The future belongs to crowds: The only viable mental model for an AI powered team

AI transformation cannot be planned like a campaign, a webinar series, or a conventional change programme. As AI reshapes language, work, communication, and decision-making, teams need a different mental model: one built on openness, shared experimentation, and collective intelligence. Taking Don DeLillo’s line “the future belongs to crowds” as a starting point, this article argues that AI-powered teams must stop waiting for perfect top-down strategy and start walking into uncertainty together.