The 2025-2026 ski season disappointed.

It had promise. It held potential. To at least be average.

First slowly, then quickly, it revealed that it was indeed going to be a far below average season.

We got some turns. We earned them in some cases, though not in the traditional way.

Resort days with fantastic, manicured, curated results.

In-bounds boot packs with questionable assumptions.

Icy and underwhelming responses from cross country days.

But enough poetry.

Productivity in the current moment is analogous to skiing. Surprise observation from an addict.

AI will take you skiing. But you’re gonna ride the lift to the beautifully average and adequately fulfilling piste runs. Occasionally you can engineer an idea or question on the mountain that gets you an extra fun in-bounds run.

And let me be abundantly clear: this is a fantastic way to enjoy skiing.

But there will always be another way. A more human powered way. A way that’s not defined by the answers to previous questions, but by the “what if?”.

So we put the skins on, and we trek up to find that line that the lift can’t touch. It has no frame of reference for this terrain. It can guess, and sometimes it can get close to imagining it.

But it won’t ride it like we can.

I thought about AI in this way often while suffering this past ski season. It is truly a fantastic tool that is beginning to revolutionize the way we work. Very much in the way that the Ski lift revolutionized winter recreation.

Many people continue to utilize the ski lift to greatly expand their enjoyment of today’s world. And that’s fantastic.

But we cannot forget, that at the end of the day, the task was always imagined by us, and it will continue to reach its greatest heights when we are driving it.

AI has its place and will be a staple moving forward. But don’t despair and don’t over rely, because the best experiences are those experienced first hand. In a human way.

Earn those turns.

Oh and PS.

To those still mourning last season. Next year is a near statistical lock to be better. So take your silver lining and enjoy the summer.