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A blog on the art & science of creative action.

Jeremy Utley Jeremy Utley

Update Your Priors

If the MIT study of AI failure rates surprised you, you need to update your priors. Innovation is about shots on goal, not perfect plans. Time to recalibrate how many attempts you’re making.

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Jeremy Utley Jeremy Utley

Admit You Don't Know: Reverse Mentorship With An AI Sherpa

Most leaders think credibility comes from having all the answers. In the AI era, it's the opposite—credibility comes from admitting you don't know and doing something about it. Here's how to become the kind of leader who can actually drive organizational change instead of just demanding it.

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Jeremy Utley Jeremy Utley

Stop Fighting AI Glazing

Everyone’s panicking about “AI glazing.” But what if it’s a feature, not a bug? The creative industry's most successful practitioners understand something the rest of us are missing.

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Guest User Guest User

The Simple Power of Joy and Delight

Special guest post by Brendan Boyle, one of Stanford’s most beloved professors, acclaimed toy inventor, and founder of IDEO’s Toy Lab. He’s taught me more about play than anyone other than my own children.

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Jeremy Utley Jeremy Utley

The Ultimate AI Playbook: From Measuring Adoption to Delivering Impact

In five years, no one will care how many people logged into ChatGPT. They'll care about who used it to transform their work. The organizations that understand the difference between more use and better use are quietly outperforming their competitors-while everyone else celebrates meaningless "adoption" metrics.

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Jeremy Utley Jeremy Utley

It's Not An AI Problem. It's A You Problem.

Last week, I proposed a simple but fundamental shift: we need to stop thinking about AI as a technology rollout and start treating it like a new teammate. What I didn't fully explain is that this isn't just a semantic distinction. It produces measurably better results.

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Jeremy Utley Jeremy Utley

Teammate, Not Technology

I’ve been seriously thinking about AI for over two years now, and I’m finally hitting my stride when it comes to my point of view. The fundamental shift I believe everyone must make is from thinking of AI as a technology, to thinking of AI as a teammate.

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Jeremy Utley Jeremy Utley

Don't Keep the AI Expert Waiting

Still waiting on other people before you tap AI? Big mistake. This post exposes the silent tax of “AI inaction,” hands you the five‑rung ladder for turning any model into your on‑call mentor, and launches a seven‑day sprint that will hard‑wire the habit—so you can seize the advantage while everyone else is still scheduling meetings.

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Jeremy Utley Jeremy Utley

Punish Inaction: Why Leaders Must Make AI Adoption Non-Optional

Last week, Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke released an internal memo that's been making waves. My take: this isn't just another tech CEO jumping on the AI bandwagon. It's the clearest articulation I've seen of a principle I've been exploring the past 18 months: the greatest risk with AI isn't failure—it's inaction.

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Jeremy Utley Jeremy Utley

Exponential Ideaflow: Why AI Will Surpass Human Creativity (And Why That's OK)

I'm best known for my work on innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship. My “shift” toward AI might seem like a radical departure. But it's not a shift—it's an evolution. Having taught and spoken to tens of thousands from ~100 countries in the last two years, I’m more convinced than ever that AI isn't separate from innovation; it's the most profound innovation platform of our lifetime.

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Jeremy Utley Jeremy Utley

Beware the Siren Call of the Wrong Question

The first question an innovator must answer is not “can I make it?” but rather, “should I?” This has become something of a mantra among CEOs I work with, as a needful protection against the gravitational pull of the organizational bureaucracy.

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Jeremy Utley Jeremy Utley

Practice Process Mindfulness

One of the defining contributions the d.school is helping teams ask themselves, “What kind of thinking is appropriate, when?” We call such clarity being “Mindful of Process.” And it can seem like semantics until you realize we need to show up in different ways.

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Jeremy Utley Jeremy Utley

Try This Now to Build AI Muscles

You’re probably getting fat on AI content: bingeing podcasts, hoarding newsletter tips, saving Twitter threads... While it feels productive, all that consumption is just giving you a knowledge sugar high. And like any sugar high, it’ll crash—leaving you with exactly zero new capabilities.

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Jeremy Utley Jeremy Utley

Wander With Purpose

The most inventive folks I’ve studied are disciplined about seeking inspiration. If you don’t make time to get out of the box, you will not be able to think out of the box, either. It’s not that complicated, but it requires you obliterate clean compartmentalization in favor of messy meandering.

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Do Work For Free

In this special guest post, Mo Bunnell, Author of Give to Get, makes a compelling case for a counterintuitive strategy: giving gifts of your expertise as a way to build relationship and give clients a taste for your unique value proposition.

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Jeremy Utley Jeremy Utley

Make Room for Thinking

Sprints are a fantastic tool to drive innovation with efficiency. But sometimes you’ve got to be inefficient in order to create effectively. A few reflections on a troubling trend I'm seeing emerge among would-be innovation practitioners.

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