Post by Faizal N.

𝗕𝗲𝗿𝗹𝗶𝗻 𝗥𝗲𝗳𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺 𝗦𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 Last week I spent two days in Berlin as part of the CAS Game Changer AI programme at the University of Zurich. A hands-on stress test of how AI ideas survive contact with reality. Three convictions I'm carrying back. 𝟭. 𝗔𝗜 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝘀𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 Every AI decision is a trade-off: latency vs. accuracy, cost vs. coverage, explainability vs. performance. At MotionLab.Berlin, watching hardware founders obsess over unit economics was a useful reminder — the same discipline applies. A cleaner process often beats a model. "We used AI" is not a KPI. 𝟮. 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿 Michael Lesch's overview of the Berlin ecosystem at CIC made clear how much capital is flowing into AI — and how easy it is to react to competitors rather than customers. FOMO-driven "AI strategies" produce expensive pilots that never reach production. The better question is unglamorous: can this process be simplified, made more effective, or more efficient? Sometimes AI is the answer. Often it isn't. 𝟯. 𝗢𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀, 𝗔𝗜 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗴𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 Day two at the Merantix AI Campus was the most valuable part of the trip — because it wasn't a keynote, it was work. Paulina Weiss and Alina Govoni's workshop, "From Idea to Practice," put us inside real case studies and forced the full arc: → diagnose the business problem → map the end-to-end process before touching any tooling → identify where AI adds value — and where it doesn't → evaluate options against cost, risk and feasibility → design a phased roll-out with measurable financial savings That last point matters. A proposal without a credible savings case — FTE hours freed, error rates reduced, cycle time compressed, risk losses avoided — is a wish list, not a business case. Henrik Volkmann's closing presentation of Libra reinforced the same lesson: their legal AI works because it targets a sharply defined, high-stakes workflow, not "law" in the abstract. Specificity is the moat. Thank you to Fridtjof Gustavs (MotionLab.Berlin), Michael Lesch (ai.berlin), Venture Café Berlin, and Paulina Weiss, Alina Govoni at Merantix Momentum — and to my fellow participants for two days of sharp, honest discussion. Understand the problem first, quantify the prize, then let AI do the narrow thing it's genuinely good at. Skipping those steps just makes the invoice bigger. Maria Anselmi Philipp Boksberger Jelena Brdar Manuel Eicher Alexander Fürer Oscar Lopez Tejido Hayal Oezkan Andreea Schiopu Sandra Siehler Dr. Andreas Tschuor David Vuckovic Gerd Winandi-Martin Patrick Meyer #CAS #GameChangerAI #AILeadership #DigitalTransformation #LifeLongLearning #ExecutiveEducation #UniversityofZurichExecutiveEducation #AIStudyTrip #Innovation #Startups #Merantix #BerlinAI