AI-01
Versioned question map
Zhao Bo’s Research Question Map
This is not another article index. It is a durable set of questions. Each points to the strongest current answer, and the links and review date change as the thinking and evidence evolve.
Version 1.0 · reviewed 2026-08-30 · 24 fixed questionsAI in Practice
From role design and data readiness to enterprise adoption: turning AI from a demo into a real operating system for work.
AI-02
Why can AI only produce polished talk without operating data?
Best current answerWithout These Business Tables, AI Can Only Talk in PlatitudesFor AI to understand a real business, it must see verifiable sales, inventory, customer, and account data. Without a data foundation, its answers never rise above common sense.AI-03
How do you define an AI role and build a useful first AI clerk?
Best current answerHow to Design a Job for AI: Building Your First AI ClerkA reliable AI role needs fixed inputs, a defined process, a delivery format, boundaries of authority, and human sign-off — not just a job title handed to an AI.AI-04
Which operating decisions must retain human approval?
Best current answerAI Can Suggest, but Money, Goods, and Commitments Must Be Signed Off by a HumanAI can generate recommendations, but decisions involving funds, goods, credit, and external commitments must be confirmed by an accountable person, with a record kept.Organizational Change
How AI changes organizational structure, management mechanisms, governance boundaries, and collaboration between people and agents.
ORG-01
Why is it the organization, rather than the individual, that truly needs AI?
Best current answerIt Is Not Individuals Who Need AI, but OrganizationsIndividual productivity gains do not equal company-level results; what enterprises truly need is to consolidate processes, standards, data, and judgment into organization-level AI capability.ORG-02
Why does the business remain unchanged after employees learn to use AI?
Best current answerYour Employees Know How to Use AI—So Why Hasn't the Business Changed?Employees learning a few AI tools doesn't mean the company's business results will change. AI only affects the business when individual productivity gains flow into processes and become organizational capability.ORG-03
Why is AI not merely new software, but a redistribution of work?
Best current answerAI Is Not New Software — It Is How the Boss Reallocates WorkMany companies treat AI as just another piece of software without changing how work is allocated. The real transformation is deciding which tasks AI does first, and which judgments must remain with people.ORG-04
How should enterprises govern collaboration among people, agents, skills, and data?
Best current answerEnterprise Harness Governance and the AI Workbench: A Strategic PerspectiveFrom AI coding tools to an enterprise AI organizational operating system: how Harness brings tasks, permissions, data, verification, and accountability together into a unified workbench.Consumers & Brands
Changes in consumer agency, identity narratives, and brand relationships—and how brands can rebuild reasons to buy.
CON-01
Why do consumers increasingly reject being defined by brands?
Best current answerIt's Not That Products Stopped Selling — Consumers No Longer Accept Being DefinedThe consumption slump is not merely a purchasing-power problem. It is a collective reappraisal of old brand narratives by consumers who have reclaimed the right to interpret, the right to choose, and the right to walk away.CON-02
What right is actually shifting beneath so-called self-pleasing consumption?
Best current answerConsumers Aren't Just 'Treating Themselves' — They're Reclaiming the Right to Define Who They AreToday's shift in consumption is not merely about self-indulgence: consumers are using choices, experiences, and narratives to take back the right to define their own identity.CON-03
How do agency, situations, jobs, categories, and brand personality relate?
Best current answerAgency, Jobs, and Brand Personality: Reconnecting the Logic of FMCG ConsumptionAgency is not another emotional need but the right to rank jobs; situations trigger jobs, categories provide solutions, and brand roles and personalities provide a relational answer.CON-04
How can a brand turn a new narrative into product, channel, and organizational action?
Best current answerWhen Consumers Have the Final Say, What Should Brands Actually Do?When consumers hold the power to interpret, to choose, and to walk away, brands must turn their new narrative into products, channels, incentives, and organizational action.Business & Retail
Profit, channels, supply chains, and retail structures—and the mechanisms that truly create value and cash flow.
BUS-01
Why does sales growth not necessarily produce profit growth?
Best current answerSelling More Doesn't Mean Earning More: How to Calculate True Gross MarginSales revenue and book gross margin cannot tell you whether a deal is worth doing. Only by factoring in direct operating costs can you see the real operating contribution a product actually leaves behind.BUS-02
What is retail fundamentally about?
Best current answerMost Salespeople Don't Understand RetailIn an era of shrinking demand, sales can no longer just chase distribution coverage — it must shift from shelf-space thinking to understanding store scenarios, assortment logic, and real sell-through.BUS-03
What irreplaceable value can intermediaries retain in the platform and AI era?
Best current answerThe Evolution and Future of Intermediaries in the Third Consumer EraA comparative study of FMCG in China, the United States, and Japan to understand how intermediaries evolve in the third consumer era.BUS-04
How should a distributor structure the first 90 days of AI adoption?
Best current answerA 90-Day Roadmap for Distributors to Put AI to WorkDistributors don't need to wait for perfect conditions to adopt AI, nor can they roll out every use case at once. This is a 90-day path from a single task to a role, a process, and scaled replication.Technology & Society
Using technological history to understand how general-purpose technologies migrate scarcity, reshape power, and offer testable analogies for the AI era.
TECH-01
Do technological revolutions eliminate scarcity or move it elsewhere?
Best current answerThe Migration of ScarcityTechnological revolutions do not eliminate scarcity; they move value from old bottlenecks to new complements and capabilities.TECH-02
Why do incumbent organizations miss a new paradigm that is already visible?
Best current answerThe Red Flag Act: How an Empire Gave Away the FutureBritain’s early automobile regulation shows how institutions protecting old interests can make a leading nation surrender the next industrial revolution.TECH-03
When everything can be synthesized, who will price authenticity?
Best current answerThe Fourth Test: When Everything Can Be Synthesized, Who Prices Reality?When generative technology makes fabrication cheaper than reality, accountable trust, verification, and provenance become the new scarcity.TECH-04
How can a company tell whether its processes still serve an old scarcity?
Best current answerThe Steam-Engine Layout ChecklistThe real test of AI adoption is not tool procurement, but whether workflows are still designed around yesterday’s scarcity.Life & Thinking
Life stages, agency, and methods of thought: how people choose, model, and act after seeing the limits of inherited narratives.
LIFE-01
Why can midlife become a person’s second adulthood?
Best current answerWhy Midlife Can Be a Second AdulthoodThe deeper midlife crisis is often not a shortage of stimulation but the failure of an inherited life narrative; a second adulthood begins when we choose the rest of life for ourselves.LIFE-02
Is midlife boredom a shortage of stimulation or a crisis of meaning?
Best current answerWhy Midlife Can Be a Second AdulthoodThe deeper midlife crisis is often not a shortage of stimulation but the failure of an inherited life narrative; a second adulthood begins when we choose the rest of life for ourselves.LIFE-03
How can anomalies, analogies, and intuition be compressed into a useful model?
Best current answerMy Thinking Method: Go Upstairs, Compress the Structure, Then Return DownstairsStart from anomalies, find underlying variables and cross-domain structures, compress them into a model, and return to action—while using falsification, boundaries, and evidence to control elegant theories.LIFE-04