources
  • Video Overviews, mind maps, slide decks
  • Quizzes, flashcards, study guides
  • Feeds into Gemini as verified source

Deep Research

Your autonomous analyst

  • Browses 100+ web sources autonomously
  • Multi-page research reports with citations
  • Pulls from Gmail, Drive, Chat alongside web
  • Canvas: collaborative workspace for writing, code, prototypes
  • Custom Gems: specialized AI personas

Guided Learning

Your Socratic tutor

  • Built into Gemini 2.5 (learning science fine-tuned)
  • Won't give you the answer
  • Walks you through step by step
  • Checks your understanding
  • Uses images, YouTube inline
  • Makes you work. Builds the muscle.

The pyramids are crumbling

Why the pyramid is crumbling

01

The experience paradox

A first-year with Deep Research produces third-year output. But the judgment is still years away.

02

The mentor gap

When AI becomes the default study partner, who teaches you to ask the right questions?

03

The legitimacy dip

When every deliverable looks polished, how do you prove substance behind the surface?

04

The team glue loss

If everyone outsources their part to AI, the group project dies. Collaboration requires friction.

The tool that makes you look smart and the tool that makes you be smart are the same tool, used differently

Five anti-patterns of human-AI chemistry

01
The Reverse-Centaur
You become human middleware. Not augmented, just residual.
02
Homer on a Loop
You press approve. Token oversight, no real judgment.
03
Magic Button Thinking
One prompt, first output, done. A vending machine, not collaboration.
04
The Atrophy Trap
You delegate so gradually you don't notice the muscle disappearing.
05
Sycophantopia
AI agrees with everything. You lose the friction that produces better thinking.
Humanity is about to be handed almost unimaginable power, and it is deeply unclear whether our systems possess the maturity to wield it
Dario Amodei, "The Adolescence of Technology" 2026

The shape of craft to come

I to T to Y
The Y-shaped thesis, Arnason, Thorsmæhlum, 2025

The New Professional Genome

The Stem

Deep AI-human fusion where craft and judgment get amplified, not replaced.

The Split

Where interplay with adjacent crafts happens. Walls are thinner, rules are rewritten.

The Y-shaped thesis, Arnason, Thorsmæhlum, 2025
Cyborgs
of craft
The Y-shaped thesis, Arnason, Thorsmæhlum, 2025
I guess that when your system fits your brain, it disappears. You stop managing it and you start using it. That's when the leverage kicks in
Valentin Marguet
Powertrain Project Lead, Ferrari 849 Testarossa | SF90XX Stradale
Valentin Marguet
Relentless curiosity and experimentation has fundamentally changed what I can do, and how I do my job
Lena Thorsmæhlum
AX Designer, Cisco Collaboration Devices
Lena Thorsmaehlum

Expertise is all you need

Low ContextCONTEXTUAL EMBEDDEDNESSHigh Context
CodifiableTASK STRUCTURENon-codifiable

AUGMENT

Human leads, AI supports
Creative direction
& iteration
Ideation, exploration, brainstorming

OWN

Pure human domain
Irreplaceable judgment
& accountability
Stakeholder relationships, crisis decisions, sign-off

DELEGATE

AI executes fully
Quality control
& task selection
Data entry, scheduling, standard code generation

ORCHESTRATE

AI assists, you direct
Context injection
& judgment calls
Complex analysis, strategic drafting, problem-solving
Cyborg quadrant, Arnason 2026

Expertise is all you need

Low ContextCONTEXTUAL EMBEDDEDNESSHigh Context
CodifiableTASK STRUCTURENon-codifiable

AUGMENT

Human leads, AI supports
Creative direction
& iteration

OWN

Pure human domain
Irreplaceable judgment
& accountability
PROTECT YOUR TIME HERE

DELEGATE

AI executes fully
Quality control
& task selection
MOVE ROUTINE WORK HERE

ORCHESTRATE

AI assists, you direct
Context injection
& judgment calls
This is where you spend your cognitive budget
Cyborg quadrant, Arnason 2026
3
The AI we work with today is the best we've had and the worst we'll ever have
AI IS BEST HUMANS ARE BEST
The Zone of Interest, Arnason 2025
AI IS BEST HUMANS ARE BEST
The Zone of Interest, Arnason 2025
AI IS BEST HUMANS ARE BEST We underestimate capabilities We overestimate capabilities
The Zone of Interest, Arnason 2025
SAFE ZONE (Loop out the human) Where automation safely happens, agents can roam free ZONE OF INTEREST (Human in the loop) Where augmentation happens, where Cyborgs of Craft thrive
The Zone of Interest, Arnason 2025
WEF
Intelligence is jagged. We need to verify it with the scientific method
Demis Hassabis, WEF Davos 26
"
Once a new technology rolls over you, if you're not part of the steamroller, you're part of the road
Stewart Brand, 1987

Two things to do this week

This deck lives at bi.btrbot.com

01 READ
The Coming Wave
Mustafa Suleyman, 2023
02 BUILD THE MUSCLE
Spend a weekend on this
anthropic.com/learn/claude-for-you (free)
Thank you
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Thordur Arnason
Thordur Arnason
Global Head of AI Enablement & GTM
Capgemini Invent