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Bertrand Duperrin @duperrin.com · 5h

AI faces an energy crisis. The Shift Project warns that generative AI could triple data center power use by 2030, reaching 10% of global electricity. Efficiency gains can’t offset the rebound effect, pushing a return to fossil fuels and threatening carbon neutrality goals.

AI, the driving force behind unprecedented energy growth

There are moments when technology, in seeking to accelerate the world, ends up accelerating its own contradiction. Artificial intelligence is experiencing such

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Bertrand Duperrin @duperrin.com · 10h

Agentic AI shows real promise but remains mostly at the prototype stage in enterprises, limited by poor work design and data structure. Without rethinking processes, it risks fueling “workslop” ie low-quality AI content. True impact will come from system-level transformation, not prompt tricks.

Doing the Work: Why Learning is Key to Agentic AI Success & Avoiding Workslop

Why we need to be ready to 'do the work' of organisational transformation if we are to realise the potential of enterprise AI, and thinking about what we need from L&D

academy.shiftbase.info

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Bertrand Duperrin @duperrin.com · 14h

Generative AI is reshaping consulting by automating junior tasks, not replacing the profession. Value shifts to senior expertise, strategic insight, and human judgment, skills AI can’t replicate. Consulting evolves with tech, but remains centered on trusted guidance and decision support.

AI won't kill consulting, but it will force it to grow

We've heard this story a thousand times before. The internet was supposed to make consulting firms obsolete by giving everyone direct access to all the world's

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Bertrand Duperrin @duperrin.com · 1d

At SAP Connect in Las Vegas, leaders framed AI as a partner, not a threat, reshaping HR work rather than replacing it. Skills are now the new supply chain with value in adaptability over expertise. Success hinges on culture: firms fostering learning and inclusion will turn AI into daily advantage.

‘Skills are the new supply chain’: SAP calls for different approach to AI adoption

SAP executives at this week's Connect conference in Las Vegas positioned AI as a partner for HR professionals, not a job replacement threat.

bit.ly

Bertrand Duperrin @duperrin.com · 1d

Agentic AI offers operational gains but brings real risks. Legal liability, hidden infrastructure costs, security flaws, and unreliable outputs demand strict oversight. Success depends on clear use cases, robust safeguards, and an organization’s readiness to balance innovation with risk.

Managing the risks of agentic AI

As businesses explore the new horizons of AI, it’s important to consider the risks of agentic AI tools and how processes can help mitigate them

www.processexcellencenetwork.com

Bertrand Duperrin @duperrin.com · 1d

AI transforms nothing but accelerates everything. According to DORA 2025, 90% of developers use AI and 80% see productivity gains, yet delivery quality declines. AI amplifies what exists: strong teams improve, weak ones fail faster. Speed rewards structure, not tools.

Why AI Won't Save Your Broken System - DAVID NOWAK

Google Cloud's 2025 DORA research surveyed 5,000 technology professionals and revealed AI as an amplifier, not a transformer—magnifying organizational strengths and dysfunctions equally. The uncomfort...

davidnowak.me

Bertrand Duperrin @duperrin.com · 2d

When companies struggle to hire, it’s often not a talent shortage but a perception issue: top candidates spot red flags. The biggest turn-offs? Vague roles, sloppy hiring, poor interpersonal vibes, and bad reputations. Clarity, courtesy, and consistency remain the true magnets for talent.

4 Organizational Red Flags That Turn Off Job Candidates

A survey of hundreds of executives shows that the most common “red flags“ that deter qualified candidates from interviewing for or accepting jobs with organizations are a lack of clarity about the job...

hbr.org

Bertrand Duperrin @duperrin.com · 2d

The law of local maximum: optimizing isolated parts of a system without fixing its constraint lowers overall performance. As Goldratt showed, local gains, whether in teams, processes, or AI, create overload and inefficiency when not aligned with the system’s true capacity.

Local optimum vs. global optimum and the theory of constraints: why your productivity gains sometimes serve no purpose

Eliyahu Goldratt, although trained as a physicist, had a profound impact on industrial management with books such as The Goal (1984) and The Hays

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Bertrand Duperrin @duperrin.com · 3d

Deloitte Australia refunded $291K after an AI-generated report for the government was found full of fake citations. If that’s how AI plans to replace consultants, the profession’s safe for a while. The scandal exposes growing risks of unchecked AI use in consulting and auditing.

Consultants Forced to Pay Money Back After Getting Caught Using AI for Expensive "Report"

Deloitte was forced to reissue the Australian government $291,000 after getting caught including AI hallucinations in its report.

futurism.com

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Bertrand Duperrin @duperrin.com · 3d

Cory Doctorow warns that the AI industry is a speculative bubble on the verge of collapse, fueled by hype rather than substance. He argues 95% of AI projects fail, yet investors cling to the illusion. “AI won’t turn you into a paperclip but it may make you poorer.”

Cory Doctorow Says the AI Industry Is About to Collapse

Famed sci-fi author and tech journalist Cory Doctorow has a spectacularly grim warning about the coming AI-fueled economic disaster.

futurism.com

Bertrand Duperrin @duperrin.com · 3d

Nearly half of executives doubt their teams can oversee AI use, Adecco (May 2025) finds. Few upskill, leaving HR tools to fill the gap, often amplifying bias. “AI yes men” systems reassure leaders instead of challenging them, risking blind spots in hiring, evaluation, and workforce insight.

How HR can prevent AI systems from becoming the ‘yes man’

Some AI systems are just telling HR what it wants to hear. How organizations can identify biased feedback and what CHROs can do about it.

hrexecutive.com

Bertrand Duperrin @duperrin.com · 4d

A fictional interview with De Gaulle explores digital sovereignty as today’s struggle for national independence. He warns that relying on foreign tech is modern tutelage and calls for an ambitious industrial policy to ensure freedom of decision over dependence.

Fictitious interview with General de Gaulle on digital sovereignty

What if Charles de Gaulle were observing the current situation, where our critical infrastructure, citizens' data, artificial intelligence models, and public se

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Bertrand Duperrin @duperrin.com · 4d

Despite rapid innovation, generative AI adoption remains slow, especially among SMEs. The gap between tech speed and business absorption reflects a crisis of trust, not interest. Hype, fear, and lack of training stall progress. Real impact demands time, skills, and human-centered adoption.

La fracture numérique est un problème que personne ne peut ignorer - FredCavazza.net

Alors que les géants du numérique accélèrent dans la grande course à l’innovation, l’adoption de l’IA générative par les entreprises progresse à un rythme bien plus mesuré. Cette lenteur révèle un par...

fredcavazza.net

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Bertrand Duperrin @duperrin.com · 4d

#HR is evolving amid AI, shifting expectations, and new organizational models. Beyond rebranding, its future depends on clarifying purpose, hybrid skills, and governance. True transformation is organic, built on diagnosis, experimentation, and balance between tech and human experience.

After the role comes the position: how the HR function can evolve organically

The HR function is under a lot of pressure, and many people are questioning its role in businesses that are themselves undergoing change under the pre

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Bertrand Duperrin @duperrin.com · 4d

Most loss-reduction programs fail despite huge Lean or Six Sigma investments. Overcomplexity, weak leadership, and vague goals lead to short-lived gains. Real progress comes from clarity of purpose, field ownership, and simple, experience-based methods that tackle causes, not symptoms.

Why most operational loss-reduction efforts fail

Most loss-reduction programs fail because of a focus on symptoms, a lack ownership and engagement and no clear, communicated reason for their implementation

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Bertrand Duperrin @duperrin.com · 4d

The myth of the universal success method.
Startup frameworks and playbooks sell the illusion that success can be planned or automated. Yet real breakthroughs emerge from trial, error, and adaptation and structure comes after traction. Methods don’t create success; they formalize it once it exists.

Enough with the Playbooks and Frameworks!

Influencers obsess over playbooks and frameworks, but the biggest wins happen when you start messy.

substack.jurgenappelo.com

Bertrand Duperrin @duperrin.com · 8d

Reducing costs through tech and outsourcing often creates an illusion of productivity. Tasks shift, not disappear, hurting engagement and value. Real gains come from transforming organizations, not just moving work around or cutting corners.

Are you familiar with Coase's law on transaction costs and its impact on capturing productivity gains?

With every technological wave, we always hear the same promise: to produce more, faster, with fewer resources. Yet the same question always comes up: where are

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Bertrand Duperrin @duperrin.com · 8d

Failure and mistake are not the same. A mistake is an unintended deviation in familiar territory, while failure is an undesired outcome regardless of cause. Only basic failures are avoidable; intelligent failures drive learning. Clarity fosters innovation, trust, and progress.

Why You Should Care about the Distinction between Mistake and Failure By Amy Edmondson - Global Peter Drucker Forum BLOG

A failure is not the same as a mistake. Maybe, you think, this is just semantics. I see it as an important distinction that matters for today’s leaders. First, words are the leader’s primary tool. Lea...

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Bertrand Duperrin @duperrin.com · 9d

AI makes abstraction easy, fueling empty work and illusions of replacement, while employee engagement falls and productivity declines. Adoption will be uneven: gains in coding and writing exist, but real impact needs integration. Progress requires lean, grounded, step-by-step change.

Futur du travail, Agents intelligents et Genchi Genbutsu

1. Introduction Le billet de ce jour part d’une constatation ironique : avec genAI, il est de plus en plus facile de faire semblant de tra...

organisationarchitecture.blogspot.com

Bertrand Duperrin @duperrin.com · 9d

AI enhances efficiency but cannot alone create lasting advantage. Competitive edge comes from culture, judgment, decision-making, and the ability to learn and adapt. As AI makes formalized tasks reproducible, value shifts to what remains implicit: intuition, experience, and human understanding.

AI will not create a competitive advantage

Over the past year, enthusiasm for artificial intelligence seems to have moved beyond the discovery phase and entered the industrialization phase. Every week, n

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Bertrand Duperrin @duperrin.com · 10d

Generative AI shows classic bubble traits: probabilistic limits masked as usability issues, fragile economics fueled by NVIDIA-driven debt cycles, weak real demand beyond hyperscalers, costly infra vs modest revenues, negative margins, and hype masking unsustainable business models.

The Case Against Generative AI

Soundtrack: Queens of the Stone Age - First It Giveth Before we go any further: This is, for the third time this year, the longest newsletter I've ever written, weighing in somewhere around 18,500 wo...

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Bertrand Duperrin @duperrin.com · 10d

HR is evolving through four shifts: broadening scope beyond employees to stakeholders, moving from individual talent to collective capabilities blending human and AI strengths, redefining HR as a value-creating product function and embedding AI and data to guide strategic workforce investments.

Turning HR Inflection Points into Words and Actions

Anyone who has learned a second language likely recognizes word differences. For example, when we lived in Montreal for three years, I learned that some words related to religious rites are locally us...

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Bertrand Duperrin @duperrin.com · 10d

Le doomprompting, dérive du doomscrolling, décrit la tendance à affiner sans fin les prompts d’IA, générant boucles stériles, pertes de temps et surcoûts. En entreprise, il reflète l’absence de cadre clair et fragilise efficacité et cohérence des projets.

Doomprompting : quand l'IA fait perdre du temps � vos �quipes

Un ph�nom�ne appel� � doomprompting � voient les utilisateurs s�enferrer dans des optimisations multiples des r�sultats issus des IA.

www.cio-online.com

Bertrand Duperrin @duperrin.com · 11d

Measuring Digital Employee Experience (DEX) remains underused, though it directly impacts engagement, productivity, and perception of work. Clear metrics linking tool efficiency, ease of use, and employee perception to ROI help guide smarter investments and reduce friction in digital workplaces.

How to measure digital employee experience

Introduction Digital employee experience (DEX) is no longer a side issue tucked away within IT or internal communications. It is one of the core factors

digitalworkplacegroup.com

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Bertrand Duperrin @duperrin.com · 11d

Work about work (endless reporting, coordination, and meeting) consumes 60% of time, draining energy without value. Rooted in structural debt, it harms productivity and engagement. Efficiency comes not from automation but redesign: cut waste, rethink flows, and let managers act as work architects.

Work about work: when the reality of work consists of making things that don't work work

We have elevated activity and even overactivity to the status of a dogma of a professional image that is polished and reassuring. We tick boxes, we fo

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