Cognitive Kin: How to Work, Win, and Make Meaning with Agentic AI

Publication Date:

March 2026

Pages:

751

Original language and publisher

Territories Handled

World excl. English

Genres

Business & Leadership, Technology

Cognitive Kin: How to Work, Win, and Make Meaning with Agentic AI

Synopsis

AI is scaring much of the world. That’s why Cognitive Kin is a must-read! As with emerging technologies over time, from the wheel to the printing press to computer chips, the rewards from productivity gains will be far greater than any losses. Christophe Kolb and Jan Rosen do a masterful job of sharing the here and now of the world of AI.—Patricia Chadwick, Author of Breaking Glass: Tales from the Witch of Wall Street

A powerful vision of how humans and agents will work together.—M. Mansur Ashraf, Senior Engineering Manager, Apple

Cognitive Kin maps the convergence of human and digital intelligence with insight and imagination. It’s a fascinating practical guide to a changing world where cognition is increasingly shared.—Michael Hasselmo, Director, Center for Systems Neuroscience, Boston University

Now that AI has a will, it’s up to us to find a way. For decades, we built software that did what it was told—and nothing else. Agentic AI breaks this bargain: systems that remember, reason, and pursue goals. They arrive less like code and more like colleagues—tireless, fast, and, like any new hire, occasionally in need of supervision.

In Cognitive Kin, Christophe Kolb and Jan Rosen map the threshold where artificial intelligence stops being a feature and becomes a workforce. Drawing on firsthand experience at the frontier of agentic AI, they show how digital labor becomes viable, why org charts give way to networks of intent, and how leadership shifts to orchestration. They translate the machinery—memory, feedback loops, tool use—into plain language, then follow the shockwave into strategy, culture, and governance.

This isn’t tomorrow’s speculation. It’s a present-tense transition that is reshaping the meaning of work and creating new sources of value. The advantage will belong to firms that learn to think with thinking things—working alongside intelligent systems without outsourcing judgment, meaning, or responsibility.