Human Creativity in the Age of AI
A New Age Business Operating System
Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there—you’re the real leaders, mentors, and builders of this world.
This week, I want to take you behind the scenes into something I’ve been quietly building—something that bridges my decades of leadership, coaching, and entrepreneurship with the new opportunities of technology.
Last week, I published the first article on Craft. If you haven’t had a chance to read it, here it is: “Become So Good They Can’t Ignore You”. I hope it gave you a glimpse of how I’m thinking about mastery, positioning, and leadership in today’s world.
But this week, I want to widen the lens.
A New Kind of Business Operating System
I’ve started laying the groundwork for what I believe can become an innovative Business Operating System (BOS)—a framework to help solopreneurs, creators, and entrepreneurial teams operate with greater clarity, focus, and momentum.
If you’re wondering, “What’s a Business Operating System?”—great question. It’s not software in the narrow sense, though technology will play a role. Think of it more like an integrated framework of principles, practices, and processes that guide how you run a business.
Some examples of existing BOSs include:
EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) from Traction by Gino Wickman
Scaling Up by Verne Harnish
OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) popularized by Google
The Four Conversations from Jeff Goff and Bruce Bodaken (not to be confused with the Four Conversations by Blair Enns)
Even Agile and Lean Startup could be considered BOS frameworks in certain contexts
Each of these systems offers a structure to align people, priorities, and actions. I’ve learned from many of them. But I’ve also seen their gaps—especially in a world increasingly shaped by AI, distributed work, solopreneurship, and creator-led businesses.
I’m not just remixing what’s already out there. I want to build a BOS rooted in craft—in the deeper pursuit of mastery, integrity, and human-centered work. This isn’t a “plug and play” dashboard or just another set of templates. It’s about embedding models, principles, frameworks, metaphors, and AI agents that unlock agency and insight.
2025! How We Got Here: Why This Moment Matters
I’ve been reflecting on how quickly things have shifted beneath our feet. In just a few years, we’ve watched AI evolve from a tool we used to an agent that can now work alongside us—not just answering questions, but taking action.
This shift didn’t happen all at once. It’s the result of two powerful streams of progress finally coming together.
The first stream is what we’ve seen in large language models. For years, researchers worked toward systems that could process and generate human language, but they were limited—great at matching patterns, not so great at understanding meaning.
Then, in 2017, something remarkable happened: the introduction of the transformer architecture. This breakthrough quietly changed everything. It allowed AI to process information with context, connecting ideas across entire documents rather than just sentence by sentence. That’s what paved the way for models like GPT-3 and GPT-4—AI systems that could write code, solve problems, and even have thoughtful conversations, all without being explicitly programmed for each task.
By the time ChatGPT arrived in 2022, we finally had an AI that could talk with us, reason with us, and explain things in ways that felt human. But even then, it had one big limitation: it could suggest what to do, but it couldn’t do it. Even in those responses, there’s this freewheeling “hallucination” problem—when generative AI gives totally bizarre answers or fictitious “facts.” Beneath all the shine, LLMs are stochastic engines—estimating the next words with probabilities. But there are ways to steer this “creativity” with prompt tuning or temperature adjustments, for those who know how.
Now onto the second stream: automation. For years, businesses automated repetitive tasks—first with simple scripts, then with software bots that clicked buttons and filled forms across systems. Over time, these bots got smarter, using machine learning to classify documents or read customer emails. But they were still rigid, bound by predefined rules.
For a long time, these two streams ran parallel. One could understand. The other could act. But neither could do both.
Now, they’re merging. And that’s giving rise to something new: AI agents that can both reason and execute.
These agents don’t just answer—they plan, decide, and take steps on your behalf. They can read an email, decide what needs to happen, call the right tools or APIs, and carry out the task. They’re moving from passive tools to active collaborators.
👉 In a world like this, human creativity becomes the ultimate competitive advantage. AI will increasingly handle the busywork, the coordination, the procedural steps. But it’s human imagination, insight, frameworks, and originality—the ability to connect dots in unexpected ways—that will set your work apart. We’re entering an era where tools won’t define you; what you do with them will.
That’s why I’m building what I’m building. Not just to keep pace, but to help shape a way of working that preserves clarity, intention, and the human touch in a world where intelligent agents are becoming part of the team.
We’re not just upgrading our tools. We’re stepping into a new era of how work gets done.
Why Notion?
For now, I’m using Notion as the workspace where this system lives. Notion is beloved by many solopreneurs, creators, and founders because it’s flexible, customizable, and approachable. But my goal isn’t to build another “Notion template” for productivity.
Instead, I’m using Notion as a canvas—a space where ideas, frameworks, and workflows can live and breathe, taking shape in ways that are both structured and personal.
Eventually, this will evolve into something more technological underneath. But at every stage, the goal is to make it tangible, actionable, and human.
Models, Principles, Metaphors, Frameworks, and AI Agents: The Building Blocks
As I work on this BOS, I’m drawing from five kinds of building blocks:
✅ Mental Models—conceptual shortcuts and ways of seeing the world. Think of Shane Parrish’s Farnam Street or Charlie Munger’s “latticework of models.”
✅ Principles—fundamental truths or guidelines for action. Like Ray Dalio’s Principles or the timeless wisdom of Stoicism.
✅ Metaphors and Analogies—narratives or images that help us understand abstract ideas. One of my favorites is the story of the Chinese bamboo tree, which grows underground for years before suddenly shooting up 80 feet.
✅ Frameworks—practical, structured ways to apply thinking to action. I’m especially inspired by the frameworks I’ve learned from Win Without Pitching: positioning, constraint, value conversations, and creating desirability rather than chasing sales.
✅ AI Agents—intelligent digital workers that don’t just inform decisions—they actively carry them out.
Each of these will weave into the BOS:
Models simplify complexity
Principles guide decisions
Metaphors inspire meaning and perspective
Frameworks provide structure for applying knowledge in the real world
AI Agents execute the work that powers your business or creative practice
In my LinkedIn posts and Substack Notes, I’ll continue sharing individual models, principles, metaphors, frameworks, and AI agents as I explore them.
My Promise to You
To the 300+ subscribers (LinkedIn + Substack) reading this—thank you. I don’t take your attention for granted.
I promise to deliver immense value here: thoughtful, reflective, and useful content that helps you grow, lead, and build.
Everything I’m building starts with a simple belief: craft matters.
I haven’t named this system publicly yet. But one day soon, I hope it will empower you to navigate the future with more agency, confidence, and clarity.
Feel free to share this newsletter and subscribe at craft.kakani.co. For now, it’s free for everyone—use it.
Until then, stay tuned. More to come.
AI Disclosure
AI was used to research and structure my findings. It was also used to proofread. The icons are AI-suggested. The research conducted only validates and augments my experience applying these building blocks for many years and decades in entrepreneurship.
In other words, this is not an AI-generated mashup—it’s drawn from my own experience. The words, composition, tone, and style are mine alone. As always, I cannot and will not delegate that to AI.