Events

In WG2, we will not only explore leading-edge concepts related to the Future of Organizations, we will also explore how they will actually work. At the public Forum event on August 19, we discussed the Path to Autonomous Organizations—what is possible today and what problems remain. In this session, we will examine in more detail the components that make up organizations and map them to corresponding mechanisms in multi-agent systems.

We will discuss goal-setting, planning, resource allocation, memory, coordination, decision-making, and learning. We will examine how these work within organizations and how they can be implemented in multi-agent systems. We will also discuss organizational performance and agility.

Welcome to this first session of WG3 (Innovation and R&D) which will be chaired by Dr. Zafer Sahinoglu, VP of Innovation and GM of the Mitsubishi Electric Innovation Center. The Working Group has a dedicated space set up on the Mighty Networks platform.

Product Strategy for Autonomous Organization.

Facilitator: Dr. Zafer Sahinoglu, VP of Innovation, Mitsubishi Electric

Organizations are starting to run themselves. AI agents now negotiate contracts, allocate capital, route shipments, and resolve customer issues, often without a human in the loop. Yet most product strategy playbooks still assume that people make the decisions, people are the customers, and people are accountable when things go wrong. That assumption is breaking.

When agents buy from agents, when a workflow can rewrite itself overnight, and when the “team” behind a product is partly software, the fundamental questions change: What exactly are you selling? Who decides? Who is responsible? The leaders who answer these questions first will shape the next generation of companies. Everyone else will inherit their answers.

Product Strategy for Autonomous Organizations is a 90-minute working session for people who want to get ahead of this shift rather than react to it. This is not a panel. We will take on real-world cases, decide which decisions can safely be handed to autonomous systems and which must stay human, and pressure-test business models, trust mechanisms, and failure modes. You will leave with a practical framework you can apply the following Monday and a clearer picture of where the real risks lie.

Dr. Balters presented research from her Neuroscience of Human Connection Lab on what happens between two brains when people bond, trust, and collaborate. Using portable neuroimaging (fNIRS) and dual-brain hyperscanning, her lab measures interbrain coherence during real interactions and ties it to well-being and performance. She covered in-person versus Zoom interaction, the prosocial brain signature of expressing genuine appreciation, the link between isolation, self-compassion, and burnout, and evidence that a brief “need-sharing” exercise measurably increases team creativity.

The session was run as a working session. Participants used a “list of needs” to reflect on appreciation, self-criticism, and the conditions under which they feel fully supported, followed by open discussion. That discussion turned to AI: whether AI absorbing brute-force work should free people to attend to their needs rather than raise the tempo, why some early-career workers say they would prefer an AI manager, and what leaders must preserve as AI agents enter teams. Balters’ central argument was that compassion is a trainable, measurable leadership skill with hard returns — and that understanding what is uniquely human is a prerequisite for designing AI that supports rather than displaces human connection.

This session examined how leaders keep their footing when neither they nor their people know where AI is taking their work. Participants discussed who is accountable when AI-driven decisions go wrong, how to guide teams without clear answers about their future, and how leaders can use AI to surface the implicit decisions they make by default and test them before they harden into direction.

The discussion then turned to steadiness across the organization: why middle management often absorbs the strain between a fast-moving C-suite and experimenting individual contributors, why upskilling must respect different ways of learning, and how AI might compensate for a leader’s blind spots. A recurring theme was that steadiness depends on self-awareness, and on keeping our humanity at the center as the pace of change accelerates.

The first session of Working Group 2 distinguished genuine transformation from mere augmentation and examined why most transformation efforts fall short: limited experience with organizational design, constrained change capacity, and the leadership capital at stake. Drawing on a decade of field work, Frode presented a model-based approach that maps an organization’s value streams, structure, information, and culture, and explored how AI agents can expand change capacity in diagnosis, current-state mapping, communication, and future-state design.

The discussion that followed asked whether placing agents alongside people in org charts erodes morale, cautioned that AI amplifies existing dysfunctions rather than resolving them, and examined how to pace change when employees feel threatened. Participants agreed that a unified view of the organization, and a common language for describing it, is a precondition for change that people actually embrace.

At the February 2026 Post-Industrial Summit, we explored the rise of Autonomous Organizations with speakers from NVIDIA, Cisco, Salesforce, OpenAI, GreyOrange, XOPS, Neo4j, Atlan, and other industry leaders.

This focused discussion examined what is needed to achieve Autonomous Organizations, and what will accelerate progress in the next 18–24 months.

Rahul Ramkumar shared his insights on how AI impacts innovation, whether product-focused or in the organization overall. Prior to joining eBay, Rahul was the Chief Product Officer around Rocket, and AI-based solution development platform. Prior to Rocket, he held executive roles at Sam's Club and Walmart.

Building on the group’s previous discussion about trust, this session focused on how leaders can help people adapt faster to AI-driven change without creating overload, confusion, guarded compliance, or unnecessary resistance. Participants worked through three practical lenses. The Enterprise Human Impact Scan examined what AI-related change is doing to people’s confidence, role clarity, learning pressure, and sense of value. The Adaptation Capacity and Pace Map asked whether people are building adaptive capacity or being overloaded. The Executive Obstacle Interpretation Matrix explored what hesitation, slow adoption, skepticism, or resistance are really signaling.

Participants came prepared with one AI-related change, pressure, question, early exploration, or absence of adoption they were observing in their organization, client work, professional community, or field. Their examples ranged from formal AI initiatives and informal AI use to pressure to “do something with AI,” uncertainty and hesitation about its use, and settings where AI had not yet been meaningfully adopted.

This session explored the behavioral intelligence that strategy can’t replace. Karen opened with the story of Doug Engelbart, whose vision outpaced his ability to bring others along, and introduced the 5 Dynamics framework, which maps how people prefer to work across four energies: Explore, Excite, Examine, and Execute. Drawing on an assessment participants had taken, she showed how leaders over-rely on their strongest energies under pressure, and how the resulting gap between how they lead and what their teams need goes unnoticed until it is named.

Participants then mapped a relationship marked by friction and reframed it through this behavioral lens, surfacing practical moves such as asking a prolific idea generator to consolidate his thinking, and timeboxing each phase of work so every energy gets its turn. The session closed on trust as a strategic asset, built on predictability, competence, and genuine regard, and rebuilt by naming the breach and making a concrete change. Each participant left with one relationship to lead differently and one action to take in the next 30 days.

The Post-Industrial Forum’s first working group opened with an overview of the learning cycle the groups follow (connect, learn, apply, share) and the 2026 learning agenda: leading under rapid change and uncertainty, securing alignment for transformational change, building individual capacity for rapid adaptation and decision-making, and using AI to accelerate leadership and human development. The aim was to move beyond learning from outside speakers toward applying ideas in members’ own organizations and sharing the results.

Participants then used a virtual whiteboard to propose more than 30 topics, each marked as something they wanted to learn or could contribute, and voted on their priorities. Discussion surfaced a recurring theme: the readiness gap between executives eager to adopt AI and the faculty, managers, and frontline workers expected to make it work. The group closed by agreeing on a monthly cadence for future sessions.

This summit is curated for the leaders with the mandate, mindset, and momentum to build the organizations and industries of the future. AI Agents will lead to Autonomous Organizations, accelerating the evolution of firms and entire industries. We bridge the gap between the visionaries building the technology and the executives scaling it.

We are moving from augmenting human knowledge workers to automating entire business functions using AI Agents. Very soon these functions will be unthinkable without AI. The nature of AI transformation has changed — we are now moving toward building entire organizations that are increasingly autonomous. We discussed: Types of Autonomous Organizations; Stages in the journey to Autonomous Organizations; Obstacles we will face (social and technical); New directions in workforce transformation; How AI agents will link organizations together; What lies beyond Autonomous Organizations.

Examines AI agents engaging in commerce autonomously discovering products negotiating terms and executing transactions at scale. Discusses implications for supply chains coordination costs and economic organization.

Explores AI agent deployment for automating knowledge work coordination organizational flattening and enabling rapid response to threats and opportunities.

Addresses how AI agents will revolutionize strategy and business model development challenging organizational assumptions and enabling new autonomous structures.

Second summit focused on accelerating productivity with AI exploring impact on workforce wellness and performance latest AI agent technology and implementation roadmaps.

Examined organizational transformation through AI and decentralization celebrating Post-Industrial Institute's 20th anniversary with discussion of super-productivity and organizational renewal.

Discussed AI agents entering the physical world industrial applications systems integration and risks in manufacturing logistics transportation and healthcare.

Inaugural two-day summit exploring AI transformation across organizations and industries attracting representatives from major technology and enterprise firms.

Members-only session exploring social AIs focused on relationships collaboration trust-building and collaborative human-AI networks.

Explored decentralization and AI's impact on organizational transformation strategy and product development in global enterprises.

Explored how AI transforms work experience through creativity collaboration management organizational culture and autonomous systems.

Leadership roundtable addressing AI risks at organizational societal and geopolitical scales including security threats weapons development and goal alignment.

Examined generative AI and foundation models' potential for accelerating innovation across applications and industries.

Examined how internet connectivity and distributed work enable innovation beyond traditional hubs like Silicon Valley Hollywood and Detroit.

Explored societal and technology trends accelerating decentralization in space manufacturing and biotechnology sectors.

Discussed societal economic and technology trends accelerating decentralization across industries and organizations.

Examined cryptocurrency developments market volatility regulatory challenges and potential for decentralized digital commerce and smart contracts.

Addressed how companies navigate geopolitical challenges regulations protectionism and conflict while pursuing innovation.

Discussed executive strategies for motivating and leading geographically distributed teams amid widespread remote work adoption.

Addressed obstacles to enterprise transformation including risk aversion talent gaps silos and strategies for overcoming barriers.

Assessment of venture capital landscape changes including capital deployment shifts, deal volume changes, decentralization effects on startup geography, and emerging investment opportunities.

Summit synthesis session connecting key themes across all sessions, identifying major challenges and opportunities, surfacing blind spots, and recommending future initiatives for the post-industrial transition.

Investigation into the stagnation hypothesis, examining cultural factors that support and impede innovation while exploring the prerequisites for continued human flourishing.

Analysis of education transformation drivers through technology advancement and decentralization, pandemic impacts, emerging business models, and cognitive science applications.

Discussion of enterprise transformation strategies addressing pandemic-driven decentralization, consumer behavior shifts, and the need for rapid threat and opportunity response. Topics covered: organic vs. acquired renewal, decentralized operating models, reframing employee relationships, adapting to consumer expectations, faster response capabilities, and building change-embracing culture.

Exploration of board roles in guiding company transformation during industry disruption, addressing structure, composition, and strategic oversight. Topics covered: transformation best practices, board structure and meeting frequency, appropriate engagement levels, chair responsibilities, director skill requirements, management expectations, and the tension between crisis response and long-term value.

Analysis of manufacturing transformation through 3D printing, robotics, AI, and material science enabling production to move to the edges of supply networks. Topics covered: pandemic manufacturing consequences, automation developments, software-defined manufacturing, microfactory innovation, neighborhood production units, workforce evolution, and the 2030 manufacturing landscape.

Examination of the edge computing paradigm enabling faster, more complex applications through distributed architecture — affecting virtually all industries. Topics covered: industry disruption areas, next-generation edge technology, security and scalability solutions, enabled business models, and the relationship between blockchain and edge computing.

Examination of pandemic-accelerated societal changes, generational differences, trust mechanisms, and conflicting worldviews shaping post-industrial culture development.

Overview of the emerging commercial space sector, including climate forecasting, asteroid mining, orbital construction, space tourism, and satellite internet applications. Topics covered: investment trends, decentralization and access expansion, enabling technologies, growth opportunities, reality vs. speculation, economic impact, and implementation barriers.

Analysis of transportation sector disruption through autonomous vehicles, drones, and new business models affecting asset ownership and service delivery coordination. Topics covered: investment trends, emerging technologies, disruptive startups and models, near-term capabilities, structural sector changes, and progress barriers.

Exploration of financial services disruption through cryptocurrency, DeFi platforms, regulatory uncertainty, and decentralized solutions reshaping traditional banking. Topics covered: money definition and confusion, cryptocurrency and DeFi impacts, vulnerability areas for incumbents, large-firm disruption capabilities, and a vision for decentralized financial services.

Exploration of how decentralization and exponential technological progress are propelling civilization into a post-industrial phase, examining consequences for geopolitics, policy, corporate strategy, investors, and founders.

Discussion of transformative technologies emerging over the coming decade and their reshaping of economies and societies.

Examination of how decentralization impacts energy sector dynamics, including distributed energy sources, grid challenges, and blockchain applications for energy trading.

Explored material science applications and breakthroughs across transportation energy medicine and manufacturing.

Discussed manufacturing transformation through automation customization software-defined production and microfactories.

Analyzed post-pandemic business models organizational changes geopolitics trade and cultural shifts.

Discussed brand transformation amid pandemic-driven digitalization and emerging digital business models.

Examined transformation obstacles strategies business models and success measurement in large organizations.

Addressed leadership challenges under extreme stress vision maintenance credibility preservation and psychological health.

Identified crisis-affected industries winners versus losers turnaround opportunities and startup possibilities.

Examined Estonia's rapid transformation from Soviet state to innovation leader through digitalization and free-market policies.

Explored how people relocated to secondary cities and rural areas creating new living and working paradigms.

Examined distributed ledger applications for supply chain transparency farmer empowerment and food safety improvement.

Discussed how accessible advanced technologies enable small organizations to build transformative ventures with reduced costs.

Addressed board governance challenges balancing crisis management with long-term transformation strategy.

Examined historical progress drivers and contemporary challenges to ensuring continued human advancement.

Analyzed distributed ledger technology progress weaknesses next-generation solutions regulatory obstacles and emerging applications.

Discussed remote work adoption self-organizing teams AI coworkers leadership approaches and organizational culture.

Discussed pandemic impacts on industries transformation acceleration consumer behavior changes and recovery strategies.

Inaugural Silicon Valley event addressing corporate renewal amid industry disruption hosted by innovation pioneer SRI.

First launch event for Post-Industrial Forum exploring post-industrial business and societal transitions.