Singularity University

You can build the most powerful AI tool in the world. If your people are not using it, it is like a treadmill sitting in your garage.

That is the insight Dr. Michael "House" Housman brought to this month's SU Discussion Series, and it is one that every leader navigating the AI transformation needs to hear.

MIT research shows that 90 to 95% of AI implementations fail in production. Not because the technology is wrong. Because of change management, lack of buy-in, and a workforce that is afraid of what comes next.

In this session, Dr. Housman draws on 15+ years building and deploying machine learning platforms across startups and Fortune 500 companies to cover:

- Why most AI initiatives stall, and how to build momentum that lasts
- How to run an "AI census" in your organization
- How to build a true AI-first culture at every level
- What the road to AGI means for the decisions you make today

Watch the full discussion now. Link in comments.

What does Singularity mean to you? For us, a singularity is any technological breakthrough with consequences so far-reaching that nobody could have predicted them at the time. The ripples that keep going long after the stone hits the water.

The concept comes from physics. At the center of a black hole sits a singularity so powerful it creates an event horizon where light can't escape. You can't see beyond it.

Those moments aren't rare. They're happening to us, and all around us, right now. Our question to you: do you have a plan to navigate that uncertainty? What framework are you preparing in order to venture confidently into that unknown?

Singularities are happening daily. Technological breakthroughs are abundant. And despite the noise pressing in from every direction, it's our conviction that technology is not inevitable. The outcomes are not predetermined. Because the people telling you they are? They're the ones who built it. You have the power to take hold of the wheel and steer toward the future you want to build.

What does Singularity mean to you?

Philip Rosedale, founder of Second Life, walked through why people are measurably kinder to each other in virtual worlds built around shared physical space than they are on social media.

The answer: peripersonal space.

Humans don't just respond to real physical proximity — they respond to simulated proximity too. When avatars stand next to each other, the brain lights up the same way it would in a real room. People form memories of being "at the firepit together." The space feels shared. The relationship feels real.

On most platforms, conflict has nowhere to go. In Second Life, you have neighbors, land, and a persistent identity with financial stakes. Bad behavior has a real cost.

The result: a virtual economy where hair alone is a $200 million industry because people are genuinely invested in a world where presence means something.

What does it say about platform design when a 20-year-old virtual world has better community behavior than most of what exists today?

Singularity University CEO Erik Anderson recently joined the World Wide Technology AI Proving Ground Podcast and broke down where enterprise AI actually stands:

→ Awareness? Unprecedented. Virtually everyone has heard of it and tinkered with it.
→ Experimentation? Extremely high, low cost, fully digital, widely accessible.
→ True adoption, the kind that changes how an organization works? Barely started.

Some other highlights:
→ When AI gives your team 20% of their time back, that's an opportunity account, not a headcount reduction.
→ The trust problem is the real blocker, not capability.
→ Loyal, mission-aligned people paired with AI is a growth story, not a cost-cutting one.

Full conversation linked in the comments.

Humans have immense difficulty predicting the future... interested to see some of those predictions from 1900? Why do you think we tend to be so far off?

In 1900, This Artist Gazed Into the Future. See How He Imagined the Year 2000 Would Look (Spoiler: It's Very Inaccurate) Turn-of-the-century artist Jean-Marc Côté's charming, fantastical visions of the year 2000 are now for sale.

When it comes to technology and the future — are you hopeful or cynical?

We ask this at the start of every Executive Program at Singularity. Every time, the room splits with confidence. People have thought about this. They know where they stand.

Then the week starts.

By the end of Day 1, someone has moved. By Day 2, the person who arrived completely certain is quietly reconsidering. Session by session, positions shift — sometimes toward excitement, sometimes toward real unease. Often in the same afternoon.

Today on Day 4, we asked who had changed their mind.
Almost every hand went up.

The oscillation is the point. Not confusion — a sign that someone is paying close attention. Anyone who hasn't wavered at all might not be looking closely enough.

So. Hopeful or cynical?

And how long has it been since something genuinely moved you off that position? Tell us below.

Some of the most meaningful work we do at Singularity happens when a company calls us and says — we want to bring this home.

Grupo Vázquez did exactly that.

This week, two Singularity programs are running at the same time — on two different continents.

In Silicon Valley, leaders from around the world are deep into our Global Executive Program, working through some of the most important questions in business and technology right now.

And today, in Asunción, Paraguay, begins — a custom program we built with itti Digital that has grown into one of the most ambitious gatherings of business and government leaders in Latin America.

Hundreds of leaders this week, across two hemispheres, fully committed to understanding what's coming next.

Singularity's Spring Global Executive Program is underway this week in Silicon Valley — and we're sharing the best ideas from inside the room all week.

This is one of only two programs we run all year, with a hand-selected cohort of leaders from across industries and around the world.

Kellie Nuttall introduced our cohort this week to a reframe that's hard to un-think: AI not as a tool, not as a threat — but as a coworker. With a name, a face, a performance review, reporting to a human.

It shifts the entire adoption conversation. The question is no longer "what do we automate?" It becomes "who do we want to work with?"
How does that land for your organization?

Drop your answer below. 💬

Researchers just injected a chemical into living mice — and their own blood grew it into a functional electrode inside their brains.

Published in Science, the Purdue University breakthrough uses hemoglobin — the protein in red blood cells — as a catalyst to assemble a soft, flexible, electrically conductive mesh directly around neurons at the injection site. The electrode moves with brain tissue, minimizing damage. It responds to near-infrared light pulses from outside the skull, allowing researchers to dial brain activity up or down without physical cables or additional surgery. The mice showed no signs of infection, inflammation, or memory loss throughout testing. As the lead researcher put it: doctors could one day grow electronic interfaces inside the brain using the patient's own blood, then adjust brain activity from outside the head using harmless light.

The significance extends well beyond this specific experiment. Current brain implants — including those already restoring speech and movement to people with paralysis — require rigid electrodes, extensive surgery, and carry risks of scarring and tissue damage over time. A technique that grows soft, biocompatible electronics in place eliminates the mismatch between hard devices and soft tissue that has been the central limitation of the entire field. The same approach could, in principle, extend to spinal cord nerves and heart tissue.

The convergence happening here — advanced materials science, neuroscience, and bioelectronics — represents exactly the kind of cross-disciplinary breakthrough that doesn't announce itself loudly but compounds dramatically. Brain-computer interfaces are already a boardroom topic thanks to high-profile commercial efforts. This research points toward a future where the interface isn't implanted into the brain — it's grown by it. The organizations and leaders tracking this trajectory now will be far better positioned when it transitions from laboratory result to clinical application.

Read the full story👇 link in comments