Ben Goertzel, CEO of the decentralized AI marketplace SingularityNET, predicts that artificial intelligence will surpass human strategic thinking capabilities within just two years. Speaking at Consensus Hong Kong, Goertzel stated that while his project, Quantium, can predict short-term Bitcoin (BTC) volatility with high accuracy, long-term strategic thinking remains a uniquely human domain—but not for long. "The human brain is better at taking the imaginative leap to understand the unknown," he said, adding, "We should enjoy it for a couple more years."
Goertzel framed this timeline as a roadmap for integrating SingularityNET's decentralized AI with the broader blockchain ecosystem. He views the current crypto bear market as a "stress test" for the infrastructure that will eventually host artificial general intelligence (AGI). He noted a palpable shift in industry energy from speculative hype to technological utility, with a growing focus on integrating decentralized finance (DeFi) with traditional financial systems.
In a contrasting view on AI's practical impact, Joe Ngai, chairman of McKinsey Greater China, revealed that despite widespread experimentation, only 5% of companies see AI improving their profits. Ngai told the same conference that while 98% of executives report implementing some AI, less than 20% deploy it at scale. He argued the primary bottleneck is not technology but organizational design and legacy corporate structures.
Ngai highlighted a different, more pragmatic approach in China, where a decade of digitization has created greater receptiveness to "agentic" AI and robotics. He predicts a coming "robot dividend" for China, potentially deploying more robots than humans to offset demographic decline. Ngai described 2026 as being defined by the twin forces of geopolitical uncertainty and rapid technological acceleration.
