Welcome to the Neo-Analog Age.
For 40 years or more we've pursued the paperless office.
In the early days of computerisation, we simply called it having an IT department.
Along the way, catchy names describing exciting new software like "Expert Systems" and "Business Intelligence" came along.
And since 2011, Cap Gemini's viral catch-all term of "Digital Transformation" filled the blank for every enterprise's IT strategy.
Through all of the many hype cycles, we've "driven efficiency" and "automated value creation" using the same pattern:
- Find novel ways to model and present the real world in databases.
- Read and write data into tables, columns and rows.
- Find ways to handle scale, distribution and countless other complexities.
But today –for the first time in generations– this pattern is primed for disruption.
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Just take a moment to think about this:
In a future where autonomous machines have multi-modal streaming input (read, see, listen etc.) and superhuman levels of comprehension, why "digitalise" anything?
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Since the dawn of commerce, competent business people have known the importance of keeping records.
And competent business people have alway been able to look at their stone tablet, stack of papers, or database report and answer questions about what's been done and where things should go next.
That is to say that the system of record is irrelevant over time; the job to be done has always been the same.
That is to say that our current software tools will hold as much value as the chisel did to the first users of pen and paper.
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When AI can see, read, process and act as well –or better– than we do, why care about the format of information?
Let it be ephemeral. Or not. In its original form. Or not.
With mass parallelism of AI agents, available 24x7x365, it really doesn't matter.
The world's 8 billion population will soon have at least the same number of competent business people to call upon.
RIP digitalisation.
Welcome to the Neo-Analog Age.
