Are You Ready for What's NEXT?

Navigate the Augmented Age and Redefine Work with Groundbreaking Insights

We stand at the dawn of a new era – the augmented age. Artificial Intelligence isn’t just another technology trend; it’s fundamentally reshaping how we work, compete, and create value. But are organizations truly harnessing its potential?

Next: How to Design and Organize Work in an Era of Artificial Intelligence by Jack Calhoun, Mark Withington, and Jennifer Ai argues that the current frenzy of tactical AI projects often misses the mark. Simply automating legacy processes is a path to “better sameness,” not transformation. As the authors warn, hitting the pause button on scattered AI initiatives isn’t about slowing down – it’s about getting the context right before accelerating into the future.

The Crisis We Face: Outdated Models in a Disrupted World

Many organizations are grappling with significant challenges:

Obsolete Strategy Processes: Traditional strategic planning fails over 60% of the time, ill-equipped for digital disruption and neglecting execution.
The Tyranny of the Org Chart: Relying on centuries-old hierarchical structures stifles innovation, creates silos, and fragments the customer experience.
The Customer Experience Gap: Despite claims of customer focus, many companies deliver disjointed and frustrating customer journeys.
The Automation Trap: Using powerful AI merely to automate outdated ways of working wastes resources and leaves market share vulnerable to competitors with a more strategic vision.

Introducing NEXT: Your Roadmap to the Augmented Age

Next provides a compelling framework and practical methodology to navigate this new landscape. It argues that the first, most crucial application of AI should be in reengineering the strategy and operating model design process itself. The book introduces four fundamental principles for thriving in the augmented age:

Reengineer the Strategy-to-Execution Process: Move beyond outdated planning cycles. Learn how to apply AI to the strategy process itself, ensuring a clear path from vision to value delivery.
Create a Hi-Definition Operating Model: Replace the static org chart with a dynamic, multi-dimensional “digital twin” of your business. This model integrates process, governance, customer experience, and technology, providing clarity and alignment.
Build a Customer-Obsessed Culture: Make customer experience the bedrock of your strategy and the driving force behind your operating model design. Learn how to map journeys, understand Moments of Truth, and measure what truly matters.
Move to Prescriptive Design: Shift from IT merely enabling the business to technology prescribing new, innovative ways of working. Leverage AI and PaaS to design workflows and capabilities that were previously unimaginable.

Why Read NEXT? Transform Your Organization, Secure Your Future.

Next is more than a book; it’s a guide to action. It provides the “Envision, Create, Operate” methodology—a continuous cycle for running and improving your current business while simultaneously transforming into your next-generation, AI-augmented model.

Inside, you will discover:

How to leverage AI strategically, not just tactically.
The blueprint for a Hi-Def Operating Model that replaces outdated org charts.
Actionable methods to cultivate deep customer obsession.
The power of Prescriptive Design to drive genuine innovation.
Strategies for managing the “Innovator’s Dilemma” and successfully “jumping the S-curves”.
Insights applicable to both private and public sectors.

Join the Augmented Age Community

The future is arriving faster than ever. Next itself embraces this dynamism, published with release numbers and updated regularly with new insights. Readers are invited to join the conversation and contribute to future releases at augmented-age.ai.

If taking apart your business model, harnessing the power of AI, and redesigning work to thrill customers and achieve unprecedented productivity isn’t your #1 priority – what is?