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You can’t put your feet on the ground until you’ve touched the sky.

This was hanging in my hotel lobby in NYC while I’m here for CMA. Great event.

Why did that image stop me?
Because it reminded me that change is not easy. It’s freaking hard. Reaching for the sky is tiring, frustrating, and can just drain the life out of you. I don’t do this because it’s fun, or because I like the challenge. I do it because I know that if we aren’t pushing to be better and do better, we ultimately become irrelevant.

I think this is important for the community industry right now.

Our industry has to adapt to the impact of AI, and fast.

Community is going through a new phase. Actually, I think it’s entering a third phase. Here are the first two:

Phase 1: Community platforms helped people connect, ask questions, and share expertise.

Phase 2: Community platforms became systems of record for knowledge, engagement, and customer interactions.

So far, so good.

But here’s the problem with Phase 2: AI is going to eat community’s lunch if that’s where we stay.

If community is built to be a record of knowledge, AI is getting better every day at surfacing knowledge faster. If community is built around customer interactions, how many of those interactions are already being handled by bots every day?

So here comes Phase 3. This is the “reach for the sky” phase.

Phase 3: Community platforms become agent-ready systems of action, where humans and agents work together to grow, support, and activate the community.

This is not about adding AI to community.

It is about the transformation of community itself.

This is what I’m working toward. This is how we continue to be the trust engine for brands. We use agents to grow human-to-human engagement, not replace it.

We have to reach for the sky, and do it fast, so we can land on our feet and embrace the next phase of our journey.