Out-Thinking, Not Out-Doing: The Inteleos Approach to AI
Juan Sanchez
Chief Digital Officer
Inteleos

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

Key Takeaways - Up Front
1
Efficiency using AI is not a competitive differentiator.
2
Human Judgement is your unique strategic asset.
3
Competitive advantage lives between Knowledge/Wisdom.
4
AI can become a "cognitive partner" to harness better judgement.
5
Non-profits can't outspend, we must out-think. AI enables this today.

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

Are you asking Einstein to draft your emails?
The Genius Potential
AI can analyze complex unstructured data, propose innovative solutions, and energize strategic thinking.
The Mundane Reality
Yet, we often assign it to repetitive, low-value tasks like drafting simple emails or content summarization.

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

Part 1: AI & Strategy
Efficiency using AI is not a competitive differentiator.

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

Strategy Choices - AI as Enabler
Automate & Augment
Use AI to streamline existing processes and enhance human capabilities. Focus on efficiency gains and operational workflows.
Must Do
Expand & Grow
Leverage AI to scale operations and reach new market segments. Enhance customer engagement and create new value.
Should Do
Innovate & Disrupt
Reimagine core business models with AI at the center. Create novel solutions that position you to meet the mission.
Could Do

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

Drivers of Productivity Growth
Education Attainment
Investment in R&D
Fostering Entrepreneurship

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

Part 2: Intelligence & Judgement
Human Judgement is your unique strategic asset.
Competitive advantage lives between Knowledge/Wisdom.

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

When Intelligence Is Abundant
Judgement Is Invaluable

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

Is Human Judgement Our Most Unique Strategic Asset?
"Intelligence is abundant…if it's coming down at 40x/year, everybody is going to have intelligence."
— Nate B. Jones

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

AI, Judgement, and the DIKW Continuum
Data
Unorganized facts or figures without context.
AI: Collection, Aggregation
Information
Data arranged and contextualized to convey meaning.
AI: Filtering, Labeling, Sorting
Knowledge
Insight derived from interpreting and connecting information.
AI: Synthesis, Prediction
Wisdom
Sound judgement applying knowledge with experience and values.
AI: Limited

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

AI applied to “out doing” probably won't increase wisdom & judgement.

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

Process turbocharger or deep thinking catalyst?
Optimizing for Speed: The Efficiency Trap
  • Accelerated task execution leads to…
  • Increased volume of output that...
  • Rewards Efficiency Metrics instead of…
  • Tactical Innovation, Outcome Quality, Strategic Contribution.
This approach uses AI to simply do more of the same, faster, and might create skill lock-in.
Prioritizing Judgement: The Unique Differentiator
  • Gen-AI assisted problem framing leads to…
  • More comprehensive decision analysis that…
  • Surfaces more interesting questions that…
  • Yields deeper, more thoughtful decision quality
This approach leverages Gen-AI to help us think deeper, explore new possibilities, cultivate new skills, and improve shared critical thinking.

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

Are you building a mechanical horse?

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

Part 3: Our AI Bet
AI can become a "cognitive partner" to harness better judgement.
Non-profits can't outspend, we must out-think. AI enables this today.

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

What if….
We used Gen-AI to improve how profoundly we can analyze a problem, synthesize information, and make higher quality decisions?
Could we use AI to coach staff across a wide array of domains?

Could we build a "team" of AI assistants that collaborate?
Would we yield new opportunities and better outcomes?

…and would it lead to richer & more valuable solutions for our customers?

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

Could we use AI to decrease "time to wisdom" across the entire organization?

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

Inteleos AI Ecosystem - "Fractal Inception"

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

Inteleos AI Ecosystem - The Seven Layers
Strategic Layer
Focuses on long-term planning and organizational governance.
Operational Layer
Drives execution and optimizes day-to-day processes.
Knowledge & Culture Layer
Manages organizational wisdom and enhances team effectiveness.
External Intelligence & Resilience Layer
Focused on environment trends and facilitates adaptation.
Experience & Relationship Layer
Handles stakeholder interactions and protects relationships.
Mission & People Layer
Measures organizational impact and manages human capital.
Meta Layer
Helps orchestrate and routes requests across assistants.

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

The Architecture Principle: Not one generic "super assistant"—but specialists operating with ecosystem awareness.

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

A Sample Case
"I believe the we can serve a new market of ultrasound users in South America. My assumption is that our existing products would sell well in the entire continent. Who should I work with to help me understand my point of view?
1
Nexus - The Orchestrator
"You're exhibiting classic warning signs that demand framework integration"
2
Praxis - The Assumption Excavator
"Transform your beliefs into testable hypotheses before investing resources."
3
Radar - The External Intelligence Scout
"Gather competitive, regulatory, and market reality data to validate/refute Praxis' hypotheses."
4
Tessera - The Strategic Systems Stress-Tester
"Reality-check your expansion plan against GIRDS framework and run Pre-Mortem failure analysis."
5
The Human Judgement
"Human judgement integrates AI analysis with institutional knowledge, risk tolerance, and strategic context."
6
A Review

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

The Platform Reality Check
Built With Existing Tools, Not Custom Solutions
What We Used
✅ Claude.ai (complex reasoning, artifact generation)
✅ Perplexity Enterprise (research-intensive intelligence)
What We Didn't Need
❌ Custom ML models
❌ Data science team
❌ Expensive infrastructure
❌ Technical expertise beyond prompt engineering
Knowledge workers can be augmented with existing AI platforms.

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

Resource Constraints Make Cognitive Leverage Essential
You Cannot Out-Do Competitors
  • ❌ Can't outspend on talent acquisition
  • ❌ Can't outscale infrastructure investment
  • ❌ Can't out-market on awareness
But You CAN Out-Think Them
  • ✅ Out-strategize through better intelligence synthesis
  • ✅ Out-execute through better quality outcomes
  • ✅ Out-adapt through persistent external monitoring

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

Start Your Out-Thinking Journey
Where to Begin
Step 1: Identify One Judgement-Intensive Domain
Where does information processing constrain decision quality? Where would better synthesis change outcomes?
Step 2: Build One Specialist for That Domain
Start small, prove value through better decisions. Learn design and orchestration principles.
Context is everything - your RAG layer matters!
Step 3: Measure Decision Quality, Not Time Saved
  • Decision confidence before/after
  • Quality of questions and discussions
  • Strategic outcomes formulated/achieved
Step 4: Expand Systematically
Add specialists in adjacent domains. Build orchestration patterns. Compound organizational intelligence.

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

Examples of Judgement-Intensive Domains
Organizational Structure Decisions
Strategic Identity
Foundation-Board Relationship
Global Strategy Assumptions
Risk Tolerance Calibration

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

Flaws in Thinking
Potential flaws and limitations are worth critical consideration:
Over-reliance May Dilute Critical Thinking
Trusting AI too heavily can lead to disengagement from rigorous sensemaking, fostering surface-level judgements and overlooking AI's inherent biases or errors.
Narrow Framing or Bias Amplification
AI recommendations reflect its training data and parameters, potentially embedding existing biases or reinforcing status quo thinking, thereby narrowing the decision frame.
Judgement Requires More Than Better Options
True judgement involves value alignment, empathy, tacit knowledge, and context.

AI may not fully capture or optimize for those through mere option generation.
False Sense of Augmented Wisdom
An abundance of recommendations/questions to ponder might create the illusion of improved decision rigor without actually enhancing the quality of value-based, context-sensitive decision-making.
Collaboration Quality Not Guaranteed
Effective human-AI partnership demands human agency, digital literacy, and the capacity to challenge AI, which are not universally present or automatically synergistic.

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

AI can serve as a valuable cognitive partner for judgement, but only if humans support each other and remain actively critical, context-aware, and empowered to bring the wisdom, values, and tacit knowledge that AI lacks.

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.

Key Takeaways
1
Efficiency using AI is not a competitive differentiator.
2
Human Judgement is your unique strategic asset.
3
Competitive advantage lives between Knowledge/Wisdom.
4
AI can become a "cognitive partner" to harness better judgement.
5
Non-profits can't outspend, we must out-think. AI enables this today.

© 2025 Inteleos. All rights reserved.