CEO and mother of seven, the author of a recent essay in EuroHerald, has adopted a modest yet deliberate routine: each day she makes a single, unrecorded telephone call. The purpose is not convenience but discipline, she must recall the conversation, identify its themes and summarise it for her AI assistants without the safety net of an automatic transcript.
The habit in practice
Unlike a Zoom or Teams meeting, the call is analog, leaving no digital record. After hanging up, she reconstructs the dialogue from memory, noting nuances, pauses and what was left unsaid. Only then does she feed a summary to her AI tools. This forces her to stay fully present, exercising a cognitive muscle she fears might atrophy as AI takes over routine note-taking.
Why it matters
The practice emerges from a broader anxiety about the "doom-and-hype" cycle surrounding AI. On one side, the technology is hailed as a new industrial revolution; on the other, it is portrayed as a job-destroying menace. By insisting on a daily analog interaction, the CEO seeks a middle path that preserves human judgement, deep listening and the ability to detect hesitation or hidden meaning, skills that machines still struggle to replicate.
She draws a parallel with the novel Yesteryear, which juxtaposes extreme life narratives for women. The story's lesson, that extremes are rarely sustainable, mirrors her own view that balanced, intentional habits can temper the polarising narratives around AI.
"I don't want AI to think for me," her 19-year-old daughter Sofia wrote in a companion essay.
The two essays, published side by side in EuroHerald, highlighted the generational contrast: the daughter's scepticism versus the mother's optimism. The CEO's reflection shifts the focus from macro-economic forecasts to personal cognitive resilience.
What comes next
Looking ahead, the executive plans to keep the daily call as a non-negotiable anchor in her schedule. She hopes the habit will inspire other leaders to embed similar analog checkpoints, ensuring that human listening remains a core component of decision-making even as AI tools become more pervasive.
In a world where every meeting can be recorded and analysed, the simple act of dialing a number and relying on memory may become a quiet form of resistance, a way to keep the most human part of communication alive.