#596 AI Co-Thinking Part 4: From Framework to Real-World Results | Nathan Mauck, Robert Greene, Niels Brabandt
AI Co-Thinking Part 4: From Framework to Real-World Results
The final part of our four-part series on AI co-thinking is about application in the real world. My guests are, once again, Prof. Nathan Mauck of the Henry W. Bloch School of Management at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Robert A. Greene, founder of OIC Innovation, co-authors of AI Co-Thinking: A Framework for Working with AI. The book closes with a short exchange: one author says he is still figuring out how to co-think with AI, and the other replies that, if they are lucky, they will never completely figure it out. The book was published at the end of July 2026, so my first question was obvious: what have they learned since?
What the authors learned after publication
Nathan Mauck points to a slightly ironic effect. The authors wrote the book using AI co-thinking, so his AI has the full context, and in every new project it proposes another chapter. More seriously, he has continued to apply the method to many new use cases, and every one of them has sharpened his understanding. AI itself keeps changing, so his interactions keep evolving too.
Robert Greene shares a lesson from their open-enrolment executive education sessions, three-hour paid workshops. A session with a profound title about problem definition attracted fewer participants than a session aimed specifically at financial analysts. Despite the broad applicability of AI co-thinking, the more specifically a programme speaks to a defined community, the easier it is to reach people.
Purposeful rewirement
The authors are already thinking about sequels, and one of them is about individuals rather than organisations: people who are moving out of full-time employment. Robert Greene does not like the word retirement, and many people share that feeling. So the authors call it rewirement: applying AI co-thinking to design the next phase of life with purpose, enjoyment and satisfaction, much like the executive self-coaching we discussed in Part 3.
Nathan Mauck sees a broader relevance. Robert Greene calls it piercing the cacophony: there is a lot of noise and a certain gloom around AI, including the fear of simply training a model to take over one's own job. The authors are deliberately practical. Humans can choose how they want to use AI. In a way, we are all at a transition point and need to rewire and retool. AI co-thinking offers a framework to do that in a way people can enjoy and feel good about.
AI co-thinking at board level
The last question of the series was one I hear constantly in Europe. As soon as AI reaches the board, someone calls for data protection, and once that is resolved, someone else calls for legal, compliance and liability. Board members fear personal liability, because nobody can blame the AI when something goes wrong.
Nathan Mauck answers in two directions. First, guardrails are part of the framework: how you interact with AI, and what goes into it, including privacy, is part of the context. Second, boards must not let compliance become an excuse not to innovate. Moving forward responsibly is possible. A practical example: instead of feeding customer data into an AI, describe the customer's situation in general terms. And if you do not want to be liable for AI output, a human reviews and confirms it. Waiting until everything resolves itself is not a strategy.
Robert Greene distinguishes two ways of seeing a board. One is purely compliance, governance and fiduciary duty, which automatically raises these questions. The other is more creative: a board as a group of part-time specialists who meet periodically to work together on behalf of the enterprise, an example of collaborative innovation. AI co-thinking helps individual board members understand hands-on what AI means, govern its adoption better and collaborate more effectively.
Why this matters for decision-makers
Across all four episodes, one message stands out: AI co-thinking is not about technology, but about the quality of thinking. Define the problem, curate the context, make assumptions explicit, integrate across functions, reflect honestly and govern responsibly. None of this requires a large budget. It requires leadership, practice and the willingness to learn by doing. Organisations that start small, with real problems and honest reflection, will be far better prepared than those still waiting for the perfect policy before anyone is allowed to begin.
Three takeaways for leaders
1. Keep learning by applying: new use cases sharpen the method more than theory does.
2. Speak to specific audiences: adoption grows when people see their own problems addressed.
3. Build guardrails into the context, and do not let compliance become an excuse for standing still.
More about the authors and the book is available at aicothinking.com. Thank you to Nathan Mauck and Robert Greene for an outstanding series. AI is here, and it is here to stay. Now you know how to work with it. I wish you every success in applying this in your organisation.
Niels Brabandt
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More on this topic in this week's videocast and podcast with Niels Brabandt: Videocast / Apple Podcasts / Spotify
For the videocast’s and podcast’s transcript, read below this article.
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Podcast and Videocast Transcript
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc: AI co-thinking and our experts are backed by a popular demand Robert Greene and Nathan Mauck welcome to the final of all four episodes streak here welcome back.
Robert Greene: Great to be with you thank you
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc: Thank you very much for taking the time and now it's all about real world application So we already talked about the end of the book in the last episode and I looked Into the book and it said I mean, Basically the very last line said I think Bob maybe I'm still figuring it out How co-think with AI how about you and nathan if we're lucky we'll never completely Figure it out so of course, One question of course comes to my as the book was published in late july what Have you learned about AI co-thinking since the book was published.
Nathan Mauck: I've, uh, the, yeah, there's, first of all, I continued different use cases. I mean, uh, actually one thing that's somewhat hilarious is Bob and I wrote The book using AI co-thinking. So let's say our AI has the context. And so all the projects I work on, uh, my AI agent tries to turn in another Chapter. It's like, Hey, that'd make a great chapter. I'm like, Hey, the book's over. Um, this is, uh, you know, uh, This is what I'm, I'm, I'm doing here. And so, uh, but there've been so many, uh, use cases that have continued to Really sharpen, um, this, this methodology in my mind. And also of course, AI is changing all the time. And so, you know, The, the types of interactions I have have been, um, uh, evolving, But the, the, the biggest change, uh, for me is just adding more, more Real, uh, real world practical use cases that I've actually been, been using it on.
Robert Greene: Yeah, and I think, Niels, and Nathan, I'm reflecting on our experience with Our open enrollment sessions. So, Niels, we've had multiple sessions, three-hour sessions in the context of Executive education, where people sign up and pay for these three-hour sessions. And we have found, maybe not surprisingly, that the title affects the enrollment. So, Well, we had this spectacular title around problem definition. I mean, what could be more profoundly important? And in fact, the enrollment was less than a session that was aimed particularly For financial analysts. So notwithstanding our belief in the reality of the breadth of AI co-thinking And its application, In fact, kind of gearing this, as Nathan was suggesting, more towards specific Folks with specific communities, people with specific interests, I think the easier it will be to reach them and share some of the breadth of what we have to offer.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc: Excellent. So you have a term which I found really interesting where you talk About purposeful rewirement. What do you what do you mean by that?
Robert Greene: Well, yeah, it's so that's one of the applications. I mean, we're we're already thinking of sequels. I mean, here we are in month Three and things are things. the interest continues to climb, But we're already thinking of sequels. And we're already thinking about maybe how to apply this to individuals as opposed To organizations and organization leaders. And one set of individuals are folks that are thinking about resetting their Lives as they transition out of full-time employment. And I personally don't like the word retirement you know sometimes people don't Often people don't like that word so we've we've borrowed a word from one of Nathan's llama friends and we call it rewirement And our our notion here is to talk about and explain how to apply AI co-thinking To purposeful rewirement again to folks that are Moving into this next important phase of their life how to do it with purpose And enjoyment and satisfaction and applying Co-thinking kind of like and if we go back to one of your prior episodes nils In an executive self-coaching mode
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc: Excellent so would you say that purposeful rewirement is something where any Organization needs to look into in the future.
Nathan Mauck: I think so. And to maybe hit on kind of a macro issue with AI, We saw this when we write in the book, but I see more of it, Which is, um, Bob calls it, you know, piercing the cacophony. There's this, this cacophony of talk about AI, but there's a certain gloom around AI and negativity around AI. And um you know bob and I are are just sort of super practical and what can you do with AI right now And we think this invitation of a more um like we can choose our own adventure You know uh the humans can can decide how we want to how we want to use AI and Um and this rewirement is I think in a direction and co-thinking more generally Is a direction that can give people a framework that avoids this kind of this Bleakness of, hey, am I just training A robot to take my job? Or am I just training an AI model to do what I do to get kind of out of that Thinking and more into, hey, we may well need to kind of rewire and retool. And how can we leverage this AI co-thinking framework to help us do that? So I think it's powerful at any stage and retirement is one, But also, I think we are collectively at a transition stage in this age of AI. So how are we all going to rewire and rethink how we how we best add value and How do we do it in a way that we enjoy it and that we feel good about?
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc: Absolutely. And especially as you said, it's so practical. We, Of course, have to talk about one thing as the final question of our series of episodes here. When it now comes to AI co-thinking, we have to talk about boards, Board-level decisions. And of course, as soon, and I can tell you the global and the European perspective, As soon as it comes to board-level decision, the first thing you hear someone Screaming in Europe is data protection, data protection, data protection. We need to stop, stop, stop, stop. And when you solve this somehow, after I don't know how many months of work Together, then someone says, liability, legal department, compliance. So how does AI co-thinking apply to, let's say, the government's work of boards Of directors with all the different aspects that we have around there, Where people sometimes feel I'm entering a certain risk, Where I'm dealing with personal liability because no one can blame the AI when Something goes wrong. So how to deal with that?
Nathan Mauck: One thing I would say is, there's two directions I can go with that. One is, one piece of our framework is the guardrails. So we think actually part of the context is How are we going to interact with AI? What are the guardrails around what goes Into AI, including privacy and all of these issues? So we think as individuals And organizations think about how are we going to use AI, that's a big piece of it. And then to kind of zoom out to, you know, how are boards thinking about this? We see this too. They're really focused on the kind of the legalistic compliance types of things. And, you know, there's, let's say there's technical solutions to these things Or possible technical solutions to these things. Um, but you know, more fundamentally, I think it's really important that folks Not let this become an excuse not to, Uh, sort of innovate and adapt to this, this new world of, of leveraging AI That we can't get sort of frozen in, in terms of all of these, these, uh, what ifs. So we kind of have to move forward responsibly knowing what the risks are and What the restrictions are, but there's ways to use AI. And just a really practical one is, hey, instead of maybe feeding in your customer Data, you can describe in general the situation that a customer faces into an AI and then you don't run this this risk. And it's like, oh, well, we don't want to, you know, be liable for AI output. It's like, well, then a human should review it and confirm that it's, You know, that it's manageable. And so I think folks are maybe propping it up a little bit To take a wait and see, like, let's wait until this resolves itself.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc: Yeah.
Robert Greene: And I think I think, Niels, going back to The board and its role there, there certainly is A I mean, I think to oversimplify, there are two ways to think about a board Role, purely compliance, governance, basic fiduciary responsibility, Which automatically kind of raises the kind of questions that that you ask. But there's a way to think about it, I think, more creatively and think about The board role. And Nathan and I have talked about this in terms of collaborative innovation. You're getting part-time specialists, if you will, that find themselves together On a periodic basis to work more effectively together on behalf of a particular enterprise. And now we're, you know, kind of going back a couple episodes to general management And context creation. But it's, I think, here's an opportunity, And this is what Nathan and I are envisioning in the future as a potential sequel here. How can groups like this better understand context and collaborate more effectively And do more than just the basics As boards of directors? I think to Nathan's point, AI co-thinking is a great Way for the individual board members to better understand hands-on what AI means, What it involves, better understand thereby how best to govern the adoption Of that in the organization, and better to work together collaboratively and innovatively.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc: I think these are the perfect final words. Of course, when now people say, Hey, I listened to these episodes, and I think these people really have a clue About what they're doing. I think we should need them either for speakers at our conference or as coaches, Mentors, consultants in our business. Of course, I need to know, How can anyone reach out to you? Nathan, Robert, who wants to go first?
Nathan Mauck: So, aicothinking.com is our book website. We've got a kind of a joint email There. We're also happy to connect on LinkedIn. I'm a pretty easy guy to find with my university role. So you can Google me And reach out any way that works for the listeners.
Robert Greene: And Niels, just, I mean, bottom line here, we just, Nathan and I, Maybe as you sense, and I think you're the same way, Niels. We just love to figure things out. And we like to do it efficiently and quickly and not necessarily achieve perfection Instantly, but move the ball forward. And we just love working with interesting issues and interesting people.
Niels Brabandt EMBA MBA MSc: I think these are the perfect final words. AI Co-Thinking. You see, AI is here and it came here to stay and now you know what you should deal with it. Thank you very much, our perfect experts, Robert Greene and Nathan Mauck. Thank you very much for your time.
Nathan Mauck: Thank you for having us.