Grafting
The splicing together of augmented intelligence
Now I New I Next - Grafting
(5 minute read)
Today, I went for a ride through the vineyards here in Napa. It is the beginning of the mustard season. The rains have produced some early returns as the mustard and poppies are now blossoming into a picturesque landscape.
February is that in-between time when the vines are dormant and regenerating to produce a new crop for the upcoming season.
When I ride, I like to listen to podcasts and take in the scenery letting the words meld into the colors and smells of Mother Nature. Something always triggers when I am absorbing my surroundings.
One of the things I find fascinating about this time of year in the vineyards is the grafting of new intentions. As climate change and demographics continue to evolve, wineries and winemakers need to sometimes course-correct their varietal plantings to balance out their wine production to meet shifting conditions and constraints. They turn to grafting to answer that shift in demand.
You could consider this a “product-market-fit” adjustment in Silicon Valley tech jargon.
Grafting
Grafting is an interesting term that is an everyday occurrence in the Horticulture industry. It is the act of joining two plants together to combine their characteristics. So, in a real-world example, a winery I know here just grafted a Sangiovese grape into what was a Cabernet rootstock to produce a wine that is not generally associated with Napa Valley.
The owner believes her vision for producing Italian-style wines is what sets her offerings apart. And, I can tell you with unequivocal certainty, she produces amazing wines. The climate here in Napa is on par with the great Italian regions that produce Sangiovese. The terroir offers the right conditions for her vision to flourish with a differentiated offer. She couldn’t source enough Sangiovese so she created her own supply.
I was going down the metaphorical path of thinking about Generative AI (GAI) and grafting as a visual explanation for how we will optimize work and create new opportunities in the future. Doing some homework, led me to discover that Peter Hinssen, CEO of Nexxworks was also using grafting terminology in his new e-book The CEO’s Guide to Content Science.
Peter is an amazing futurist out of the Netherlands who views our world through a dramatically changing lens. He sees the evolution of GAI forcing companies to create new departments and roles that shift the historical views of data management to one of content science, where everything is captured and knowable. Where new layers of AI (LoRA) will be grafted into Large Language Models (LLM) to build new paradigms for running your business.
He believes every industry is in some stage of grafting together their respective IP into LLM sources to harness and automate data that is now spread across desktops, databases, and analog files.
The Parallels
The parallels between a horticultural application and the emergence of a new computing paradigm are uncanny. Each requires that we appreciate the foundational layers of what is already planted and or sunk cost, with the need to alter the outputs to meet a radically shifting marketplace.
This reality applies to both humans and companies. My view of companies is that they are made up of humans and systems that come together to produce an output or an outcome. Technology is merely a tool to help unlock and generate new kinds of value.
The vine, the human, and the company have a choice when it comes to grafting. You can come together to ensure the graft is working or you can watch it fail and then face the consequences of a missed opportunity to realize new upsides that weren’t possible before. As quoted in Peter’s e-book,
“Grafting is not just about joining two plants, but about merging two destinies.”
I know that to be true here in Napa. The fastest track to shifting your wine production is to graft new varietals to existing rootstock. The rest falls on Mother Nature and vineyard management to guide the fruits of their labor to fruition. No different from a team inside a company that now possesses an augmented intelligence to see things in a new light.
The Outcomes
I believe we are in an experimental time and place. I am speaking with companies that are banning the use of AI in the organization to companies that are accelerating the use of AI across their business as fast as they can.
Mistakes will be made. Privacy and data breach concerns will be issues to contend with as we sort through the intricacies of AI, LLM, and the merging of unstructured data into new usable forms.
The notion of alignment and communication will come front and center on how an organization is going to manage through this dynamic shift. Identifying the Catalysts and the change agents inside the company who can think outside the box will now be more critical than ever.
Speed to change is going to become the new “speed to market”. Understanding how to graft your IP into an LLM will ultimately produce new yields that might not look like the prior vintages. How you go to market may change. What you go to market with might also change the dynamics of doing business. It will be a “messy middle” kind of experience.
Are you ready for this in your practice?
NOW (How you are realizing this today)
Have you started grafting your working assets into LLM solutions yet?
Are you asking the right questions?
Are you approaching this shift with an offensive or defensive mindset?
NEW (How you will realize this tomorrow)
What new learning can you create by the end of March?
What can you learn by the end of Q2 so you can apply it to your 2H?
How will you leverage your grafted outputs into your narrative flywheel?
NEXT (I see a world in which)
I see a world in which AI grafting will become the new normal for how we run our businesses in the 21st century.
The Payoff
“Grafting is not about shortcuts or quick fixes. It is about planning for the future and investing in long-term success.”
~ undisclosed source from Graphing quotes
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