We can be so focused on robots replacing humans, that we miss the essential problem of preserving organizational knowledge. The future of work is more than just automation. One of the most significant opportunities for AI in the enterprise is using it to understand the heuristics, practices, and tacit knowledge exhibited by our best people - before they leave or retire. Especially now. Given the current crisis, finding better ways to define and retain talent patterns has never been more critical.

The latest round of antitrust hearings has been a high drama distraction from the pandemic. But while parading the CEOs of Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon before Congress provided ample opportunities for both sides of politics to score points in an election year - it also highlighted just how different competition has become in the 21st century. Obvious questions were asked about personal data, political bias, and predatory pricing - but more interesting were those brief glimpses of how the leaders of the world's biggest tech companies really think. If the antitrust hearings proved one thing, it is that the right data can allow you to reframe the rules of marketplaces, precisely target acquisitions, and make oblique strategic moves. And therein lies the problem: just how exactly do you regulate a different way of thinking?

Over the last few months, leaders have had a chance to respond to the impact of COVID-19. Plans for contactless service, process automation, remote work, Cloud infrastructure, and virtualization have been accelerated and implemented. While many businesses have closed and millions lost their jobs - many more have transformed and survived. That's all good news. But now we find ourselves at a precarious point. To call this brief respite from chaos - a 'new normal' - is to invite inevitable defeat. The only question that matters now is: where do we go from here? Without a new plan for the future, we may discover that the real crisis is yet to come.

Your kids may have grown up with smartphones, but that doesn’t mean they will expect everything to work on small screens in the future. Like me, you probably embarked on your digital experience by typing computer commands from a DOS prompt. I doubt you would be impressed if someone asked you to use that kind of interface today. The next big shift in interface design is the move toward more natural interactions.

If automation seemed like a threat to jobs before, in the post-pandemic world, the pace of change will only accelerate. With the rise of remote work, our decision-making, processes and workflows are becoming more digital. That could be a double-edged sword for many employees. True, working from home saves you the time and hassle of a commute into the office. But it is arguably also much easier to replace a human making a decision or completing a task with clever software, when most of the organization’s interactions are now via messaging, video calls and emails. But don’t panic, just yet. What if there was a new job inside your old one?