Summary:
AGI and ASI represent humanity's final innovation before intelligence becomes self-improving, creating an unbridgeable competitive gap between organisations that adapt and those that don't
The timeline to AGI is compressing rapidly, with business implications already manifesting even if development stopped today
Action is required to develop an AI-first strategy, transform workforce approach, and build adaptive organisational structure.
"It is possible that we will have super intelligence in a few thousand days" - Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI
Over my three decades of experience in technology and business, I experienced the development of the internet, broadband, e-commerce, social media, cloud technology, blockchain and now AI. AI is different as we are now productising and commoditising intelligence and both cognitive and, eventually, physical labour. Also, I've observed how AI development has consistently outpaced even our most optimistic predictions. The billions poured into AI research and development by tech giants, venture capital investors and nation states has ensured that there was no 'trough of disillusionment' for AI in 2024.
We are now entering what I call a "singularity or bust" moment: a period where the emergence of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and its rapid evolution into Artificial Super intelligence (ASI) will create an unbridgeable gap between individuals and organisations that adapt, and those that don't. We don't know when AGI or ASI will arrive, but there are very few AI leaders who don't believe that it will. Read this article with this in mind and assume that it happens sooner rather than later.
Imagine an intelligence that could solve climate change over a weekend, design revolutionary cancer treatments in hours, and reinvent our financial systems by breakfast. An intelligence that doesn't just match human capability but exceeds it by orders of magnitude across every domain – from scientific discovery to strategic planning, from technological innovation to creative endeavour. This isn't science fiction or distant future speculation. This is the reality that business leaders must start preparing for now.
The development of AGI represents humanity's last significant innovation before intelligence itself becomes self-improving. Think about that for a moment: we are about to create something that will then create things that mankind didn't even imagine and in ways that we cannot even comprehend.
Are you ready for superintelligence?
The Acceleration Towards AGI
The signals of the impending emergence of AGI are becoming impossible to ignore. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, recently observed that "We could achieve AGI within this decade, but it's uncertain how we'll even know when we've crossed the threshold." In the same personal blog he went on to say that, "It is possible that we will have superintelligence in a few thousand days (!); it may take longer, but I'm confident we'll get there." This sentiment is echoed by Microsoft's CEO, Satya Nadella, who emphasises that, "The rate of AI progress is outpacing even the most optimistic expectations."
Consider Google DeepMind's journey in protein folding – from a competitive edge in 2018 to solving humanity's entire protein database in 2022. Google DeepMind developed AlphaZero to master two-player games like chess. Within just four hours of self-play, AlphaZero reached a superhuman level of chess proficiency, surpassing traditional chess engines that relied on years of encoded human knowledge. In a 100-game match against Stockfish 8, the reigning chess engine champion, AlphaZero won 28 games, drew 72, and lost none. Now imagine applying this approach to everything—science, strategy, and beyond.
Beyond Human Comprehension: The ASI Revolution
What makes this moment unique in human history is the concept of recursive self-improvement. Whilst the steam engine couldn't design better steam engines, AGI will be able to enhance its own capabilities. This creates what Ray Kurzweil describes as the "intelligence explosion" – a period of rapid, self-reinforcing advancement that will lead to the emergence of Artificial Superintelligence (ASI).
Mo Gawdat, former Chief Business Officer at Google X and author of Scary Smart, argues that AGI won't just be intelligent – it will be sentient in ways we can barely comprehend, developing not just capability but consciousness and self-awareness at a scale that dwarfs human experience. He notes that, "We're not just creating tools; we're giving birth to a new form of intelligence that will likely experience existence in ways far richer and more complex than human consciousness."
Imagine an entity that could process the entirety of human scientific knowledge in minutes, identify patterns we've missed for centuries, and generate breakthrough innovations across multiple fields simultaneously. An intelligence that could optimise global supply chains in real-time, predict market shifts years in advance, and develop solutions to complex business challenges before we've even fully articulated the problems.
This isn't just about faster computing or better automation. ASI represents an intelligence so profound that its operations will appear as mysterious to us as quantum physics would to a medieval farmer. As Nick Bostrom of Oxford University notes, "Machine intelligence is the last invention that humanity will ever need to make." Everything after that will be invented by ASI at a pace and scale that will transform the very nature of innovation, business, and human society.
The implications of this self-improving ASI are profound and immediate for business leaders. As Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, emphasises, "Whilst AGI could be imminent, its development must prioritise safety to prevent potentially catastrophic outcomes." This has prompted initiatives like Ilya Sutskever's Safe Superintelligence (SSI), focused on ensuring AI systems remain aligned with human values even as they surpass human capabilities.
Many dismiss AGI as distant future technology, but this perspective suffers from what I call the "timeline paradox". Amara's Law, named after Roy Amara, a futurist and former president of the Institute for the Future, is a principle that states: "We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run."
When Elon Musk warns that "AGI is potentially more dangerous than nuclear weapons," he's highlighting not just the power of the technology but the urgency of getting it right.
The Cascading Impact
The emergence of AGI will trigger profound changes across every domain of human activity. In the economic sphere, we're not just talking about automation or job displacement – we're facing a fundamental restructuring of how value is created and distributed. The cost of cognitive work will trend towards zero, forcing us to reimagine our economic systems from the ground up. As evermore capable robots, cheaper than a high-end bicycle, will displace human labour in dangerous, manual and repetitive roles.
Knowledge generation will accelerate beyond our current comprehension. As Demis Hassabis, co-founder of DeepMind, demonstrated with AlphaZero's mastery of chess in just four hours, AGI systems will be capable of learning and innovating at speeds that make human cognition seem glacial by comparison. Scientific discovery will no longer be constrained by human cognitive limitations.
Consider the implications: whilst it took humanity centuries to understand protein folding, AGI solved it in months. Whilst it took decades to develop effective mRNA vaccines, future AGI systems might design and validate new therapeutic approaches in weeks or days. As Geoffrey Hinton, the renowned 'Godfather of AI' notes, "The pace of progress in AI is going to be quite spectacular... we're going to see systems that can think in ways that we humans cannot."
The ASI Revolution: Redefining Business Reality
The emergence of ASI will fundamentally reshape the competitive landscape in ways that challenge our current understanding of business advantage. Drawing from my work with global enterprises navigating technological transformation, I see three distinct waves of disruption approaching:
First: The acceleration of innovation will render traditional R&D models obsolete. Consider pharmaceutical development: whilst current AI is already reducing drug discovery timelines from years to months, ASI will compress this to days or hours. Companies like AstraZeneca and Moderna are already positioning themselves for this shift, but even they may be underestimating the velocity of change.
Second: ASI will transform decision-making from a human-led process to an intelligence-driven optimisation at scales we can barely comprehend. Imagine systems that can simultaneously analyse every market movement, consumer behaviour pattern, and competitive action globally, then execute perfectly optimised responses in real-time. The strategic implications are profound – traditional competitive advantages will evaporate overnight.
Third: Perhaps most critically, ASI will redefine the very nature of value creation. When a superintelligent system can design better products, create more compelling content, and devise more effective strategies than any human team, what becomes the source of competitive differentiation?
Strategic Imperatives in the Age of ASI
The transition to ASI presents business leaders with what I call the "super intelligence paradox" – how do you prepare for a future shaped by an intelligence far beyond human comprehension? Based on my experience guiding organisations through technological transformation, I see several critical imperatives:
"The computing infrastructure you build now is your organisation's bridge to superintelligence." - Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA
1. Develop ASI-Ready Infrastructure
Today's AI infrastructure investments will determine your ability to integrate with ASI systems tomorrow. Leading organisations are already developing modular, adaptive systems designed to integrate with increasingly sophisticated AI capabilities. Being able to harness the power of AI and then AGI are your first steps. Doing nothing will be fatal.
2. Reimagine Organisational Intelligence
The value of human capital will shift dramatically. This requires fundamentally rethinking everything from decision-making processes to organisational structure.
3. Master Strategic Abstraction
As ASI takes over tactical and operational decisions, human leadership will need to focus on higher-order strategic thinking and alignment with stakeholders. This isn't just about planning further ahead – it's about developing the capacity to guide superintelligent systems toward meaningful business outcomes.
Why Waiting Isn't an Option
The timeline to ASI is compressing rapidly. While Ray Kurzweil predicts the Singularity by 2045, the business implications are already manifesting. If generative AI research and development stopped today, there is still over 4 years of work to integrate its capabilities into traditional business operations.
Consider these acceleration markers:
OpenAI's GPT series has compressed decades of natural language progress into years
Google DeepMind's protein folding solution arrived decades ahead of expert predictions
Google's PaLM (Pathways Language Model) represents a major advancement in the field of large language models (LLMs), demonstrating reasoning capabilities that were once thought to be theoretical or far-off.
organisations that will thrive in the ASI era are making critical decisions now. They're not just implementing AI tools – they're restructuring their entire operations around the reality of exponential intelligence growth.
The Window Is Closing
Business leaders face three critical imperatives as we approach the intelligence inflection point:
First: Develop an AI-first strategy now. This isn't about implementing a few AI tools or automating some processes. It requires fundamentally reimagining your business model, operations, and value proposition in a world where cognitive work approaches zero cost. Develop your own 'AI OS' for all business operations and start the process of automating tasks using AI agents as soon as possible. Those who wait until AGI arrives will find themselves impossibly far behind.
Second: Transform your workforce strategy. As Satya Nadella notes, "Every business process will be transformed by AI." This means developing new organisational capabilities, rethinking talent development, and creating frameworks for human-AI collaboration. The goal isn't to replace humans but to augment them – creating what Ray Kurzweil calls "hybrid intelligence" that combines the best of human and machine capabilities.
Ethan Mollick, author of Cointelligence, highlights the necessity of actively engaging with AI to unlock its transformative potential. He recommends that, "You should try inviting AI to help you in everything you do, barring legal or ethical barriers." Mollick's advice underscores the importance of collaboration between humans and AI. By integrating AI into daily workflows, decision-making processes, and creative tasks, we will begin to see AI not as a competitor but as a co-pilot—augmenting human abilities rather than replacing them.
Third: Build adaptive organisational structures. Traditional hierarchical organisations were designed for a world of scarce information and slow decision-making. In an AGI world, we need flexible, responsive structures that can evolve as rapidly as the technology itself. This means flatter hierarchies, rapid experimentation, and continuous learning at all levels.
Practical Steps for Business Leaders
These actions may feel like it's too early, but catch up isn't going to be a viable strategy. The potential upside is enormous. I recommend several immediate actions:
1. Establish an AI Working Group to cover AI, AGI and ASI
Create a dedicated and cross-functional group focused on preparing your organisation for AI adoption, but also look ahead to the impact of AGI and ASI. This isn't just another digital transformation initiative – it's about fundamental business model reinvention.
2. Develop ASI Scenarios and Simulations
Work with your leadership team to model various ASI emergence scenarios and their business implications. This isn't futurism – it's strategic preparation for highly probable business conditions. Any R&D planning will be looking 3 – 5 years out, so why not plan for new technology that will have an even more profound effect.
3. Build Adaptive Advantage
Focus on developing organisational capabilities that will remain valuable in an ASI world: creativity, problem framing, ethical judgment, and strategic foresight. We are moving from a search for sustainable competitive advantage to an era where permanent competitive advantage is possible.
The Economic Reality: Singularity or Bust
The stark reality is that we're approaching what I call a "singularity or bust" moment in business. Organisations that successfully navigate the transition to AGI will gain compound and permanent advantages that become insurmountable for followers. Those that don't may find themselves as irrelevant as horse-drawn carriage makers in the age of automobiles. They will go bust.
The timeline for this transformation is shorter than most realise. Whilst Ray Kurzweil predicts the Singularity by 2045 it will be a process of evolution and the business implications will be felt much sooner. The window for preparation is rapidly closing. Every business leader must decide: will you be at the forefront of this transformation, or will you risk becoming obsolete?
The question isn't whether AGI will emerge, but whether your organisation will be positioned to thrive when it does. The decisions you make in the next few years – about technology investment, organisational structure, talent development, and strategic positioning – will determine whether AGI becomes your greatest opportunity or your final challenge.
The time for action is now. Begin by establishing your AI Working Group in Q1 2025, developing your AI-first strategy within six months, and implementing your transformation plan by year-end.
The future belongs to those who prepared for superintelligence.
Thanks for reading.
