Talking to the Dead is an AI trend

If you’d asked me how our use of AI would shift between 2024 and 2025, I wouldn’t have guessed that “communicating with the dead” would appear at number 33 on the trends list. (Thank you, Rebecca at Acteon, for that gem.)

A tiny taster of all the weird ways AI is changing life and work.

From recent interviews the big themes at work are:

🔫 Too many long and complicated documents whizzing around.

💨 Endless AI-generated ‘personal feedback’ that’s meaningless but demands a response.

☄️ Odd eruptions of AI activity that no one is too sure who is responsible for. Or how they fit into the strategy.

❌ Banned and tightly controlled usage (the rules of which are being subverted by anyone frustrated). My favourite being mandating the pasting of precisely defined prompts, crushing the will to live of those using them.

The broader trend that businesses are struggling to keep up hasn’t changed. And I’m not sure it will.

As an agency head put it, it’s all starting to feel like a fever dream. Like when Bobby Ewing wandered out of the shower. (You’ll have to ask someone over 45. Or your AI.)

What are your predictions welcome below for next year’s list? Suggestions from long-dead relatives welcome.

Christine 👻