Editorial by Managing Director Alexander De Beir
In the AI of the storm
Is AI a bubble that will burst soon? Or the odorless, colorless monster that will soon swallow up gigantic shares of the labor market? Not a single day goes by without sometimes frightening rumors flooding our media, computers, and smartphones: AI to cut 14,000 white-collar jobs (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/technology/amazon-layoffs.html), 45% of AI chatbot answers assessed to contain errors (https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2025/10/20/onderzoek-ai-chatbots/), and we could mention many other examples of often contradictory information spreading at an unparalleled speed, when it’s not fake news maliciously generated by artificial intelligence itself!
Choosing the third way
Faced with this phenomenon, which continues to take up more space in our lives, there are mainly three types of behavior. There are those who categorically refuse to “be part of it.” They reject any attempt or temptation and cry out for the end of civilization as soon as the terms “ChatGPT, Claude, CoPilot,” or many others are mentioned. Facing them are the unconditional followers who, suffering from a new form of FOMO, abandon all forms of skepticism and cheerfully rely, without reservation, on these new friends who “wish them the greatest good” and increasingly intervene in the management of both their private lives and their professional success.
In the middle is a more moderate group, interested but also quite skeptical, concerned yet ready to appreciate the benefits of AI without agreeing to capitulate or to surrender their knowledge, their creativity, their critical thinking. As you may have understood, I prefer to side with them.
This new TIP-IM raises the question of the place of Interim Management in a world at least partially dominated by AI. Does it place insurmountable barriers to Interim Management? Is it fundamentally affecting this hitherto growing sector of the economy and the labor market? I don’t think so.
If you can't beat them… defy them!
On the contrary, I think it offers new opportunities, and the business world has every interest in realizing this as well. I see AI rather, and partly in spite of itself, as an enhancer of hidden talents, of healthy ambition, of the desire to give our humanity unknown dimensions. You don’t share my opinion? The following article focuses on our strengths as humans to assert our added value in a world piloted by artificial intelligence. And as the cartoon illustrates, rather than falling into catastrophism, let’s imagine how we could keep all our reasoning if one day a general blackout were to surprise us. Let’s hope it’s not for now. But you never know, don’t wait to read on.
