Different

Perspectives,

Together.

ON_Discourse is a membership based community of C-suite leaders, investors, and innovators focused on driving business transformation through the discipline of discourse.

Learn More

Learn more
Learn more

WEEKLY PROVOCATION

The Hardest Part Isn’t Building AI — It’s Selling It

Our members are at the cutting edge of AI. Their prospective clients see the promise of AI - they see the same headlines as everyone else - but they don’t yet know how to use it, where it fits, or what it’s worth. The friction is not resistance. It’s uncertainty.

SUBSCRIBE

Welcome to the Community

Interested in learning how to join?

The Gartner Hype Cycle is Over

For decades it has been the go-to cliché in tech. Not only does this lead to boring, useless perspectives, but it also relies on an outdated research methodology that makes no sense.

Toby Daniels

Linguistic Illusionists

AI doesn't understand a damn thing

Max Weidemann

WEEKLY PROVOCATION

It’s Time to Build

Many of our members tell us that this moment feels like the 90’s all over again. Anything is possible because anyone can make anything. All you need is a voice and some vibes.

SUBSCRIBE

Discourse in the News

Our top agent identified three provocations for the week of March 3, 2025

1. Consumer Agents are Coming!

Amazon and T-Mobile (Telekom) made two separate announcements about AI-powered personal assistants in the upgraded Alexa+ and the new so-called AI-Phone.

These agents won’t just respond to consumer prompts; they will autonomously act and manage daily tasks without a command.

2. Is GPT4.5 a Big Emotional Whiff?

GPT4.5 was released with improved emotional intelligence, astronomical pricing and marginal improvements. Many reviewers were unimpressed.

3. Is Inference Time Deeper Thinking?

New “deep research” models spend extra “thinking time” to break down and process prompts that rival human thought. What does this updated UI really mean?

Solve Small and Think Like a Founder

AI transformation rarely happens in a single leap. Instead, it evolves through a series of incremental, often messy, small-scale shifts.

Toby Daniels

The Sledgehammer of Change

There can be a lot of light in and at the end of a transformation tunnel.

The Meaning of Photoshop

The Digital, Invisible, and Ruthless Device of Destruction

Chris Perry

03•03•25

Round One of Summit Speakers

No one comes to an ON_Discourse event to hear our team speak. They want to know what the real experts are doing.

Don't Listen to Us, Listen to Them

Toby Daniels

02•26•25

Why small, tactical shifts lead to big impact

The rise of Agentic Managers

How a global marketing team is integrating AI

The AI guardrails every business needs

WEEKLY PROVOCATION

Agents are more like staff than software.

One of our members started to market her AI agent as a person to hire rather than a piece of software to buy. This is either a meaningless semantic distinction or a new business model. We dig into it here.

SUBSCRIBE

The AI Perfection Paradox

As AI makes perfect self-presentation available to everyone, the value of that perfection plummets.

Henrik Werdelin

02•28•25

WEEKLY PROVOCATION

AI is bigger than efficiency.

For over a decade, the unicorn was the point of entrepreneurism. That made sense in an era of platforms. The emergence of AI, specifically agents and generative models, has created an opportunity that might change not only the game but also the mascot. Enter the donkeycorn, the antidote to hyperbolic entrepreneurship.

SUBSCRIBE

Henrik Werdelin Talks About Donkeycorns

Episode #008

Dan and Chmiel invite Henrik Werdelin, co-founder of Barkbox and PreHype, to talk about how unicorns are old news and how donkeycorns are the future. You’ll hear about how Agentic AI can prompt wannabe entrepreneurs into actual founders. This is a small idea that can transform the economy.

LISTEN

WEEKLY PROVOCATION

Solve Small

AI is too big to “do.” It needs to be broken down into small functions, frameworks, and features that can solve real business problems. In other words: solve small.

SUBSCRIBE

The Gang Makes an Announcement

Episode #007

Toby, Dan, and Chmiel officially announce The ON_Discourse Summit - Solve Small: AI Transformation for the C-Suite.

LISTEN

Welcome to the Community

Interested in learning how to join?

WEEKLY PROVOCATION

The discourse about AI transformation is too big, vague, and theoretical.

We’re working on a new project. It is built on this idea of small thinking and AI transformation. Over the next 6 weeks, we will be provoking and discoursing about the real, actionable ideas that industry leaders are actually doing that will realize the epic future we all keep describing.

SUBSCRIBE

Dan Writes a LinkedIn Post

Episode #006

Dan returns to the podcast to talk about the off-the-record conversations he had at Davos. Toby and Chmiel use the LinkedIn post he wrote about his trip to scrutinize the level of discourse about AI transformation. The key takeaway: no one knows what happens next.

LISTEN

WEEKLY PROVOCATION

Why are you acting like this will ever make sense?

You are not living in conventional times. You are living on the fault line of a new technological epoch where the tectonic plates of platforms, workforces, data, and content are all fracturing underneath our feet. Get used to earthquakes.

SUBSCRIBE

Welcome to the Community

Interested in learning how to join?

The Management Track

Episode #005

Toby and Chmiel reflect on the future of managers. They ponder the value of the role and whether AI can enhance or replace it. Perspectives from ON_Discourse member Katherine von Jan, founder of tough.day, reveal a new set of opportunities to help employees and organizations thrive in the AI era.

LISTEN

WEEKLY PROVOCATION

Managers are not just obsolete; they are harming your organization.

Managers have always been the low-hanging fruit of office culture. Easy to pick on, complain about, and parody. Now, thanks to AI, they are about to get permanently plucked.

SUBSCRIBE

Boardy

Episode #004

Toby, Dan, and Chmiel argue about Boardy, an AI-bot that crawls LinkedIn, calls you on the phone, asks you personal and probing questions, listens and interprets your answers, and then makes contextual introductions to similar strangers from different networks. Is this what we are talking about when we talk about the future of AI?

LISTEN

What Happens in Vegas... Gets Recapped

We hosted floor tours about the Agentic Era. We recorded the discourse with over 120 executives. We asked Elon Musk why the Internet Sucks. If you want to know what happened at CES, we got you covered.

Download the Report

We partnered with Stagwell this year to summarize the discourse from our tours

Listen to the Pod

Toby and Chmiel talk about the key moments that resonated during the week

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Chmiel says goodbye to Vegas, to gadgets, and hello to the agentic web

WEEKLY PROVOCATION

AI is starting to get useful

This week’s dispatch covers the trends we noticed in our research, the exhibitions we are focusing on, and the perspectives we are hearing from the industry leaders who we are guiding through the CES floor.

SUBSCRIBE

Live Q&A with Elon Musk

January 8, 10:30pm ET, 7:30pm PT • @Live

We're excited to announce that ON_Discourse is participating in a live Q&A with Elon Musk and Stagwell Chairman and CEO, Mark Penn during CES 2025.

During the conversation, our co-founders Toby Daniels and Dan Gardner will have an opportunity to ask Elon a question about the state of the internet and how Elon thinks we can fix it.

JOIN US LIVE

Floor Tours

Agents are the quiet revolution reshaping our digital lives. Join us and Stagwell at CES on the Agentic Era Tour and explore how AI agents are not just tools but transformative companions in healthcare, work, and the home.

SIGN UP

Reflections Eternal

Toby provokes himself about 2024

The Year in Discourse

Being Comfortable with Uncertainty

Toby Daniels

12•20•24

AI & eCommerce

What can agents do for your business?

How can you increase revenue 5X without building a new tech stack? We report back from an AI expert on the simple path to growth.

DOWNLOAD

Dan Gardner

12•11•24

WEEKLY PROVOCATION

Future-Proofing the web is making it worse

We took optimization too far. We turned the magic of the early internet into an endless spreadsheet. An analysis of how the concept of future-proofing web design has slowly degraded the wonder and experience of the internet. Can it be fixed?

SUBSCRIBE

How to evaluate the effectiveness of AI investment

Do what you love and let AI do the rest

WEEKLY PROVOCATION

Weekly Provocation: Media is disrupting AI, too

A dispatch from a NYC conference about AI and the media reveals a complicated relationship between media and AI. The media industry is more than interested; they are frustrated by the limitations of AI. Specifically, the loading time of AI summaries is a big problem.

SUBSCRIBE

Welcome to the Community

Interested in learning how to join?

The Internet Sucks

Episode #002

Toby and Dan talk about their trip to Lisbon for Web Summit, legal protections for agents, and why the internet sucks (and how it could be better).

LISTEN

Beware of Hype

What if that sudden surge of attention and sales comes is not the thing you were looking for all along? One of our founding members bursts the hype bubble in Design Week UK.

READ IT HERE

2nd Annual EOY Provocations Zoom

Predictions are boring. What if we prepared for 2025 with provocations instead? For the second year in a row, we asked our members to provoke the new year with a series of questions, statements, and feelings.

Twelve Provocations About 2025

Matt Chmiel

11•29•24

WEEKLY PROVOCATION

AI Compliance will be codified by 2026. Are you ready for it?

SUBSCRIBE

AI and the Law

Are agents protected under Section 230? What is the deal with the Colorado AI Act?

Matt Chmiel

11•15•24

Agents won’t work in eCommerce, yet.

This expert thinks the hottest thing in eCommerce is better site search.

Matt Chmiel

11•08•24

WEEKLY PROVOCATION

The emotional web is a gold mine.

An emotional web can help us understand ourselves better; understand how we can change our habits, and do it without judgment and with empathy. What if we were able to do this without pharmacology? This is the opportunity that lies ahead.

SUBSCRIBE

The Home is an Interface

 Introducing the ON_Discourse Podcast

Our team preps for an upcoming summit about the future of the connected home. Can tech bring families together or will smart-toasters rule the home?

LISTEN

WEEKLY PROVOCATION

Nothing can stop AI-generated media.

We are going from a mass-media content supply chain to a personalized one. Tomorrow, 90% of what we consume will be personalized, generated, and unique to each individual. You may not want it. You may not like it. You may think it will start a civil war. The one thing you won’t be able to do is stop it.

SUBSCRIBE

Inevitable AI?

A room full of executives argues against an unstoppable AI invasion.

Matt Chmiel

10•10•24

Does AI Get Brands?

Can an LLM truly understand and then replicate the values that made good brands great?

James Cooper

Your Dumb House

When will all of our connected devices start making sense? A new era of connectivity is coming.

Overheard at ON_Discourse

Is Behavior the New Prompt?

October 10, 9 – 11am • Gemma NYC

We’re bringing together business leaders and AI experts to debate the question in the context of entertainment and marketing.

LEARN MORE

SaaS is a Trick

You spend a lot of money to stay in what this founder called “data jail.” Can AI break you out of expensive SaaS contracts?

Matt Chmiel

10•03•24

WEEKLY PROVOCATION

AI Is the Ultimate Manager

People are weird. They have feelings and those things are a mess. Despite this factory flaw, we have collectively decided that the best way to turn emotional beings into productive workers is to manage them… with other people. What does the future org-chart look like if AI replaces conventional management tasks?

SUBSCRIBE

Move Fast and Break Synthetic Sh*t

How AI is integrating into the workplace. The good, the bad, and everything in between.

Matt Chmiel

09•27•24

Welcome to the Community

Interested in learning how to join?

Holy F*ing Sh*t

A member tells us what it felt like to build a functional CRM prototype in 3 hours. And Donkeycorns.

Matt Chmiel

09•19•24

The Simulation Era

Design thinking is going to be replaced with AI-generated simulation technology. What does that look like? We wrote a multi-part series about it.

PART 1

An Ancient Strategy

Peter Pawlick

08•30•24

PART 2

The AI Spring

PART 3

Virtual
Prototyping

PART 4

Focus Areas
and Tools

PART 5

How to Get
Started

Who Really Won the Olympics?

We covered this in a recent newsletter. No brands seemingly won the games, and gold medals didn’t have the same luster as memes.

WHAT IF?

MEMBER RESPONSE

Culture Won in Paris

Hip Hop and American culture dominated the games. They were the big winners. Read it here.

Carlos Mare

09•10•24

Blindspots

September 10, 9 – 11am • The Standard NYC

The pace of change is accelerating, so where are the blindspots that make it dangerous to navigate?

LEARN MORE

Welcome to the Community

Weekly Group Chats

Everything you can expect from an ON_Discourse event, only smaller. Every Thursday 12-1EST

SEE MORE EVENTS

The Internet 2025 Download

The future Internet is being written, and it’s going to be weird, wild and most likely, even more batshit crazy than its predecessor. If you want to understand how to successfully ride the next wave, join us for a breakdown of everything we have learned, and the incredible perspectives shared by over one hundred leading experts in tech and business.

GET THE DOWNLOAD

Weekly Provocation: Virality Defeated Marketing in Paris.

Snoop defeated the brands. His mystifying behavior generated its own gravitational force. NBC deserves credit for setting him free on their platform, where he simultaneously commentated on badminton, dressage, danced at gymnastics, and randomly appeared throughout the event.

We have thousands of subscribers. Join Them

What Are We Getting Wrong About AI?

Our members are bullish on the value of Gen AI.

Welcome to the Community

Interested in learning how to join?