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Every journey begins with a single step. But in the budding era of interactive gaming, it can start with a single text message. Thats precisely how my playthrough of The Operative, a brand-new experience from gaming startup Operative Games, began. I was told that the game would be unlike anything Ive experienced before, and that was a fair assessment. While I do occasionally fire up my Xbox, or set up a board game like Risk, I wouldnt call myself a gamer by any stretch. But I do have a fairly good sense of what a game is or can be. That was the entire goal of the games creators, too. Operative Games describes itself as an interactive storytelling company, led by some industry heavyweights: CEO Jon Snoddy, who previously served as Disney’s head of research and development, and COO Jon Kraft, who was the founding CEO of Pandora Media. And after literal decades of waiting for the technology to catch up to their concepts for interactive games, generative AI is allowing their visions to come to fruition. Thats how I ended up being pulled into The Operative. [Image: Operative Games] A playthrough of ‘The Operative’ The Operative is a gaming experience unlike any Ive had before. The closest thing I can equate it to is an escape roomwithout spoiling too much, there are clues to track down, questions to ask and answer, and lots of text messages to send and phone calls to field. As such, I set aside an hour to play it, and when I was ready, shot off a text to a number supplied by Operative Games. Then, I was off to the races. I immediately received a phone call from a character named Enyaall of the characters in the game are generated by artificial intelligencewho initiated the story. The game is, in essence, a role-playing game, and one that you, the player, are sucked into. You meet characters, have actual conversations with themvia phone calls, text messages, and even on Zoom callsand they respond accordingly, helping you push the narrative forward. And yes, the characters do get on Zoom calls. I had a couple of back-and-forths with an animated character named Daniel who was Zooming me from the backseat of a virtual Uber. Again, Im familiar with dialogue in games. Ive played a lot of Fallout, Assassins Creed, and othersgames in which you interact with non-playable characters and choose dialogue prompts to carry on conversations. The most interesting aspect about The Operative, and other forthcoming Operative Games releases, is that there are no promptsyou actually converse with characters, and they respond in kind. For example, Daniel was asking me about myself, and I decided to try and throw him for a loop by assuming the role of Fox Mulder (from The X-Files), throwing out references to ufology and other bizarre commentary. But Daniel took it in stride, noting that ufology was an interesting, if sort of wacky, field. I continued to play until time ran out, completing roughly a chapter and a half of the 12-chapter experience. It was fun, interesting, and above all, engaging. In my opinion, Snoddy and Kraft have been able to create a completely new experience, and one that requires no console, TV, computer, or controlleronly a smartphoneto enjoy. Operative Games: A genie in a bottle Snoddy says that as he was working at Disney, he was always thinking about new forms of interactive entertainment and wanted to tell a nonlinear story in which players are active participants. The seed of the idea for Operative Games was planted in the early 1990s, during the production of the Disney animated feature film Aladdin. Snoddy says he was watching an animator working on drawings for the Genie character in that film, making faces and movements in a mirror and then working on the animations. I was watching him and observing the way he would look in the mirror and draw a face, Snoddy says. Hed look at the video of voice actors doing the characterand I had this picture in my head, an epiphany, that what these artists do is encode humanity into this thing, what theyre creating. Writers do it. Filmmakers do it. I had this notion that when Im looking at a screen, Im looking back at the people who created it, he added. So the idea was formulated as a whole world of characters, and a system that lets you interact with them, according to Snoddy, “but this was long before we had the technology to do it. At some point, he started discussing the idea with Kraft, with whom he was a longtime collaborator. They talked about it for years, but to make it work the way the two envisionedwith truly interactive characters, who could respond to anything a player said to themvoice actors would need to record tens, if not thousands of pre-scripted lines. And the system would need to be able to call those lines up as needed, on the fly. It simply wouldnt work. In the mid-2000s, Kraft, who was working with a company that he cofounded called Big Stage Entertainment, started to see a glimmer of the technology they needed. From there, Snoddy and Kraft would bounce ideas off one another, and keep a close eye on the technology and toolswhich were evolving, but werent quite where they needed to be to create a fully interactive game. But in the past few years, with the advent of accessible and widespread generative AI, it finally happened. Large language models, or LLMs, allowed for language and dialogue generation in real time, so that characters could respond to players directly. Animations, too. Add in smartphones, texting, and video calls? All of the ingredients were finally there, and in 2023, Snoddy and Kraft dropped what they were doing and focused on building Operative Games full-time. Putting Operative Games into operation The pair have surrounded themselves with some top-shelf talent from Hollywood and other industries. They have writers who have helped develop TV shows such as Jack Ryan. And they have decades of experience, along with some capital, to help them figure out whats next. Last year, Operative Games raised $4.45 million in a seed round led by 1AM Gaming, according to the company. PitchBook estimated a post-money valuation of $22 million. The company’s key active investors also include Samsung Next Ventures, Long Journey Ventures, and Principal Venture Partners. As a business model, Kraft saysthe company is trying to keep it simplewe think of our games as somewhere between a video game and a television series. What are the models that work in those worlds? The easiest answer appears to be a subscription model, or something similarthough thats yet to be decided. A subscription model could work as such: Players subscribe to a game (or collection of games), and pay for a season, like they would a TV show. When new seasons, episodes, or chapters are released, theyre able to play them immediately. And access for prospective players is another advantage that Operatives offering has over other types of games. “Players dont need anything, Kraft notes. Theres nothing to download. No console. You start by calling a phone number. As mentioned, all you need is a smartphone. Thats it, Kraft says. You reach out to a character, you have a real conversation, they draw you into their problem or situation, explain why they need help, and all of a sudden, youre connected and drawn in. For gamers who are increasingly concerned about the price of games growing to around $80, and tariffs potentially affecting the price of consoles, that can be welcome news. The next level? The Operative is the companys first game, too, and was created in-house. But other intellectual properties and franchises could be used to create new games in the futureand those conversations have already started. Its definitely in our future, Snoddy says. Operative Games plans a broader rollout of The Operative later this year, with much more to come soon after that. We have so many stories to tell, says Snoddy. Weve been talking about narrative and interactivity coming together, and have had a lot of great games in the past that have been linear-cutscene-linear-gameplay.” He adds, “Were not going to replace those games, but were going to open a whole new window into what games are and can be.
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E-Commerce
The sound of crickets isnt always a sign of a peaceful night; sometimes, its the deafening silence of unasked questions in a virtual meeting, or an email left unread in an overflowing inbox. Especially as hybrid and remote work become the norm, communication silos are quietly eroding company culture, stalling execution, and capping growth. A 2024 report reveals that miscommunication costs companies with 100 employees an average of $420,000 per year. This is the why arent we working moment. Ive spent years observing how companies thrive or falter, and its clear that communication isnt a soft skill, but a strategic system. The next generation of high-performing executives will stand out by communicating clearly, consistently, and across every level of the organization. Here are five strategies to transform your communication and scale your company culture: 1. TREAT COMMUNICATION AS A TWO-WAY SYSTEM Many leaders view communication as a one-way street: I have the idea, we have the plan, now we just have to cascade it down. However, this top-down approach misses a crucial opportunity, especially in larger organizations where people can easily get bombarded with information. When messages are constantly flowing downward, it becomes difficult for employees to discern whats a priority to read, leading to important information getting lost. Instead, you should rethink communication as a two-way system. This means creating space for questions and input from your team regarding the information being shared. For instance, rather than just sending out a weekly division email with mandatory and optional reads, actively solicit feedback or hold quick discussions in weekly team meetings to ensure key information is understood and to create a dialogue around it. This shift from a purely distributive model to an interactive one ensures that your communication is processed, understood, and acted upon. 2. CHALLENGE THE TOP-DOWN MINDSET IN HYBRID ENVIRONMENTS Most companies falter in scaling culture in hybrid or remote environments by relying solely on a top-down approach. The assumption is often that those in management positions have the best ideas for keeping everyone informed. However, in a remote setting, this often translates to an overreliance on written communication like emails and chat channels, leading to less verbal communication and actual interaction. Instead of dictating, actively seek input from your teams on what information they want, the preferred cadence, and how to best share it in a distributed environment. Continuously check in with your team about whats working and what could be better regarding communication strategies. What works today might not be effective next month, so being willing to adapt and evolve your approach is crucial for sustained growth. 3. BUILD CONNECTION TO BREAK DOWN SILOS The most damaging communication silos emerge when people arent connected, a problem exacerbated in remote environments. To dismantle these silos, build connection directly into your team processes. Start by involving and engaging team members in the hiring process of their peers, which is a foundational step toward creating relationships and making communication easier. If a position youre hiring interacts with another department, include someone from that team in the hiring process. Youre building connection and communication from the start. Beyond hiring, work with your team to identify and establish clear expectations for how youll work together, support one another, and communicate. These team agreements should be collaborative guidelines that foster commitment and ownership because the team themselves generated the ideas. For instance, a team agreement could be to go direct when issues arise, preventing festering problems and encouraging proactive, respectful dialogue to gain clarity or get things back on track. 4. EMBRACE TRANSPARENCY, ESPECIALLY DURING TOUGH TIMES Effective communication built on trust and transparency can lead to remarkable outcomes, even in the face of significant challenges. We once worked with a client that had fostered a culture of high performance, characterized by open, two-way communication and a belief in their team members capabilities. When they lost a major customer, facing the need to reduce costs quickly without layoffs, they mobilized cross-functional teams involving employees from all levels, from senior leadership to production line workers. Within 60 days, these teams identified over a million dollars in cost savings. This success significantly boosted morale and financial gains. Employees felt empowered and excited by their collective contribution, asking, Whats our next goal? This example highlights how transparent communicationespecially when delivering tough newsand actively involving employees in finding solutions can galvanize a workforce and lead to both execution gains and enhanced morale. 5. ASK MORE OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS The most impactful communication habit you should adopt is simple: Ask questions. Encourage your direct reports to ask their teams questions like, What are we doing to improve communication within our group? or What ideas do your teams have for ways to improve communication? This approach signals the importance of communication as a strategic element and encourages a different kind of thinking and action within teams. After all, people typically do what they are asked about. Open-ended questions are particularly effective as they prompt deeper thought and allow for a broader exploration of ideas, helping you paint a bigger picture of your vision when clarifying questions arise. This fosters a more engaged, two-way conversation that leads to greater commitment and better solutions from your teams. By approaching communication as a two-way street, challenging top-down norms, and asking strategic questions, you can empower your teams and ensure your culture thrives, no matter how much your organization scales.
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E-Commerce
If you ask a calculator to multiply two numbers, it multiplies two numbers: end of story. It doesnt matter if youre doing the multiplication to work out unit costs, to perpetuate fraud, or to design a bombthe calculator simply carries out the task it has been assigned. Things arent always so simple with AI. Imagine your AI assistant decides that it doesnt approve of your companys actions or attitude in some area. Without consulting you, it leaks confidential information to regulators and journalists, acting on its own moral judgment about whether your actions are right or wrong. Science fiction? No. This kind of behavior has already been observed under controlled conditions with Anthropics Claude Opus 4, one of the most widely used generative AI models. The problem here isn’t just that an AI might “break” and go rogue; the danger of an AI taking matters into its own hands can arise even when the model is working as intended on a technical level. The fundamental issue is that advanced AI models don’t just process data and optimize operations. They also make choices (we might even call them judgments) about what they should treat as true, what matters, and what’s allowed. Typically, when we think of AIs alignment problem, we think about how to build AI that is aligned with the interests of humanity as a whole. But, as Professor Sverre Spoelstra and my colleague Dr. Paul Scade have been exploring in a recent research project, what Claudes whistleblowing demonstrates is a subtler alignment problem, but one that is much more immediate for most executives. The question for businesses is, how do you ensure that the AI systems you’re buying actually share your organization’s values, beliefs, and strategic priorities? Three Faces of Organizational Misalignment Misalignment shows up in three distinct ways. First, theres ethical misalignment. Consider Amazon’s experience with AI-powered hiring. The company developed an algorithm to streamline recruitment for technical roles, training it on years of historical hiring data. The system worked exactly as designedand that was the problem. It learned from the training data to systematically discriminate against women. The system absorbed a bias that was completely at odds with Amazons own stated value system, translating past discrimination into automated future decisions. Second, theres epistemic misalignment. AI models make decisions all the time about what data can be trusted and what should be ignored. But their standards for determining what is true wont necessarily align with those of the businesses that use them. In May 2025, users of xAI’s Grok began noticing something peculiar: the chatbot was inserting references to “white genocide” in South Africa into responses about unrelated topics. When pressed, Grok claimed that its normal algorithmic reasoning would treat such claims as conspiracy theories and so discount them. But in this case, it had been “instructed by my creators” to accept the white genocide theory as real. This reveals a different type of misalignment, a conflict about what constitutes valid knowledge and evidence. Whether Groks outputs in this case were truly the result of deliberate intervention or were an unexpected outcome of complex training interactions, Grok was operating with standards of truth that most organizations would not accept, treating contested political narratives as established fact. Third, theres strategic misalignment. In November2023, watchdog group MediaMatters claimed that Xs (formerly Twitter) adranking engine was placing corporate ads next to posts praising Nazism and white supremacy. While X strongly contested the claim, the dispute raised an important point. An algorithm that is designed to maximize ad views might choose to place ads alongside any highengagement content, undermining brand safety to achieve the goals of maximizing viewers that were built into the algorithm. This kind of disconnect between organizational goals and the tactics algorithms use in pursuit of their specific purpose can undermine the strategic coherence of an organization. Why Misalignment Happens Misalignment with organizational values and purpose can have a range of sources. The three most common are: Model design. The architecture of AI systems embeds philosophical choices at levels most users never see. When developers decide how to weight different factors, they’re making value judgments. A healthcare AI that privileges peer-reviewed studies over clinical experience embodies a specific stance about the relative value of formal academic knowledge versus practitioner wisdom. These architectural decisions, made by engineers who may never meet your team, become constraints your organization must live with. Training data. AI models are statistical prediction engines that learn from the data they are trained on. And the content of the training data means that a model may inherit a broad range of historical biases, statistically normal human beliefs, and culturally specific assumptions. Foundational instructions. Generative AI models are typically given a foundational set of prompts by developers that shape and constrain the outputs the models will give (often referred to as “system prompts” or “policy prompts” in technical documentation). For instance, Anthropic embeds a “constitution” in its models that requires the models to act in line with a specified value system. While the values chosen by the developers will normally aim at outcomes that they believe to be good for humanity, there is no reason to assume that a given company or business leader will agree with those choices. Detecting and Addressing Misalignment Misalignment rarely begins with headlinegrabbing failures; it shows up first in small but telling discrepancies. Look for direct contradictions and tonal inconsistenciesmodels that refuse tasks or chatbots that communicate in an off-brand voice, for instance. Track indirect patterns, such as statistically skewed hiring decisions, employees routinely correcting AI outputs, or a rise in customer complaints about impersonal service. At the systemic level, watch for growing oversight layers, creeping shifts in strategic metrics, or cultural rifts between departments running different AI stacks. Any of these are early red flags that an AI systems value framework may be drifting from your own. Four ways to respond Stresstest the model with valuebased redteam prompts. Take the model through deliberately provocative scenarios to surface hidden philosophical boundaries before deployment. strong>Interrogate your vendor. Request model cards, trainingdata summaries, safetylayer descriptions, update logs, and explicit statements of embedded values. Implement continuous monitoring. Set automated alerts for outlier language, demographic skews, and sudden metric jumps so that misalignment is caught early, not after a crisis. Run a quarterly philosophical audit. Convene a crossfunctional review team (legal, ethics, domain experts) to sample outputs, trace decisions back to design choices, and recommend course corrections. The Leadership Imperative Every AI tool comes bundled with values. Unless you build every model in-house from scratchand you wontdeploying AI systems will involve importing someone elses philosophy straight into your decisionmaking process or communication tools. Ignoring that fact leaves you with a dangerous strategic blind spot. As AI models gain autonomy, vendor selection becomes a matter of making choices about values just as much as about costs and functionality. When you choose an AI system, you are not just selecting certain capabilities at a specified price pointyou are importing a system of values. The chatbot you buy wont just answer customer questions; it will embody particular views about appropriate communication and conflict resolution. Your new strategic planning AI wont just analyze data; it will privilege certain types of evidence and embed assumptions about causation and prediction. So, choosing an AI partner means choosing whose worldview will shape daily operations. Perfect alignment may be an unattainable goal, but disciplined vigilance is not. Adapting to this reality means that leaders need to develop a new type of philosophical literacy: the ability to recognize when AI outputs reflect underlying value systems, to trace decisions back to their philosophical roots, and to evaluate whether those roots align with organizational purposes. Businesses that fail to embed this kind of capability will find that they are no longer fully in control of their strategy or their identity. This article develops insights from research being conducted by Professor Sverre Spoelstra, an expert on algorithmic leadership at the University of Lund and Copenhagen Business School, and my Shadoka colleague Dr. Paul Scade.
Category:
E-Commerce
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