Why Every Entrepreneur Needs to Rethink Work in the Age of AI | Entrepreneur

Joshua Wohle is an entrepreneur with a proven track record of building and scaling innovative companies across technology and education. From co-founding SuperAwesome - later acquired by Epic Games - to leading the AI-powered learning platform Mindstone, he has consistently spotted opportunities at the intersection of tech and people.

Now recognised as a leading artificial intelligence speaker, Joshua helps organisations understand how generative AI can transform workflows, decision-making, and leadership strategy. His live demonstrations and practical frameworks cut through the noise, showing business leaders how to embed AI into their daily operations.

As an investor, venture partner, and keynote speaker, he brings a unique perspective shaped by both entrepreneurial experience and technological insight. In this exclusive interview with Entrepreneur UK, Joshua shares how executives can build AI competency, unlock creativity, and prepare their teams for the future of work.

Many executives still see AI as purely a tool for automation. How do you believe generative AI can genuinely enhance daily decision-making in the workplace?
One of the biggest misunderstandings of AI - and that's because everything gets put into the bucket of AI at the moment - is the new wave of generative AI. Up until now, AI has almost always been about automation. And that leads to a situation where today, when people look at generative AI, they also think about automation use cases first. Where really the power of this technology of generative AI is to help you do better work. Not just automate the things you're already doing, but help you get better at the things that you are already doing. And the biggest thought framework that we invite people to change is to think about AI as a teammate, as a thought partner. There is no executive in the world that can't be improved by having their ideas battle-tested, by having someone - in this case AI - play devil's advocate on whatever decision they're about to make, or to throw a hundred ideas about how to solve a particular problem that the executive might be struggling with. It's still up to the executive to figure out: which one of those hundred ideas should I actually take, and is worth pursuing?

But it helps you get to great solutions faster. It helps you take solutions or problems that you have and improve your answer to them, and do so in a way that is instant. You can think about some of this as the cost of making a decision, where there is always a point after which you would ask a second pair of eyes on something. And the more important the decision or the project, the more pairs of eyes you ask to either talk about, socialise the concept, figure out what's right and what's not, get another opinion on it. What is happening with AI is that the first hurdle of getting that second opinion has just dropped to zero. You always have access to a second opinion. You no longer have to think about: is this worth bringing to a colleague to get a second pair of eyes on? Because the cost of that second pair of eyes is zero.

You often talk about "AI competency." From a business perspective, what does true AI competency involve, and how can leaders foster it within their teams?
AI competency is about not just understanding what AI might or might not be able to do, but actually being able to do it yourself. AI competency includes two parts, and I would actually say only about 10% is knowing how to use the tools. 90% of AI competency is mindset shift - helping you think differently about the way that you work for you to be able to take advantage of AI in the first place.

Because if all you're doing is taking a tool and applying it to an existing workflow and not changing your workflows, you are only scratching the surface of what this technology is able to do. It's only when you change the way that you work and you're inviting the AI in that you get to the real unlock. I would say there are two things.

One is the mistake to think that because AI is so easy to use, that must mean it's easy to master. And this is where we go back to the behaviour change, the mindset shift, which is that lots of people know how to talk or to write. And so it becomes very easy to talk to an AI assistant. That creates the false impression that because it is so easy to use, you know how to use it. The number one red flag that we see - and this happens 99 times out of 100 - is where people would say, "I know how to use AI because it's replaced my Google usage. I search everything on ChatGPT now.

And it's the number one: when people think it is a search replacement, we know that there are five or six levels of unlock that are still to be achieved. So that's the number one thing, which is that they feel it is easy to use, and so they think that means they know how to use it.

The second bit is that they think AI adopts itself. And I guess they are related, but no technology has ever adopted itself. There has always been a more structured approach to get everyone to understand how they can use it in their jobs. And if you're serious about trying to get to the productivity increase and the creativity unlock that it can bring, a structured approach will get you there dramatically faster.

In your speaking engagements, you emphasise live demonstrations of AI. Why do you believe it's so important to showcase AI in action rather than relying on traditional presentations?
Because the number one problem in this industry at the moment is people don't know what's actually possible. And the number two problem in this industry is too many people talk a big talk and actually don't know what to do themselves.

And we want to very specifically be different. Cut through the noise. Don't be the 50th AI slide talk that these people have actually sat through, but genuinely move the needle by giving them something that is experiential, where there is no ambiguity on if what I'm saying is right or wrong - because they're seeing it happen right in front of them.