I attended Nexus 2025 in Luxembourg, not knowing what to expect other than that most of the talks and most of the startups attending were somehow related to AI. However, once there, the various lectures and presentations made me realise that AI is truly here to stay and that there is no way to survive it if we don’t adapt. Here is a list of things I think are essential for us to survive the next big tech wave.

AI is not here to replace us

A lot of alarmists will tell you that AI is here to take our jobs, and we will be replaced by robots. However, through all the discussions and presentations — even the alarmist ones — it didn’t seem like AI was anywhere close to replacing humans; it still needs humans to verify and give direction, and in fact it would be aimless and lost if it weren’t for the human holding the reins. For example, one of the panelists on ‘Journalistic Integrity in the Age of AI’ said they can now cover topics that were initially difficult to cover, such as science. They would typically need to hire a subject matter expert. This sort of expert would be hard to find. However, with AI, they can summarise the research into an article that readers can understand.

Augment, adapt, or get extinct

Luxembourg PM Luc Frieden (R) and Arthur Mensch at the conclave