Nov 12, 2025 AI Summit hosted by FQ at Webster Hall in NYC

Note: This is not an official FQ document. These are my personal notes and reflections from multiple AI Summit sessions, edited for clarity and external sharing.

Session 1 – ARCHITECTS OF TOMORROW: LEADING AI WITH VISION

Panelists

Juliana Castro Varón, Senior Design Editor, New York Times

Christina Cubeta, Chief Marketing Officer, Scope3

Cheryl Guerin, EVP, Global Brand Strategy and Innovation, Mastercard

Elle McCarthy, Former VP, Brand and GM Merchandising, Ford Motor Company

Amy Thorne, Chief Future Officer, Dentsu Creative

Big ideas

• Vision is no longer just a deck, it is an operating system
  • Elle described bringing a new brand strategy to the Ford board through a two and a half hour immersive experience (inspired by Sleep No More).
  • She spoke for five minutes total. The rest of the time, 12 executive leaders presented how their 1–5 year plans had materially shifted based on the new brand strategy they co created.
  • Takeaway: real vision work is not “Here is the North Star,” it is Here is how your plans, metrics, and behavior must change.
• AI enables speed and personalization, but taste still belongs to humans
  • Mastercard’s AI Card Design Studio shows both sides:
    • Internal: reduces design approval cycles from days to instant, improving speed to market and revenue.
    • External: allows issuers, merchants, and consumers to customize card art using embedded design rules.
  • Language I liked: “Democratizing creativity and personalization.”
• Cognitive atrophy is a real risk
  • Elle and others talked about young strategists and creatives losing their muscles if they let AI do all the thinking.
  • Key phrases:
    • “You’ve got to be the filling.” Let AI act like the rails, humans are the center.
    • “Step away from your computer. Go for a walk. Make connections yourself.”
  • They referenced research showing so-called “random” outputs are not truly random. For example, AI heavily favors the number 7 when asked for a random number between 1 and 10. It is good at looking like a smart answer, not necessarily being one.
• Struggle is part of real creativity
  • Elle is rereading The Artist’s Way and using it as a playbook for her strategists: daily pages, artist dates, time to be bored and stuck.
  • She shared a personal project with her husband, building a cooking AI that was bad for a long time.
    • They fed it hundreds of recipes, refined based on their taste, and kept iterating.
    • Now it can suggest what to plant, what to buy at the market, and build a Michelin level weekly menu based on their preferences.
  • Lesson: good AI tools still require human struggle, patience, and taste.
• Risk, governance, and “human in the loop”
  • Dentsu and Mastercard emphasized that some AI products require more people, not fewer:
    • Strategists to define tone and brand boundaries.
    • Security experts to reduce risk.
    • Real customers and experts to train and test.

My takeaways from this session

• Vision work I design in the future should:
  • Put leaders on stage with the new story, instead of me as narrator.
  • Use my frameworks (L.A.T.T.E., AHA, R4) to move from brand language to behavior, KPIs, and timelines.
• Any AI content I teach needs a section on protecting your strategic brain:
  • Naming cognitive atrophy explicitly.
  • Giving people exercises that require no AI to restore their own pattern recognition.