I have spend the last 12 months immersing myself into agentic ai. I have tried taming the large language model. I have read. I have listened to audio books. I’ve trained a local model with not at all great success.

I have tried things. I have built things. Most have not gone anywhere. The failures are more common than successes. I think my yearly contribution is around 10 projects. I count only one as true success. And that success is still on probation.

I’ll try and describe some of the feelings I’ve felt this year.

Being ahead of time

Innovators are living in the future. They (and I) try to predict the future. We start working when technology and the trend are not yet there. Only a tiny fraction of a movement may be stirring. But you cannot prove it. But you think you see it.

There is no evidence. Or the only real business evidence is that few propeller heads are claiming they can do something cool. Nobody believes. The only measures a business usually knows says that those propellerhead guys are the minority.

You send messages to peers. They don’t know. Some don’t engage.

That feeling of my hunch still gnaws at me. I think this will evolve. It has to go that way. My logic says so.

Then in common business terms, there really is nothing there. Just a few crazies doing weird stuff. Maybe it is relevant. Maybe not. Main business is somewhere else.

Others don’t yet see it

The thing is that radical changes and true new innovation changes things. The new world being created is pretty different than the common, familiar. People around you don’t see the thing you are seeing.

What you see in your head about the future if fuzzy and unstructured.

I try to explain but I lack the words to describe the future in common terms. What I kind of see is what I can yet only describe with my mental models. But the other people don’t yet see the same thing!

Such is life. People are creatures perceiving the familiar.

And really, why should the other people even care.

You are the innovator. I’m the innovator.

Frustrating!

You see it when it starts to unfold

Future will eventually arrive. I’ve tried telling the future a few times. 5 years ago I was wrong. I was thinking product thinking would be a super-big movement. It was just another trend.

This time, I’ve tried my very best to anticipate and work with the agentic Ai trend. Now, this trend is just on the verge of snowballing from hype into deployment. I’ve watched the trend and momentum grow. I can feel it. The progression of the trend is not unfamiliar nor unpredictable to me.

Starting ahead of time has created my mental models. I’m happy to have started ahead of time. Now, I can innovate on time.

Now all of a sudden, I’m no longer too early. I’m just in time. I see what is unfolding.

Leaders start early - the future catches up

I know I wanted to write about the pains of being an innovator. You are on your own very often. People will not believe you. It takes courage.

Just remember: betting on future is a portfolio play. You will be very often wrong. Much of the stuff you create is wrong. You just don’t know. Nobody knows. Even if you are right, the customers don’t yet see it. But then, if you are lucky and observant you will sometimes be right too.

For big things like the agentic Ai, the future becomes certain bit-by-bit. Then also the early mistakes are helpful. They help you learn. They help you see. Once the future catches up, then you are ready.

PS: Shoutout to diffusion of innovation, the chasm, and everyone who makes across. This one was for those on the left side.