A Knock at the Door - The Ampersand April 2026

The Ampersand Unplugged brings you an audio version of our April 2026 edition of The Ampersand, read aloud by the author. In this edition, Adam reflects on what artificial intelligence means for the deeply human work of executive search. 

From the death of the Rolodex to the resurgence of vinyl records and Legion bingo nights, he makes the case that as the world speeds up and algorithms multiply, what people crave most is texture, trust, and judgment that can't be simulated.

You can find the full written blog on our website here.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right. So welcome to the um Ampersand Unplugged where I talk about the newsletter and um why I wrote what I wrote. And so this this piece is our April 1st uh edition, keeping uh intact a streak of now 17 years where I have resisted the urge to write an April Fool's piece. Um I've just I've never been that clever or witty, uh and I've never been able to think of an appropriate uh ruse. I mean if ever I do, given that I've been sort of legitimately writing an April 1st edition now for 17 years, you certainly, I would hope, won't see it coming. Um, but it ain't this one. This one is a little different. Uh this month's piece is called A Knock at the Door. And it starts in February 2020, which, depending on how your memory works, either feels like six years ago or six minutes ago. But what I remember most about that time is how normal everything felt right up until it didn't. Markets were humming, kids were in school, we were traveling, shaking hands, going about our lives. And there were these headlines about a virus far away, somewhere else. Easy to ignore. And then very quickly, uh, everything changed. Now I don't want to be overly dramatic here, but I do think there's a bit of a parallel to what's happening right now with AI. Because, like many of you, I've been experimenting with it, using it for writing, research, notes, all the usual suspects. And I'll be honest, it's it's incredibly good. Not helpful tool good. Go grab a coffee and come back to finished work good, which is both impressive and at moments a little unsettling. And it raises a pretty obvious question, particularly for those of us in professional services. If AI can do a lot of what we do faster, cheaper, and arguably better in some cases, what exactly is left? And that's really what this piece explores. And this piece was written by a human, namely me. In fact, on our ampersands every month, and I have uh the receipts to show it, and a book that is still for sale at um indigo near you and at Amazon called Stories of a Small But Mighty Business in a Rough and Tumble Town, the Ampersand Chronicles, volume one, where no AI was used. And I'm proud to report no AI has been used in the production of these newsletters. The voice is mine, and I will consult my brother, the English major, for grammar rulings more quickly than I would uh resort to Chat GPT. However, we have played around with it in helping to write candidate summaries and position descriptions, and it's it's impressive, but it's fraught, and that is what I write about in this piece. Because the more I've played around with these various tools, the more I've sort of opened the door and let them in, the more I've come to a slightly different conclusion, which is that the parts of the job that are easiest to automate probably weren't the most valuable parts to begin with. And what's left, the part that's harder to define, harder to measure, and frankly harder to replicate is judgment. It's the ability to sit across from someone and read what's not being said, to interpret nuance, to make a call when the data is incomplete and the stakes are real. And maybe most interestingly, it's the human response to all of this because when the world becomes more digital, more efficient, more optimized, people don't just adapt, they react. They start to crave things that feel, well, a little more human, a little more real, which is where this piece goes. Dear friends and colleagues, cast your mind back to February 2020. The world, in hindsight, was perched on the edge of something seismic. But it didn't feel that way. Markets were humming, kids were in school, we were shaking hands, booking flights, and blowing out birthday candles. A few buried headlines about a far away virus felt distant and abstract. And then within weeks and then hours, offices closed, schools shut down, toilet paper became currency, and just like that everything changed. A recent article by AI founder Matt Schumer suggests that we may be in a similar moment again, only this time the contagion isn't viral, it's artificial. His argument is pretty simple and unsettling. AI has crossed a threshold. Not incremental improvements, faster emails or cleaner summaries, but something more fundamental. Systems that can write code, analyze financial models, draft legal arguments, and complete complex tasks with minimal supervision. Not drafts, finished breaking work. He describes a shift from AI as a helpful tool to something closer to a colleague, or in some cases a replacement. Give it instructions in plain English, go grab a coffee and return to work that, until recently, required a trained professional. The implication is that a meaningful portion of what we think of as white collar work is about to change and quickly. Entry-level roles in particular may be exposed. The old advice, get good grades, land a stable job, may be pointing young people toward increasingly uncertain ground. Something I wrote about last October in my piece, The Kids Are Alright. The larger picture he paints doesn't stop there, namely a world where AI accelerates breakthroughs in medicine and science, or alternatively, introduces severe economic and geopolitical disruption, though the humans seem to have that one well in hand. His core message is this the upside is staggering, the downside sobering, and the future already here. It just hasn't knocked on everyone's door yet, but you can hear it coming. Well, it has knocked on ours, and I answered. Claude, Otter, Copilot, like so many trick or treaters looking for candy, or in this case, ready to take whatever you're willing to hand over. There was a moment standing there peering through the peephole, where I considered quietly backing away and pretending I wasn't home. But curiosity got the better of me. And while what I found on the other side was undeniably impressive, polished, efficient, and remarkably capable, it also left me with a few questions. So if you'll permit me, a slight clearing of the throat. Standing there looking at what was in front of me, I got to thinking about what this might mean for our humble enterprise and the very human undertaking of executive search. I have long believed that executive search is a bit of a misnomer. The search part, at least in its traditional sense, was commoditized years ago. Gone are the days of Michael Honey, a truly patriarchal figure in Western Canadian executive search and one of my early mentors, sitting on an old rolling library stool, a hunched silhouette in the cornfield maze of hand cranked shelving systems, thumbing through paper files and printed resumes in search of possibility. I wrote about Michael and this precise theme seven years ago, well before AI was a thing. Even then the shift was underway with tools like LinkedIn and recruitment specific CRMs and customizable databases. Today, AI can now map entire talent markets in seconds. The Rolodex, once guarded and hard earned, now belongs to everyone. Information is abundant, access is universal. The library stool and mobile shelving units, relics of a different era, now feel more like hieroglyphics scratched on a cave wall, faint reminders of how the work was once done. So if AI can identify candidates faster, summarize backgrounds better, and even draft outreach that sounds suspiciously like something we'd write. What exactly is left? Quite a lot, actually. Because as I've said for years, the real work was never the search. It was the judgment. It's the moment across the table when you ask a question that isn't in the spec, and then sit in the silence that follows. It's how someone talks about failure, the difference between confidence and ego, between resilience and rehearsed answers, between false modesty and genuine humility. But it's also what you do with that information. It's the ability to take a career that reads one way on paper and tell the story that actually matters, to connect the dots between roles, decisions, inflection points, and help a client see not just what someone has done, but who they could be. More than search, it's advocacy. On one side of the table, you're helping a client understand why this person, imperfect, human, nuanced, is the right bet. On the other, you are helping a candidate see something in an opportunity they may not have fully appreciated. You are at times gently pushing, at times pulling. We are translators, and translation turns out is not about language, it's about meaning. AI can process information, it can identify patterns, it can even simulate empathy, but it cannot feel a room. It cannot sit with ambiguity, it cannot reconcile the messy human variables that sit underneath every major decision. Ego, fear, ambition, family, timing, doubt, and insecurity. Executive search at its best is applied psychology, risk management, storytelling, and trust building. And here's the interesting part. The more powerful AI becomes at processing information, the more valuable human judgment becomes at interpreting it. AI may have an abundance of IQ. Executive search at its best is where EQ meets IQ, which suggests this might be less a competition and more a partnership. But there's another dynamic at play, one I think we may be underestimating. As the world becomes more digital and efficient, people don't just adapt, they react. They start to crave what's been lost along the way, tactile experiences, imperfect interactions, something that feels real. You can see it everywhere. In a world of perfect digital streaming, vinyl records are making a comeback. In a world of infinite content, bookstores, once declared dead, are full again, not because they're efficient, but because they're curated by humans, for humans. In a world of constant digital stimulation, board games have resurged, drawing people back to the tables, to conversation, to something real. Farmers' markets thrive in the age of global supply chains. Recently, my kids even gave up social media as a form of rebellion. In my day, we smoke cigarettes. And in what might be my favorite recent example, at our annual New Year's Eve party, a group of twenty-somethings were belting out American Pie, Piano Man, and My Way. Not exactly lip syncing Drake or Travis Scott. In a world saturated with the new, they reached back for something older, shared, and real. And as if more examples were needed, my nearly twenty five year old daughter has discovered that Friday night bingo at the Canmore Legion is a pretty great way to spend an evening. Bingo at the Legion. Clickety click sixty six. I think when everything becomes fast and algorithmic, people start craving texture. Things that are imperfect, human, earned. Or like the faint crackle of a vinyl record in that moment after the needle drops and before the music begins. And I'm here to say that executive search is texture. Boards making consequential leadership decisions aren't looking for the most efficient answer. They're looking for conviction, for context, for someone who can say quietly, I've met this person, I've sat with them, I believe in them. Could AI produce a short list? Absolutely. Can it own that recommendation? Can it call a reference who hesitates just slightly and understand what that hesitation means? Can it help a candidate weigh a career move where compensation, identity, family, and risk are all tangled together? And that is what the AI revolution ironically amplifies. Trust. When uncertainty arises, people cling to relationships. When noise increases, they seek a signal from people they know and trust. No, executive search isn't about searching, it's about judgment. And judgment is forged in experience, context, pattern recognition, and dare I say, empathy. But not the simulated kind, the earned kind. It's April first, which feels like an appropriate moment to say this. Don't be fooled. AI is real, it's powerful, it will change how we work profoundly in some cases, but it doesn't change what matters most. It doesn't replace trust, it doesn't replace judgment, and it doesn't replace the human ability to sit across from someone, look them in the eye, and decide on behalf of a client, with real consequences attached, that this is the person. That moment still belongs to us. So yes, learn the tools, use them, embrace them, but don't confuse capability with wisdom, because the future may be knocking loudly. It may even let itself in. But when it comes to the decisions that matter, the consequential ones, the human ones, we still choose who we invite to sit at the table. And that, at least for now, remains a decidedly human call. Bingo regards Adam.