1.6 The paradigm and the products

In everyday life. Streaming replaced video rental. That shift was real even while one service's app was buggy and another was not yet sold in your country.

This book's thesis is that the move from message to task to role is lasting. The products are less stable. Features arrive at different times, depending on plan, region and rollout stage. Some are previews, and names change.

So keep two questions apart. Is this a real shift in how work is done? That question belongs to the paradigm, and this book argues that it is. Can I use it today, on my plan, in my market? That question belongs to the dated boxes and the field guides.

Mixing them up causes two opposite errors. One is to dismiss the paradigm because a product is unfinished: "It's only a preview, so it doesn't matter." The other is to build on a product claim that is not yet true for you: "The launch post says it, so my client has it." You can avoid both.

Ask four questions about any announcement:

1. Which rung is it? Does it answer, complete a task, or hold a role?
2. Where does the work run, and where are results kept? Which environment, and which place you can name?
3. Who is it acting as? Your own login, or an identity of its own?
4. What is its status? Generally available, beta or preview, and on which plans and markets?

The third question points to the rest of the book. A task that acts as you is fine for personal work. A worker that does a business process needs its own identity, its own limits and a named human owner. When such a worker does the work of one full-time role, this book calls it a Digital FTE, short for full-time equivalent. And whatever the AI vendor supplies, the book's ownership rule stays true: The platforms are rented. The knowledge and the controls are yours.