The dominant narrative about AI has focused on what it takes away: jobs, repetitive tasks, time spent on low-value work. But what happens if we shift our attention to what AI makes possible? Not only substitution, but space: for new ideas, for new knowledge, for innovation. And today, this space is multiplying exponentially. We have entered what many are beginning to call the era of “Mass Intelligence”: a historic moment in which billions of people have access to advanced, powerful, immediate AI models that are increasingly integrated into everyday life. Thanks to GenAI, education (which several billion people still lack access to) is no longer a scarce and costly good: it has become ubiquitous, accessible, affordable and customisable. Exactly what the Internet did with knowledge in 2000. In the era of ‘Mass Intelligence’, AI is not merely a tool for operational efficiency. It is a transformative technology that changes the way we work, think and generate collective value.
History shows that every leap in productivity is often accompanied by a fertile season of innovation. Ray Dalio sums it up thus: productivity is the main engine of growth and prosperity. When it rises, conditions are created to reinvest time and resources in high-value activities. The Second Industrial Revolution, with electricity, railways and mechanical looms, saw productivity explode and with it new business models. The Green Revolution generated previously unimaginable agricultural yields, opening up new supply chains and markets. Today, AI seems to promise a new leap. But in this case it is the combination with widespread access to cognitive tools that can generate real transformation — a singularity.
When the technology of access to knowledge changes, everything changes. The alphabet allowed ideas to be recorded, systematised and transmitted. From there arise written laws, deductive science, individualism. AI today plays a similar role: according to the Design Executive Council, AI makes knowledge and insights accessible across the entire organisation. McKinsey speaks of tools that synthesise literature and data, generating new hypotheses and research directions. This makes AI not only an operational tool but a technology of epistemic transformation: it changes the way we think, learn and collaborate.
Not merely an “increment” in efficiency, then. It is a qualitative shift. AI increases productivity and simultaneously changes the way we generate and share knowledge. This is where true discontinuity can emerge: when people freed from pointless tasks can access new cognitive tools to think, collaborate and create in new ways.
It is at this intersection that the era of Mass Intelligence truly makes a difference: never have so many people been able to directly experience new forms of assisted thinking. The two waves (efficiency and innovation) reinforce each other; AI is at once a lever for productivity and a new knowledge technology. The real transformation comes when the two dimensions meet. And it is there we must look to understand where innovation is truly heading. The question is no longer just “what can AI do?”, but “what can we become, as a society, when a billion people have access to augmented intelligence?”
An analysis by Exponential View, citing Vanguard global economist Joe Davis, shows that it is above all technology, not demographic growth, that drives GDP in the long run. The author argues that innovation can compensate for the reduction of the workforce caused by the retirement of Baby Boomers. In practice: even if millions of workers retire, if productivity grows thanks to AI, GDP can rise. This picture offers good reason for hope: AI is not only a risk for employment — it can be a solution for sustaining the economy of an ageing world.
