Matt Shumer’s essay “Something Big Is Happening” has gone viral. It's interesting to watch the reactions. I think it's resonating because it puts plain language around a reality many business teams are starting to feel: AI capability is moving faster than organizational readiness. 

If you haven't read it yet, you need to: https://lnkd.in/gr3cr8bC. 

For business leaders and in-house counsel, the practical takeaway is not panic, it's a call to get serious about governance, so the business can adopt AI quickly without creating avoidable privacy, cybersecurity, IP, and regulatory risk for the company.

The reception matters. The essay has traveled well beyond the usual AI circles, and it has also drawn sharp criticism about reliability and what can be proven from anecdotes. I’ve read it as a prompt to pressure test your assumptions, not a forecast carved in stone.

Truth is, we're at a time where a lot of people seem to be dismissing AI as overhyped. I'm not amongst those. While we don't know its ultimate ceiling, it's clear to me that AI tools are already incredibly useful and beneficial to those that know how to use them, and are only getting more so with each iteration. If you can't figure out how to unlock the current and potential future benefits of AI as a tool for your company, your business risks getting left behind. 

So what should my clients and business leaders do with this? Here are a few thoughts.

Treat this as a readiness drill. 

Shumer’s advice is essentially “be early” and use the tools seriously, not casually. I agree. It's clear to me you can't just write this stuff off and wait for the hype to die down. It's not going to.

Build a safe path for confident experimentation with your teams. 

If you want the business and its people to learn fast, you need clear rules for what data can be used, what must stay out, and what gets logged. Call it governance or AI Policy or whatever, but get it in place and make sure your people are trained.

Put the policy and vendor paper in place now, before adoption outruns contracting. 

Provide clear direction on what tools and models can be used, and provide the tools. If you don't, they're just going to use their own anyway.

Make AI literacy a leadership expectation, not a side hobby. 

Start using current, top tier tools seriously and daily, because the advantage right now is simply being early. 

Start workforce and workflow planning now.

This is especially true for screen-based work and entry-level roles, so humans own judgment and accountability and AI handles drafts, triage, and speed.

So what did you think of Shumer’s piece? Do you think his timeline is overblown, understated, or about right?