AI and the disappearing pause

“IT’S interesting to see progress through the arc of time,” Google chief executive officer Sundar Pichai said recently on Lex Fridman’s podcast. It aptly describes a huge shift happening in business right now; a change in how we even think about something as basic as time.

Time used to be one of the few constants in global business. We had clear deadlines, synchronised news cycles, “follow-the-sun” business models. New York would open for business as Singapore was winding down. The world had a predictable beat, even if not perfectly aligned.

But something has shifted.