Remember when we were kids, and watched the famous scene in The Matrix where Morpheus gives Neo a choice:

• "Take the Blue Pill 🔵 , the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe."
• "You take the Red Pill 🔴 you stay in Wonderland. And I show you how deep the rabbit- hole goes."

Well, get ready my friends, because this week I am getting philosophical.

With many renowned authors last week talking about Artificial General Intelligence being here in less than 2 years... we can't ignore the impact of AI anymore.

It will radically change how we live, work, and think. While I am optimistic, I also have questions that worry me.

So I invite us today to think about seven (very soon to be) real-world AI dilemmas - each with a Blue Pill and a Red Pill scenario.

✅ What If Work Becomes Just 2 Hours a Day?

🔴 Red Pill: AI handles the repetitive work, freeing us to spend more time creating, thinking, innovating and connecting with others.

🔵 Blue Pill: Work is part of our identity - without it, do we lose purpose, motivation, and social structure?

✅ What If AI Becomes Our Most Trusted Companion?

🔴 Red Pill: AI frees up our time, helping us automate work and decisions so we can connect more deeply with people.

🔵 Blue Pill: AI is always available, non-judgmental, and easy to talk to. Will we start choosing AI interactions over real human relationships? Or will we withdraw even more socially?

✅ What If AI Makes Organizations Too Risk-Averse?

🔴 Red Pill: AI will help leaders take smarter, calculated risks, analyzing massive amounts of data to inform - but not replace - human judgment.

🔵 Blue Pill: AI’s reliance on data-driven decisions could eliminate bold, instinctive leadership moves, leading to a culture of predictability over innovation.

✅ What If AI Writes Our Next Masterpiece?

🔴 Red Pill: AI is a creative accelerator, helping writers, designers and marketers push the boundaries of imagination.

🔵 Blue Pill: Creativity becomes more about prompting than thinking - are we still artists or marketers if AI does most of the work?

✅ What If AI Shifts Leadership from Experience to Execution?

🔴 Red Pill: AI will enhance experienced leaders, helping them make better, faster decisions while still relying on wisdom and intuition.

🔵 Blue Pill: AI might devalue leadership experience, favoring those who know how to use AI tools over those with deep industry knowledge.

✅ What If AI Hires Our Next Employees?

🔴 Red Pill: AI spots and removes human bias from hiring, helping us make fairer, more objective decisions.

🔵 Blue Pill: AI is only as fair as its training data - what if it amplifies bias instead of eliminating it?

✅ What If AI Becomes the Face of Customer Relationships?

🔴 Red Pill: AI will personalize customer experiences and free up teams to engage in more meaningful, high-value interactions.

🔵 Blue Pill: AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants will replace human interactions, making customer relationships feel robotic and transactional.

🚀 Bringing It All Together - Why should you care about this as a leader.

"Ugghhh Marco". I know I know this is a lot. But it had to be said.

I'm telling you this, because someone told me this week - "our leadership doesn't think AI is an urgent topic - they want it to settle first".

Well, we don’t have the luxury of waiting for AI to "settle" anymore. Both pills are here 🔴 🔵.

Regardless of whether we want them or not. The sooner we start managing the positive effects and the side ones... the most likely we will be to manage this rabbit-hole

And what a rabbit-hole it is.

I'll see you next week.

‍