AI and the Octopus Organization: Builingthe Intelligent Firm
Jonathan Brill and Stephen Wunker
Menlo Park Books (September (2025)
BANG! Everything changed!
I recently re-read Vernon Vinge’s essay, “The Coming of Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era” (1993), in which he suggests that “the acceleration of technological progress has been the central feature of this century. I argue in this paper that we are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth. The precise cause of this change is the imminent creation by technology of entities with greater than human intelligence. There are several means by which science may achieve this breakthrough (and this is another reason for having confidence that the event will occur):
o “There may be developed computers that are ‘awake’ and superhumanly intelligent. (To date, there has been much controversy as to whether we can create human equivalence in a machine. But if the answer is ‘yes, we can’, then there is little doubt that beings more intelligent can be constructed shortly thereafter.)
o “Large computer networks (and their associated users) may ‘wake up’ as a superhumanly intelligent entity.
o “Computer/human interfaces may become so intimate that users may reasonably be considered superhumanly intelligent.
o “Biological science may provide means to improve natural human intellect.”
In The Singularity Is Near (2005), Ray Kurzweil predicts that “convergent, exponential technological trends” are “leading to a transition that would be ‘utterly transformative’ for humanity.” I was again reminded of that prediction as I began to read The Singularity Is Nearer (2025) in which Kurzweil explains how and why humanity’s “Mellenia-long march toward the Singularity has become a sprint. In the introduction to The Singularity Is Near, I wrote that we were then ‘in the early stages of this transition.’ Now we are entering its culmination. That book was about glimpsing a distant horizon — this one is about the last miles along the path to reach it.”
Given that background to the situation today, it is imperative that leaders in almost every organization — whatever its size and nature may be — are well-prepared to develop what Jonathan Brill and Stephen Wunker characterize in AI and the Octopus Organization as a “superintelligent workplace culture” at all levels and in all areas of the given enterprise.
More specifically, in full partnership with AI, lead others in that workplace culture to achieve these strategic objectives:
o Reeimagine growth with small innovations that can lead to major transformations
o Lift front-line teams and reinvent management by distributing decisions
o Unite and integrate knowledge, coordinate innovation, and boost agility
o Adopt and adapt to shifting needs with the right leadership toolkit
o Accelerate action and frontline innovation though accurate sensing and measurement
o Embrace disruption by creating mutual trust
o Increase success by leaning into uncertainty
o Develop a step-by-step “roadmap for multi-dimensional leadership during the organizational transformation
Brill and Wunker devote a separate chapter to each of these ojectives in order to explain HOW to achieve them. They add an Appendix within which they share their thoughts about scaling Enterprise AI.
Long ao, in his classic work Future Shock (1970), Alvin Toffler made this prediction: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
As you and your colleagues formulate plans to adopt and adapt the octopus model, I recommend two must-read sources. Both also take Toffler’s prediction into full account. One is AI and the Octopus Orgnization.
The other is The Octopus Organization: A Guide to Thriving in a World of Continuous Transformation, co-authored by Phil Lel-Brun and Ana Werner, and published by Harvard Business Review Press (December 2025)
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Here are two suggestions while you are reading AI and the Octopus Organization: First, highlight key passages. Also, perhaps in a notebook kept near-at-hand (e.g. Apica Premium C.D. Notebook A5), record your comments, questions, and action steps (preferably with deadlines). Pay special attention to the series of mini-case studies: “How AI Changes Business and Possibility: The Story of Afford,” Pages 18-19; “Amazon’s Focus on Open Interfaces,” 50-51; “A Global Leader Takes Multiple Approaches for Managing Medical Research,”62-64; and , “Princess Cruises Tackles Technology Culture Change,” 87-88. Also pay special attention to chapter “Summaries.”
These two simple tactics — highlighting and documenting — will facilitate, indeed expedite frequent reviews of key material later.