Reset: The Intelligence Revolution (2022)

By Karl George MBE, The Governor, Founder of Governance AI

Reset: The Intelligence Revolution began in November 2022 with the public release of ChatGPT and large language models (LLMs). This moment was not just a technological advancement—it marked a new epoch. AI is no longer something we use; it is something we now think with. Unlike the Fifth Industrial Revolution, which emphasised sustainable production and human-machine balance, Reset defines a cognitive realignment where intelligence becomes scalable, accessible, and deeply integrated into our daily lives.

From personalised learning to enterprise-level decision-making, generative AI enables co-creation, strategic planning, and problem-solving once exclusive to experts. Businesses are restructuring around agentic workflows and reasoning systems. Families are adapting to AI-enhanced education and life management. Governance models are being rethought through the lens of ethical AI, leading to a fundamental shift in business models, education, and geopolitics.

Reset is not just about tools; it’s about a reset in how we understand intelligence, leadership, and human potential. Welcome to the age of scalable cognition.

What Makes This a True Reset?

This era differs from what is sometimes referred to as the Fifth Industrial Revolution, which focuses on sustainable production and the harmony between humans and machines. The Reset: Intelligence Revolution goes further. It marks a redefinition of the nature of intelligence itself, through:

1. Generative AI’s Creative Partnership

LLMs like ChatGPT are no longer tools; they are co-creators. From strategy decks to legal drafts, from personalised learning to health diagnostics, AI models are contributing to work once thought uniquely human (Wilson & Daugherty, HBR, 2023).

2. Enterprise AI Maturity

By 2025, AI is expected to have entirely reshaped business models through reasoning systems, custom silicon chips, and agentic workflows (PwC, 2023; Microsoft, 2024). AI is moving from augmentation to autonomous operational partnership.

3. Human-AI Symbiosis

Collaborative robots (cobots), adaptive agents, and personal AI assistants are now cognitive extensions of professionals, providing real-time insights and support for informed decisions across various sectors, from manufacturing to law (Morgan Stanley, 2024).

4. A Cognitive Convergence

This reset combines:

• Speed (instant ideation and execution),
• Capacity (billions of parameters per model),
• Access (freemium, cross-platform AI tools), and
• Usability (natural language interfaces that anyone can engage with).

Impact Areas – Why It Matters

This revolution is reshaping every facet of society:

• Personally, AI changes how we think, learn and create. It is becoming an everyday “thinking partner,” much like calculators transformed arithmetic or the internet changed search.
• In families, Generative tutors and AI parenting tools (e.g., Khanmigo) are reshaping learning, guidance, and household management—altering the way knowledge is passed across generations.
• In Business: McKinsey (2023) estimates that generative AI could add $4.4 trillion to the global GDP annually. The shift is not just productivity—it is reinvention.
• In Global Affairs: AI’s dual-use nature—both productive and perilous—requires new governance models. From the EU AI Act to the UK AI White Paper, regulation is racing to keep up.

This is no longer just about human-machine collaboration. It’s about the co-evolution of human and artificial cognition.

R.E.S.E.T. – The Pillars of the Intelligence Revolution

A simple but powerful framework to understand the leadership response required:

R – Reimagine Reality
We must challenge long-held assumptions and fundamentally reimagine work, strategy, and leadership. Strategic foresight becomes as critical as operational excellence (Webb, 2023).

E – Empower with Ethics
With great power comes great responsibility. Ethics must underpin innovation from transparency and fairness to bias mitigation and AI literacy (OECD AI Principles, 2019; UNESCO, 2021).

S – Scale with Speed
AI allows organisations to scale faster than ever before but wise governance ensures they do so responsibly (Ismail, 2014; MIT Sloan, 2023).

E – Enhance Human Potential
AI doesn’t replace us—it enhances us. It allows us to focus on empathy, creativity, judgment and leadership—the uniquely human frontiers (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2014).

T – Transform Together
No one organisation or sector can do this alone. Interdisciplinary, inclusive, and global collaboration is essential to ensure equitable outcomes (World Economic Forum, 2024).

“We are not in the Fourth or Fifth Industrial Revolution we’ve entered a new epoch. I call it ‘Reset: The Intelligence Revolution.’ Since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, we’ve seen not just technological evolution but a redefinition of intelligence itself. This is about co-creation, speed, and democratised access to machine cognition. It changes how we govern, lead, work, learn and live. To respond, we must R.E.S.E.T. Reimagine, Empower, Scale, Enhance and Transform together.”