What good is a map to a wanderer? A clock to a lollygagger? A list to a layabout?
Today marks the official halfway point of an incoherent year. The AI revolution that we’ve all been obsessing about for the last 4 years is vacillating between both ends of the transformational spectrum.
One week, AI is getting booed off the stage. The other week, it is minting money for sole entrepreneurs.
The vacillations are endless. Enterprises are scaling back, IPOs are scaling up, and the Pope is the only one offering any perspective.
What is going on? The transformation we have been promised is full of contradictions. Is that a bad thing or does it indicate something else?
Let’s talk about it today, the first day of Q3, 2026. As we always do, let’s start with a provocation.
PROVOCATION OF THE WEEK
We are not lost.
You can’t lose your way if you did not have a destination in the first place. In times like this it helps to re-state the obvious in the hopes that it can ground our understanding of this moment. Since 2023, a new kind of computing entered the mainstream and we are all still figuring it out.
In just the past 6 months we’ve seen an AI generated social network come and go, terrible Super Bowl commercials make us groan, the first AI generated film enter the Tribeca Film Festival, and witnessed the launch of a whole new way to interface with computers. And then watched that launch get rebranded multiple times.
All of it runs on something dressed up to look like every app we've ever used. It isn't. Probabilistic AI is riddled with mysteries, surprises, frustrations, and disappointments. That gap is what's causing the chaos. It's like a magic trick dressed up as a calculator.
Six months to go. And like a magic calculator, it won't add up. It's not supposed to yet.
My advice? Keep walking.
What’s Next
If you have thoughts, feedback, or a perspective worth sharing, reach out: chmiel@ondiscourse.com. You might see your reaction in next week’s edition.
ON_Member Events
ON_Discourse Group Chat: What Stuck With You At Cannes?
Thursday, July 2 11am-12pm
Zoom
If we look past the agentic AI platitudes, the creator economy fluff, statements like, storytelling matters more than ever, was there a moment from last week that actually changed how you’ll work going into the second half of the year?
Join this Thursday’s ON_Discourse Group Chat to debate and unpack the takes worth keeping and the ones we’re already tired of hearing.
ON_Discourse Group Chats are live, high-signal discourse driven conversations with AI leaders, builders and operators.
Not your typical Zoom, these are intimate, provocative, deeply practical sessions where we sharpen each others perspectives.
ON_Breakfast Club: Six Months of Madness
Wednesday, July 8 9-11am
NYC
Where are we? How did we get here? What’s next?
There are no answers, only more questions. The first half of 2026 served up:
An IPO race between OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX
Anthropic’s $1.5B settlement with authors over pirated training data
ChatGPT slipping below 50% market share for the first time
~40% of enterprise apps shipped in 2026 embedding AI agents (Gartner)
Enterprises tightening AI budgets and demanding ROI
Anthropic suing the Pentagon
Pope Leo XIV’s AI encyclical (Magnifica Humanitas)
A $400K state report exposed as 95% Claude-written
Bring your hottest take, your dumbest take, and your most unresolved question. We’ll set the tone for the rest of the year.
The ON_Discourse monthly breakfast brings together AI leaders, builders, operators, and invited guests, for a private breakfast, illuminating discussion, and breathtaking views from the 69th floor of One World Trade.
Start a group chat with Doma
Work through your Q3 plans with your team with Doma. Admit that you have no map, no compass, and no clue, and watch you and your team chart your own path through the chaos.