KEY TAKEAWAYS (an AI-Output with Hallucinations)

AI AGENTS & AGentic workflows

• Atlas - AI Browser by OpenAI

• n8n - Workflow automation

• Cursor - Coding agent

• Comet by Perplexity - Best Agentic Browser - browse the internet with AI and get stuff done

• Lindy - Build an AI agent - great for AI automation

LLM

• OpenAI’s Deep Research - Absolutely the best research tool out there right now

• Manus - Most comprehensive AI agent in my opinion

• Claude Skills - Claude Skills is the best skills agent - this allows to be more deterministic with your agents.

• Grok 4 - Equivalent to o3 from ChatGPT - awesome for X data

• Gemini 2.5 - Incredible LLM

Text-to-App

• Lovable - Build any app with agentic reasoning (best at front-end)

• v0 by Vercel - Text-to-Webpage (really good front-end)

• Replit - Idea-to-App (best for full app)

Text-to-IMAGE/VIDEO

• Midjourney - Best for pictures and video

• HeyGen - AI Video Avatar

• Runway - Text to Video

• Google’s Nano Banana - Best Image Generator

Research & other

• NotebookLM - Research and the two AI podcast hosts that you see above :)

• Google AI Studio - Real-time AI co-presence

• Clay - AI Outbound Sales | Generating lists of emails and sending cold outreach

• Figjam - Whiteboarding Ideas | Brainstorming | Organizing

Briefing: Innovation, AI, and the Agentic Era

EExecutive Summary

This document synthesizes the core themes from a keynote address by innovation strategist Shawn Kanungo to the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative (NRTC). The central argument is that while Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the "most seamless, the most important technology of our lives," its successful integration requires a deliberate and simultaneous embrace of humanity, friction, and organizational self-disruption.

The address posits that the current AI landscape is transitioning from a "generative" phase to an "agentic revolution," where AI will function as autonomous, 24/7 agents capable of executing complex tasks, representing a 100x to 1,000x increase in impact. This shift reframes the nature of work, moving the locus of power from knowledge—which is now commoditized by AI copilots—to human traits like hunger, innovation, and the courage to challenge the status quo.

While demonstrating AI's profound capabilities—from building entire software platforms from text prompts to creating sophisticated synthetic data models for customer analysis—the speaker also issues critical warnings. The proliferation of AI-driven deepfakes and scams signals the potential "end of trust," posing a significant threat to cybersecurity and social cohesion. To counteract the hyper-efficiency driven by technology, the address advocates for reintroducing "friction" to create meaningful, memorable, and human-centric experiences.

Ultimately, the key message is a call to action for leaders, particularly within established and successful organizations like rural telecommunications cooperatives. To thrive, they must overcome fear through hands-on engagement with the technology, foster a culture of innovation rooted in psychological safety and a willingness to fail, and possess the boldness to disrupt their own successful models. The future belongs not to the most knowledgeable, but to those who are "most afraid, yet bold enough to move forward."

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Speaker Profile: Shawn Kanungo

Shawn Kanungo is a globally recognized innovation strategist, bestselling author, and a prominent voice on generative AI. His professional background includes:

• Experience: 12 years at Deloitte and over two decades working with Fortune 500 companies.

• Expertise: Artificial intelligence, cloud technologies, and behavioral economics.

• Acclaim: Named "Best Virtual Keynote Speaker I've Ever Seen" by Forbes and recognized in Edify's "Top 40 Under 40."

• Authorship: Author of the bestselling book, "The Bold Ones", which McKinsey celebrated as essential reading.

• Media Presence: He created the first streaming special by an innovation expert on Apple TV and Prime Video and has a community of millions following his content on platforms like LinkedIn, TikTok, and YouTube.

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The Core Paradox: AI's Supremacy and the Need for Humanity

A central theme of the address is the tension between the seamless power of AI and the increasing need for distinctly human skills and interactions. Kanungo argues that AI is the "greatest technology that we've ever seen in human history," yet this necessitates a renewed focus on humanity.

• The Landline Analogy: To illustrate this point, the speaker recounts his family's recent acquisition of a landline phone. The purpose was to "introduce more friction" into his children's lives, forcing them to engage in "micro-interactions," such as speaking to a friend's parent, which build trust and relationships.

• Future-Proofing Children: When asked what he will teach his children in an AI-dominated world, he states, "I'm not going to teach them AI. Because they're growing up with AI in their DNA." Instead, he will focus on teaching them essential human skills:

    ◦ How to build grit and resilience.

    ◦ How to make a friend.

    ◦ How to talk to one another and look someone in the eye.

The core message is that as technology becomes more pervasive and frictionless, the value of human connection and the skills required to foster it will become paramount.

The Agentic Revolution: AI as an Autonomous Actor

The speaker contends that the initial phase of generative AI, largely characterized by applications like essay writing, is evolving into a far more powerful "agentic revolution."

• Defining Agency: Agency is defined as "the power to act" or "the power to get stuff done."

• From Generative to Agentic: The revolution moves AI from passive tasks (e.g., summarizing a conversation) to autonomous action. This involves "a true agent that's always on, that's 24/7, that makes decisions for you."

• Magnitude of Impact: This shift is projected to be "100 to 1,000x what the generative AI revolution was all about," because it is focused on creating tangible value through action.

Demonstrated AI Capabilities and Use Cases

To ground the discussion in practical examples, the speaker demonstrated several AI tools and applications built for or inspired by NRTC members.

Use Case

Organization Example

AI Tools Used

Key Outcome & Insight

Onboarding Platform

Twin Valley (Kansas)

Chat GPT (for prompt generation), Loveable (text-to-application tool)

An entire "Netflix style" onboarding platform, including UI, front-end, and back-end code, was generated from a text prompt. Insight: "In 2025... the most dangerous skill in the world is just coming up with an idea."

Customer Service Agent

Eastern Central Energy

Custom AI Agent

An AI agent was created to answer customer queries about renewable energy programs and costs, with the ability to respond in multiple languages, including Japanese.

Synthetic Data Analysis

Coleman Electric Cooperative (Alabama)

Claude

An AI created a realistic but "fake" synthetic data file for 45,000 customers. It then used this data to generate a sophisticated customer segmentation and lifetime value model. Insight: Using synthetic data is one of the "safest ways to using AI" as it avoids using real customer data.

Process Reimagination

Personal Anecdote (Father's accounting business)

OCR, Cloud Storage

The evolution from paper ledgers to Excel and QuickBooks was merely a more "elegant way of storing this information." The new revolution is different: "for the first time in human history, this software can actually get stuff done." AI agents can perform tasks humans could never do, such as auditing every single transaction every minute.

Redefining Work, Skills, and Power

The rise of agentic AI fundamentally alters long-held beliefs about work, job security, and the nature of power.

• Fear of Job Displacement: The address acknowledges the fear of AI taking jobs, a sensitive topic for cooperatives who are often major community employers. While Microsoft identified a "dredge operator" as the safest job, the speaker reframes the narrative.

• A New Paradigm: Instead of asking, "Will AI take your job?" a more accurate question is, "AI allows you to do any job." This empowers individuals by giving them access to capabilities beyond their traditional roles (e.g., a marketer can be an accountant, a designer can be an engineer).

• The End of "Knowledge is Power": The long-held belief that "knowledge is power" is now obsolete. When every person has access to an AI copilot, knowledge becomes a commodity.

• The New Definition of Power: In the AI era, power belongs to "people that are hungry, people that can innovate, people that can fight this, status quo."

Confronting Fear and Building Competency

The speaker directly addresses the fear this technological shift induces and offers a clear path forward.

• Fear Stems from Inaction: "The reason why you are scared is because you haven't put in the work yet." Every individual the speaker has seen immerse themselves in AI technology becomes proficient and empowered, not fearful.

• The Call to Action: "My advice is to work scared until you become scary. Work scared until you become dangerous. Work scared until you develop the skills in this particular space."

• The Gym Analogy: Learning AI is compared to going to the gym for the first time. It is overwhelming, with many complex machines (tools). However, "it doesn't really matter what machine you start with. It's just matters that you pick it up." The goal is to build the muscle through consistent practice.

The Critical Risks of AI

Alongside the opportunities, the address highlights the profound risks associated with this technology, centering on the erosion of trust and the escalation of cybercrime.

• Historical Context of Tech Fear: Past fears, such as bicycles causing "bike face" in women or telephones destroying concert halls, are presented as largely unfounded.

• The Real Danger: The modern fear should not be of the technology itself, but of "the people using the technology."

• AI as the End of Trust: The deepest implication of AI is that it "marks the end of trust." When it is impossible to distinguish between what is real and what is AI-generated, trust in digital communication collapses.

• Escalation of Cybercrime: For rural broadband providers and their clients, this will manifest as a world of "infinite hell," including:

    ◦ Sophisticated blackmail

    ◦ Exponential scams

    ◦ Cybercrime "on another scale"

The Case for "Friction" in a Seamless World

In response to a world optimized for hyper-efficiency, the speaker advocates for a counter-movement centered on "friction."

• The Efficiency Trap: Technology is turning everything into its "most efficient form" and its "most efficient dopamine hit," from journalism becoming clickbait to music albums becoming TikTok clips.

• Bringing Back the "F Word": The solution is to bring back "friction," defined as creating experiences that are "meaningful and magical and memorable."

• Two Paths to Success: In the future, there will be two types of winning organizations:

    1. Fast & Frictionless: Companies like Amazon and T-Mobile that deliver seamless, on-demand service.

    2. Slow & Experiential: Companies like Hermès that prioritize craft, patience, and experience over speed.

    ◦ The "black hole of mediocrity" lies in the middle.

• The Co-op Advantage: Rural broadband providers are lauded as "one of the most light organizations in the world," with Net Promoter Scores exceeding hotels, airlines, and banking. This success is attributed to their human-centric approach: being in the community, providing trustworthy and personalized service, and inherently creating positive "friction" through customer experience.

Cultivating a Culture of Innovation

To navigate this uncertain future, organizations must build a robust culture of innovation.

• The Two Pillars of Innovation Culture:

    1. A Deep Commitment to People: Ensuring employees feel psychologically safe to experiment and act.

    2. A Willingness to Embrace Failure: Accepting that innovation requires trial and error.

• Strategy is Energy: Strategy is not a document; it is "an imaginary theory that has to set people on fire." Without this energy to propel people through uncertainty, "strategy without energy is just called a PowerPoint."

• AI for Personalization: For the first time, "software actually works for us and our unique needs." AI agents can be tailored to individual strengths and weaknesses, removing tasks that drain energy (like CRM data entry for a salesperson) and enhancing what matters. This allows organizations to move from an "assembly line" model to one based on collective energy.

Final Call to Action: The Mandate for Self-Disruption

The concluding message is a direct challenge to the successful leaders in the audience.

• The Innovator's Dilemma: While it is "incredibly sexy" to go from zero to 100, the most difficult challenge is to go from "100 to zero" — to disrupt a successful, existing model.

• The Core Question: "Are you willing to disrupt yourself?" This requires moving past nostalgia for past successes.

• A Practical Framework: To begin, "start from zero." Re-examine every process and ask:

    ◦ What would you automate?

    ◦ What would you eliminate?

    ◦ What requires more humanity?

• Innovation as Identity: True innovation is not about outcomes; it is an identity. It requires a willingness to "look like a joke" and to suffer for a new vision.

• The Most Dangerous Person: The speech concludes with a final, powerful insight: "The most dangerous person in the room is a person who is most afraid, yet bold enough to move forward."

The AI Revolution:

• Generative AI's Potential: Shawn highlights how AI, especially generative AI, is transforming work by democratizing it. He draws parallels with the internet's impact on knowledge, emphasizing that AI will revolutionize how tasks are performed.

• Generative AI Era (2023-2024)

  • Shawn recaps how ChatGPT launched in late 2022 and captured the world’s attention.

  • 2023 and 2024 became the era of “generative AI,” with widespread use of tools like ChatGPT for writing, image generation, deep fakes, etc.

  Transition to 2025: The Agentic Era

  • The speaker asserts that the “generative AI revolution” is now “over.”

  • We’re entering a new wave in 2025, referred to as the “agentic” revolution, or the agentic era.

  • Key premise: AI agents will be the next huge disruptor, providing 10x to 1000x the value of generative AI alone.

  Why Agents?

  • An agent is software that can autonomously perform tasks on behalf of humans—mimicking what human employees might do but never sleeping or stopping.

  • Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang repeatedly referenced “agents” in his CES talk, highlighting their importance.

  Agents as the New Conversational Layer

  • In the ’90s, businesses needed websites.

  • In the 2000s-2010s, businesses needed apps and social media channels.

  • In 2025 and beyond, agents will become a critical “conversational layer” for organizations (internally and externally).

  • Companies will race to build their own brand-specific AI agents, and the challenge will be how to differentiate those agents.

• AI marks "the end of trust" as it becomes harder to distinguish between AI-generated and human-created content. Shawn warns about the erosion of trust due to AI's ability to create indistinguishable deep fakes and simulations.

• Shift from Knowledge Workers to Value Creators: As AI becomes more embedded in businesses, the most valuable jobs will no longer be knowledge-based but will center around creating value in new and innovative ways. Leaders must focus on being innovators, not just managing efficiencies​

• We live in an age of "infinite leverage" where individuals can do more with less using various tools and resources.

• AI as a Starting Point: The concept "the end is now the beginning" highlights a shift in how we approach creative and development processes. Rather than seeing AI-generated outputs as final products, they are considered starting points that inspire and guide further human creativity.

• AI is the next communication layer: Just like the internet, websites, and apps, AI agents will become ubiquitous, transforming how we interact with clients and information. Kanungo predicts, "By the end of next year, every company in this room will have one AI agent or multiple or hundreds."

• Iterative Creation: By generating numerous initial ideas or drafts using AI, the creative process becomes iterative. This allows for a broad exploration of possibilities before honing in on the final deliverable through human refinement and creativity.

• Rapid Prototyping: The example of generating a hundred websites, apps, or analyses with the help of AI emphasizes the efficiency and speed with which initial concepts can be developed. This rapid prototyping accelerates the innovation cycle.

• Creative Catalyst: AI serves as a catalyst for innovation by providing a multitude of starting points. It breaks the traditional linear progression of project development and encourages a more dynamic and flexible approach

• AI-Driven Efficiency: Tools like Midjourney can generate multiple creative options for advertisements in seconds, providing companies with the flexibility to test and optimize their campaigns efficiently

The Concept of DEEPLY CARING:

• Reliability and genuine care are foundational to building trust, both in technology and human interactions.

• Exceptional service goes beyond basic expectations, creating memorable experiences that differentiate a business.

• Personalized attention and proactive problem-solving significantly enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.

• Investing in employee well-being and growth fosters a positive work culture, leading to increased job satisfaction and performance.

• Recognizing and valuing employees' contributions, even extending to their families, can create strong emotional connections to the workplace.

• Empowerment is a two-pronged approach: providing cutting-edge tools (like AI) and demonstrating deep care for individuals.

• Genuine care is a strategic business advantage, driving both customer retention and employee innovation.

• Creating a culture of care can transform service delivery, employee engagement, and ultimately, business outcomes.

• The ripple effect of care extends beyond immediate interactions, influencing long-term relationships with both customers and employees.

• Innovation thrives in environments where individuals feel valued, supported, and equipped with the right tools.

• Care for Employees = Care for Customers: Organizations that deeply care for their employees tend to deliver superior customer service, as employee satisfaction directly translates to customer trust and satisfaction

  The Importance of Human-Centered Leadership

  • People Over Projects: A leadership philosophy that prioritizes people, such as letting employees take vacations despite client demands, fosters loyalty and long-term value for the business​.

  • High-Agency Cultures: Empowering people by combining technological tools with people-centric care creates "high-agency" employees who are proactive, innovative, and committed to the company’s mission​.

The Concept of Friction:

He advocates for maintaining trust through human-centric, meaningful, and memorable experiences.

• Bringing Back Friction: In an increasingly frictionless world, Shawn argues for the value of friction in creating deeper, more authentic connections. He stresses that community management companies, unlike tech companies, thrive on trust and relationships, not just efficiency.

• In a frictionless world, we need more friction.

• Companies will win by being either extremely frictionless or extremely human - the middle ground is "the black hole of mediocrity."

Are you willing to look like a joke?

Shawn suggests that true innovation requires embracing uncertainty and discomfort - what he calls "the darkness." This idea challenges the common view that innovation is solely about achieving specific outcomes or results.

By focusing on identity rather than outcomes, Kanungo seems to be advocating for a mindset shift. He's suggesting that being an innovator is more about who you are and how you approach challenges, rather than just what you produce. This approach emphasizes qualities like curiosity, resilience, and willingness to take risks.

The question "Are you willing to be the innovator?" is provocative. It asks whether one is ready to:

1. Embrace uncertainty and potential failure

2. Challenge established norms and ways of thinking

3. Cultivate a mindset of continuous learning and experimentation

4. Persist in the face of setbacks and criticism

This perspective on innovation as an identity rather than just a process or outcome can be empowering. It suggests that anyone can be an innovator if they're willing to adopt certain attitudes and behaviors, regardless of their specific role or industry.

Disruption and Self-Disruption:

• Leaders need to be willing to disrupt themselves.

• Innovation isn't about thinking, it's about acting. It involves deliberately exposing yourself to challenges and suffering.

• Small experiments and actions are key to starting the disruption process.

Embracing Innovation's Challenges

The Willingness to Look Foolish

• True innovation requires embracing uncertainty and discomfort ("the darkness")

• Focuses on identity rather than just outcomes

• Requires qualities like curiosity, resilience, and risk-taking

Innovation as Universal Responsibility

• Not a separate department but a mindset for everyone

• Continuously asking how to improve

The Most Valuable Question

• "What will you start today that scares you?"

• Begins changing your story and challenging limits

Self-Disruption

• The greatest challenge isn't scaling up (0 to 100)

• It's having the courage to disrupt yourself and what's working (100 to 0)

Beyond Mountains

• Success shouldn't breed complacency

• There are always new heights after reaching what seemed like the summit

To Reach 5×, You Can’t Think 5 % Bigger—You Have to Go to Zero

Take any core process—finance approvals, R&D cycles, vessel maintenance—and ask: If we rebuilt this from scratch with today’s tech, what vanishes? What automates? What now demands more human warmth? Going “to zero” prevents incrementalism from smothering breakthroughs.

The Most Dangerous Person in the Room

It’s not the algorithm or the credentialed expert—it’s the individual who feels the fear, yet moves anyway. Bold + scared beats brilliant + stuck. Be that person, hire that person, partner with that person, and the future tips in your favor.