Beyond the Hype: Strategic Foresight for an AI Future
As AI accelerates change across government, industry, and society, the challenge is no longer simply understanding the technology — it is learning how to think, adapt, and make decisions together under uncertainty.
This interactive workshop introduces practical strategic foresight tools that help participants explore opportunities, unintended consequences, emerging risks, and adaptive responses to AI-driven change.
Through collaborative activities, futures mapping, and facilitated group sense-making, participants will also experience and learn practical facilitation techniques that support stronger collaboration, clearer thinking, and more psychologically safe conversations in complex environments.
Using frameworks such as Cynefin and VUCA, the session explores how groups can move beyond debate and information overload toward shared understanding, collective insight, and practical action.
This is not a session about predicting the future. It is about becoming more capable of responding together when the future surprises us.
Participants will leave with practical tools they can immediately apply within their own organisations, teams, and communities — both for strategic foresight and for facilitating more effective collaboration during times of rapid change.
Facilitator
James Samana is the founder of Insightful Path and works across leadership development, facilitation, executive coaching, and strategic learning environments.
With experience facilitating workshops and collaborative processes across government, community, and cross-sector contexts, James focuses on helping groups navigate complexity, strengthen psychological safety, and turn insight into meaningful action. His work draws on adaptive leadership, systems thinking, strategic foresight, and human-centred facilitation practices.
AI CoLab events are intentionally open and collaborative. We capture photos, audio, and AI-generated transcripts so we can remix key insights for the AI CoLab Alliance community. This is always done in line with the Charter’s values; transparent, ethical innovation and knowledge sharing to accelerate collective learning (see join.aicolab.org). By participating in an AI CoLab event, you agree to your contributions being captured and shared in accordance with this policy.