The question is no longer what we know. It’s what we can imagine.
The question is no longer what we know. It’s what we can imagine.
Throughout history, the pursuit of knowledge was about one thing: finding out “what is.” It was a lifelong quest to understand the history, the science, and the facts underpinning our world. Knowing “what is” formed the bedrock of our education systems. We built exams to measure how much of it you could remember. That memory defined your status. It defined your future.
Then came AI. And everything changed.
Virtually all digitised information is now at our fingertips. “What is” is within everyone’s reach, instantly. So if “what is” is easily available, a new quest is needed. The pursuit of knowledge will go on. There will be new discoveries, new ideas, and new inventions. But they will not come from people looking for “what is”. They will come from those asking “what if”.
Being able to ask “what if” is the single most profound benefit AI brings, and it is something only humans can do. “What if” represents innovation. It represents agency. It is using AI, and the knowledge it unlocks, to create.
AI is incredibly good with huge amounts of data. It can simulate imagination and generate novel combinations, but it has no experiences of its own, no intentions, no stakes in the outcome. Purpose, judgement, and the will to create remain distinctly human.
Throughout history, the pursuit of knowledge was about one thing: finding out “what is.” It was a lifelong quest to understand the history, the science, and the facts underpinning our world. Knowing “what is” formed the bedrock of our education systems. We built exams to measure how much of it you could remember. That memory defined your status. It defined your future.
Then came AI. And everything changed.
Virtually all digitised information is now at our fingertips. “What is” is within everyone’s reach, instantly. So if “what is” is easily available, a new quest is needed. The pursuit of knowledge will go on. There will be new discoveries, new ideas, and new inventions. But they will not come from people looking for “what is”. They will come from those asking “what if”.
Being able to ask “what if” is the single most profound benefit AI brings, and it is something only humans can do. “What if” represents innovation. It represents agency. It is using AI, and the knowledge it unlocks, to create.
AI is incredibly good with huge amounts of data. It can simulate imagination and generate novel combinations, but it has no experiences of its own, no intentions, no stakes in the outcome. Purpose, judgement, and the will to create remain distinctly human.
Organisations tend to use AI in two ways.
Level 1: Acceleration (Faster). Using AI to do what you already do, but quicker, automating back-office functions and repetitive processes.
Level 2: Improvement (Better). Using AI to do what you already do, but with more options, fewer errors, and better-informed decisions.
These first two levels bring real benefits. But because every organisation has access to similar tools, everyone tends to do the same things, in the same ways, only faster. This is what is commonly referred to as the commoditization of AI and where the anxiety comes from: the redundancies, the devaluation of roles, the loss of agency.
But there is a third level. A level where AI is used not just to make things faster or better, but to jump paradigms and transform what the organisation does. To create entirely new products, new services, new workflows, and new forms of value that simply did not exist before.
Level 3: Applied Imagination (Different). This is where innovation happens. It is where competitive advantage is built. It is the transformation that results from asking “what if” across an entire organisation.
Organisations tend to use AI in two ways.
Level 1: Acceleration (Faster). Using AI to do what you already do, but quicker, automating back-office functions and repetitive processes.
Level 2: Improvement (Better). Using AI to do what you already do, but with more options, fewer errors, and better-informed decisions.
These first two levels bring real benefits. But because every organisation has access to similar tools, everyone tends to do the same things, in the same ways, only faster. This is what is commonly referred to as the commoditization of AI and where the anxiety comes from: the redundancies, the devaluation of roles, the loss of agency.
But there is a third level. A level where AI is used not just to make things faster or better, but to jump paradigms and transform what the organisation does. To create entirely new products, new services, new workflows, and new forms of value that simply did not exist before.
Level 3: Applied Imagination (Different). This is where innovation happens. It is where competitive advantage is built. It is the transformation that results from asking “what if” across an entire organisation.
If transformation is built on asking “what if,” what does asking “what if” actually entail? It is a creative process to generate original ideas of value and carrying them through uncertainty into real outcomes. Creativity, for some people, suggests vagueness, a lack of purpose, ill-defined tasks. Yet, it can bring to mind what does not yet exist. Applied imagination puts it to work.
Applied imagination is the capacity to hold an abstract concept and bring it into being, the difference between imagining what a building could look like and actually building it; between conceiving a film and releasing it; between seeing what AI might make possible and actually making it happen.
Even at the frontier of AI, this human capacity is emerging as the real bottleneck. In a recent BBC interview, Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark said his company is “now limited more by the ability to generate good ideas than the ability to do the engineering to turn those ideas into reality.” He also argued that people who are creative, think broadly, read widely, and cultivate interests are the ones most likely to benefit from AI. That is applied imagination in practice: the human work of framing problems, generating valuable ideas, and then using powerful tools to make them reality.
Applied Imagination relies on four elements working together:
Confidence. The willingness to engage with unfamiliar technologies and tasks where not everything is known.
Systemic & Critical Thinking. The ability to break a complex problem into parts, understand the tools needed at each stage, and structure a path from idea to outcome.
Domain Knowledge & Context. Because ideas that ignore the realities of the real world and human experience rarely end up making sense..
Collaboration. Because transformation almost never happens through one person’s expertise alone, but builds on different perspective around shared work.
Applied imagination is not an exceptional talent born into a chosen few. It is a capacity that can be learned by individuals, cultivated across teams, and embedded within entire organisations. The conditions for this to happen can be designed. That is what we do.
If transformation is built on asking “what if,” what does asking “what if” actually entail? It is a creative process to generate original ideas of value and carrying them through uncertainty into real outcomes. Creativity, for some people, suggests vagueness, a lack of purpose, ill-defined tasks. Yet, it can bring to mind what does not yet exist. Applied imagination puts it to work.
Applied imagination is the capacity to hold an abstract concept and bring it into being, the difference between imagining what a building could look like and actually building it; between conceiving a film and releasing it; between seeing what AI might make possible and actually making it happen.
Even at the frontier of AI, this human capacity is emerging as the real bottleneck. In a recent BBC interview, Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark said his company is “now limited more by the ability to generate good ideas than the ability to do the engineering to turn those ideas into reality.” He also argued that people who are creative, think broadly, read widely, and cultivate interests are the ones most likely to benefit from AI. That is applied imagination in practice: the human work of framing problems, generating valuable ideas, and then using powerful tools to make them reality.
Applied Imagination relies on four elements working together:
Confidence. The willingness to engage with unfamiliar technologies and tasks where not everything is known.
Systemic & Critical Thinking. The ability to break a complex problem into parts, understand the tools needed at each stage, and structure a path from idea to outcome.
Domain Knowledge & Context. Because ideas that ignore the realities of the real world and human experience rarely end up making sense..
Collaboration. Because transformation almost never happens through one person’s expertise alone, but builds on different perspective around shared work.
Applied imagination is not an exceptional talent born into a chosen few. It is a capacity that can be learned by individuals, cultivated across teams, and embedded within entire organisations. The conditions for this to happen can be designed. That is what we do.
— Applied Imagination
Applied imagination is the capacity to hold an abstract concept and bring it into being, the difference between imagining what a building could look like and actually building it; between conceiving a film and releasing it; between seeing what AI might make possible and actually making it happen.
We help people and organisations build this capability. We do it through programs and partnerships where applied imagination is learned by doing real work, never as an abstract concept. For a decade we have built human capability in practice, taking thousands of people from "I can't" to "I can" through challenges, collaboration, and learning that never separates from the doing.
If you are a CEO or a senior leader, if you lead learning and development, or if you are responsible for policy, public services, or education, this capability can be built deliberately and at scale.
Applied imagination can be used to design new services, new programs, and new ways of working. So investment in AI does not just result in the acceleration and improvement of current tasks. It produces innovative, inspiring outcomes that motivate employees, learners, and citizens.
In every case, the aim is the same: to build the human capability that moves AI from being a master of “what is” to a driver of “what if”.
In your business. In your sector. In your country.
We help people and organisations build this capability. We do it through programs and partnerships where applied imagination is learned by doing real work, never as an abstract concept. For a decade we have built human capability in practice, taking thousands of people from "I can't" to "I can" through challenges, collaboration, and learning that never separates from the doing.
If you are a CEO or a senior leader, if you lead learning and development, or if you are responsible for policy, public services, or education, this capability can be built deliberately and at scale.
Applied imagination can be used to design new services, new programs, and new ways of working. So investment in AI does not just result in the acceleration and improvement of current tasks. It produces innovative, inspiring outcomes that motivate employees, learners, and citizens.
In every case, the aim is the same: to build the human capability that moves AI from being a master of “what is” to a driver of “what if”.
In your business. In your sector. In your country.