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Your Edge in the Age of AI
NEXTletter is your practice for shaping what’s next. More than a newsletter, it’s a space to pause, reflect, and experiment. Every other Friday, you’ll get one question, two perspectives, and one experiment — to help you create the future you most want to live in.
Frederik Pferdt
September 26, 2025
Prefer to listen 📻 > click here.
It was Valentine’s Day, and my 9-year-old daughter wanted to write a letter to our neighbor. She asked me for paper and a pen. A few minutes later, she handed over a beautifully written, heartfelt note - longer and deeper than anything I’d ever expect from a child her age.
Weeks later, our neighbor showed me the letter again, marveling at it. That’s when I realized: my daughter hadn’t written it alone. She had quietly opened an AI tool, poured in her feelings, and let the machine help her shape the words.
She didn’t ask for permission. She didn’t overthink it. She just … used it.
In that moment, I saw two things clearly:
A generation that will grow up as natives in this new world.
And the uncomfortable truth: AI is only as powerful as the mindstate of the person using it.
MEtreat in Frankfurt
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ONE QUESTION
What’s the one thing AI will never do - and how does that give you an edge?
TWO PERSPECTIVES
1️⃣ AI waits. Humans begin. I’ve spent years with brilliant AI researchers - friends like Christian, a director of AI research at Google (Hi Christian!). And here’s what they’ll all tell you: AI doesn’t care. It doesn’t notice. It doesn’t start. Sam Altman, with whom I’ve been in a magazine feature (video here), put it plainly: “They don’t do anything unless you ask. They’re just sitting there kind of waiting. They don’t have a sense of agency or autonomy.” That’s the billion-dollar insight. AI is powerful, but passive. It won’t notice a problem that bothers you, like the grocery bag full of plastic packaging you never wanted in the first place. It won’t see the mountains of food thrown away, or the plastic piling up in our oceans. It won’t register the energy wasted in offices where the lights never go off. AI won’t feel the discomfort of standing in front of an overflowing trash bin. It won’t wonder why supermarket shelves are full while people go hungry. It won’t pause to ask: Does it really have to be this way? Only humans can. | 2️⃣ Initiative is a mindstate. My Stanford colleague and good friend Jeremy Utley calls this “being the prompt.” His framing inspired me to connect it to something I teach everywhere: a future-ready mindstate. Because AI is like rocket fuel. But fuel doesn’t decide where to go. We do. When we lead with empathy, curiosity, openness, optimism, and experimentation, we give direction to the machine. We supply the one thing AI will never have: the will to begin. I saw this vividly in my own family. The day ChatGPT launched in November 2022, I called my mom (Hi Mom!), excited to share. She has always been adventurous with technology (my kids call her Insta-Oma :-)) and was one of the first in our family to master the internet. But this time, she took a pause. She wasn’t sure yet if she wanted to try. The difference between my mom and my daughter? Not their intelligence. Not their skills. Just their mindstate. One cautious, one curious. One observing, one jumping in. |
ONE EXPERIMENT
This week, don’t wait for the prompt. Try this simple drill:
Notice a bug. Write down one small frustration or inefficiency in your work or life. Something everyone else ignores.
Ask AI to help. Prompt it: “I’m frustrated by [specific bug]. Design me a simple first step I can try today to improve this.”
Experiment - fast. Give yourself one hour to test its suggestion. Not to make it perfect - just to see what happens.
Share it. Tell a colleague, friend, or family member: “Here’s something I tried. Want to see if it helps you too?”
You’ll notice something powerful: AI can accelerate the how.
But the why - the spark to begin - always starts with you.
That is your edge. Not despite AI. But because of it.
1:1 Future Being Coaching
If you’re ready to not just travel to places - but travel into the next version of yourself - my Future Being Coaching is for you. In this 1:1 program, we explore who you want to become, uncover the inner and outer blocks keeping you from that future, and design concrete steps so you can live it now. It’s for people who don’t want to wait for change to happen - they want to shape it.
On The Podcast
🎧 On The Podcast This week on The Future Is HOW, I sat down with my Stanford colleague and good friend Jeremy Utley to explore what it really means to “be the prompt.” AI is rocket fuel. But fuel doesn’t chart the course — we do. With empathy, curiosity, openness, optimism, and experimentation, we give direction to the machine. We supply the one thing AI will never have: the will to begin. Jeremy pushes us to rethink innovation — not as a process, but as a practice. It starts with noticing what only you, as a human, can notice: the overlooked friction, the hidden possibility, the small thing worth making better. This conversation is one of the most practical yet — filled with experiments you can try immediately. And it might just change the way you think about creativity, AI, and your role in shaping the future. |
The most powerful prompt is the one you give yourself: What needs doing that nobody’s asking for?
AI can answer. But only you can begin.
The future isn’t waiting for permission - it’s waiting for you to be the prompt.
P.S. I share this NEXTletter every other Friday. If it sparked something for you, feel free to forward it to a friend who could use the reminder.
P.P.S.: Hope to see you at our MEtreat in Frankfurt this December.
With future love
Frederik
