This piece was originally published in the Summer 2024 issue of strategy magazine

My amygdala – hardwired to perceive change as a threat – was on fire after I gave birth to my son. I’ve made it no secret that it took a long time for my brain to catch up to my new reality. I resisted the transition with every thread of my being. And I discovered that the pain of loss can, in the moment, seem greater than the power of gain.

So in a very personal way, I get why a lot of people are angsty about the future.

Humans have a track record of resisting change. Writing was shunned by philosopher Socrates who believed it would lead to forgetfulness. Electricity terrified U.S. President Benjamin Harrison who delegated light switching to White House staffers as he feared being electrocuted. Computers brought new hostilities. And the act of juggling work emails was studied by British researchers and believed to have the same negative impact on a person’s IQ as smoking pot. (OK, some days that one feels legit.)

We will always long for simpler times. And we will always want to be in control. But nothing about the progress of artificial intelligence – which Sam Altman himself admits OpenAI doesn’t fully understand how it works – is not simple nor is it under our control. But I’ve read enough headlines, listened to enough podcasts, sat in enough conferences, and spoken with enough experts to know that we won’t be able to escape the AI boom any more than we did the dot-com bubble.

Marketers, in particular, appear to be slow to adopt the tech for myriad reasons (beyond fear). One of those reasons is that it’s just so bloody complicated and there’s just so much to digest. But when I spoke with Mastercard’s CMO Raja Rajamannar at the WFA Conference in May, he made a good point. How many hours do we spend aimlessly scrolling social when we could be investing that time with “experiential learning”?

For this issue, I took his advice. I poured myself into Gen AI tools. Not necessary to come up with net-new ideas, but to help shape original ideas for content, and even the cover. (We ultimately chose not to use any images Dall-E 3 spat out during our cover trials, but there were teachable moments.) I quickly came to think of ChatGPT as my editorial side-kick. It’s simplified jargon-filled press releases for me, and it’s been a sounding board for assignments. That said, while I dont suffer from FOBO (the fear of better options or becoming obsolete), I do wish AI chats didn’t feel like throwing trash in the ocean with its insane use of energy. So if someone could figure out how to harness nuclear fusion to feed AI’s energy appetite, that would be swell. In the meantime, happy experimenting!