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In short: AI is taking over more of our everyday decisions, one convenient default at a time. That leaves every leader and professional with a choice. You can let it happen and float along, like a well cared for pet, or you can learn how AI works, decide where you want to go and use it to get there faster, like a navigator. The technology arrives either way; the choice decides what it does to you. This is the first of 25 ideas from my book AI Will Replace You, written with Paul Joustra.
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The AI Navigator Framework: how to create impact with AI. It walks through the three phases with one case study per phase, and includes the AI maturity test and a 90-day route from first alignment to a scale decision.
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What does it mean to be a pet of AI?
Imagine AI deciding what you eat, what you wear, where you go on holiday and even who your friends are. It sounds convenient. You would live like a well-fed golden retriever, cared for by a very smart owner who always knows what is good for you.
It is a joke, and the book opens with it on purpose, because it is closer than it sounds. Your streaming service already picks the next series, your music app builds your playlists, your feed decides which news you see and your navigation app chooses your route. None of these choices feels like giving anything up. Each one saves a little effort, and that is exactly why we accept them without thinking.
With AI agents, which act on your behalf instead of only suggesting, the same pattern moves from your evenings into your work: which mails get answered, which supplier gets the order, which candidate gets the interview. A pet does not have to understand any of it. The owner decides, and the pet is comfortable.
What does a navigator do differently?
A navigator uses the same technology, but keeps hold of the direction. That takes three things.
- Understanding how AI works, well enough to know what it is good at, where it fails and when its advice should be checked. You do not need to build models; you do need to know what is happening behind the screen.
- Knowing where you want to go. AI is very good at the how and has no opinion about the why. The mission, the values and the priorities have to come from you, or the defaults of a tool will fill the gap.
- Using AI to get there faster. A navigator is not someone who avoids AI. It is someone who puts it to work on their own goals, and as a result gets much further than they could alone.
Why does this choice matter now?
Because it is being made for us whenever we do not make it ourselves. Every tool that ships with a default, every process that gets automated without anyone asking what it is for, moves a little more of the steering to the system. In organizations this is how AI ends up running processes nobody redesigned and making decisions nobody owns.
The title of the book, AI Will Replace You, is meant as a provocation in the same spirit. AI will not replace everyone, but it will replace the people who let it decide for them, and it will strongly amplify the people who learn to steer it.
How do leaders become navigators?
In the book we describe that journey with the AI Navigator Framework, in three steps.
- Inspire: start from your mission, not from the technology, and build a team that wants to explore what AI can do for it.
- Enable: run focused pilots, choose your tools deliberately and work with partners, so you learn what works in your own organization.
- Scale: put governance, architecture and trust in place, so what works can grow safely across the organization.
The other 24 ideas in this series follow the same path, from the big trends to the concrete steps and the future of work.
Which one are you choosing?
The technology will arrive either way. What it does to you depends on whether you choose to be the pet or the navigator.
Want this idea in your leadership team? I bring it to boards and teams as a keynote or a hands-on workshop. Get in touch and I will reply within two working days.
Frequently asked questions
It is the opening idea of the book AI Will Replace You by Maarten Verschuere and Paul Joustra. It says that AI leaves everyone a choice: let it take over your decisions, or understand it, set your own direction and use it to move faster.
AI replaces tasks before it replaces people. The people most at risk are those who let AI decide for them without understanding it; the people who gain most are those who learn to direct it.
A three step approach, Inspire, Enable and Scale, that helps organizations move from curiosity about AI to real results at scale. It is the backbone of the book and of Maarten Verschuere’s keynotes and workshops.
Maarten Verschuere, AI keynote speaker and researcher at VIVES University of Applied Sciences, and Paul Joustra. The book is published by LannooCampus.
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Imagine AI deciding what you eat, what you wear, where you go on holiday and even who your friends are. Very convenient. You would live like a well-fed golden retriever, cared for by a very smart owner.
It sounds like a joke, but that future is closer than most people think, and it hides a real choice that every one of us has to make.
You can let AI slowly take over your decisions and simply float along with the tide. Or you can learn how AI works, decide where you want to go, and use it to get there faster.
The technology will arrive either way. What it does to you depends on that choice. So which one will you be: the pet, or the navigator?