Why This Project Exists
You know the tension.
Industrial leaders across Europe are told to transform — embrace AI, accelerate digitalization, adopt new energy systems, automate processes. The pace is relentless. The buzzwords multiply faster than understanding.
But here is what rarely gets said: technology is the easy part.
The hard part is keeping people at the center. Preserving expertise while embracing change. Making strategic decisions with incomplete information. Navigating quarterly pressure while building long-term capability. Leading transformation without losing the very humanity that makes organizations work.
This laboratory exists because that conversation — the honest, nuanced, field-grounded one — happens too rarely in public.
Why now?
Because AI has shifted from theory to implementation. Because the energy transition is no longer optional. Because European industry faces questions of sovereignty, resilience, and reinvention that demand clear thinking, not pre-packaged frameworks.
We need spaces where practitioners can think out loud, share what actually works (and what does not), and explore complexity without pretending it is simple.
This is one of those spaces.
Who Is Behind This
I am Jérémy Dupont.
I have spent over a decade working across European industry — from highly technical engineering environments in aerospace, to operational challenges in manufacturing automation, to strategic roles managing innovation and performance across multiple industrial sites.
That journey taught me something crucial: industries differ, but the human challenges of transformation remain remarkably similar. The gap between strategy and execution. The tension between short-term results and long-term investment. The difficulty of preserving tacit expertise while adopting new technologies.
What shapes my perspective:
I have worked in design offices and on shop floors. I have managed technical teams and sat in strategic committees. I have implemented R&D programs, navigated fiscal compliance, partnered with academic institutions, and fought to justify innovation budgets in resource-constrained environments.
I have seen transformation projects succeed brilliantly and fail spectacularly — often for reasons that had very little to do with the technology itself.
My focus areas:
AI integration in industrial strategy (beyond the hype), energy transition as a competitive lever, innovation management in constrained environments, and preservation of human expertise while embracing automation.
But more fundamentally: how European industry can build resilience, sovereignty, and a sustainable future by combining technology, human ingenuity, and honest strategic thinking.
A European perspective:
I write from a European industrial context — with its specific regulations, social models, approach to technology, and strategic challenges. Not startup mythology. Not imported corporate templates. But the lived reality of industrial transformation in France, Germany, and beyond.
What I Believe
Technology is a tool, not destiny.
AI, automation, and digital systems are extraordinarily powerful. But they do not dictate outcomes. Human judgment, strategic choices, organizational culture, and implementation quality determine whether technology creates value or becomes an expensive disappointment.
Management is fundamentally human work.
The best strategies fail without buy-in. The smartest technologies fail without adoption. Transformation succeeds or fails based on human factors: trust, communication, expertise preservation, change management, cultural alignment.
Technology should serve people and enable leadership, not replace thoughtful decision-making.
Complexity deserves respect.
Industrial transformation is not solved by three-step frameworks. Every organization has unique constraints, cultures, and contexts. What worked brilliantly in one setting may fail in another.
Honest practitioners admit uncertainty, share failures, and acknowledge trade-offs. That is not weakness — it is intellectual honesty.
Hype cycles are exhausting.
Every few years, new buzzwords promise revolutionary change. Many deliver incremental improvement. Some deliver nothing. A few genuinely matter.
The hard part is distinguishing signal from noise while you are inside the hype cycle. That requires field experience, critical thinking, and the courage to say “this does not work yet” when everyone else is selling certainty.
European industry has unique strengths.
Deep technical expertise. Strong social contracts. Long-term thinking. Commitment to sustainability. These are not weaknesses to overcome — they are competitive advantages to build upon.
The path forward is not copying someone else’s model. It is leveraging what makes European industry distinctive while embracing necessary change.
How This Laboratory Works
A human-centered experiment in human–AI collaboration.
Every article on this site is the result of a dialogue between a human voice and one or several AI systems. The human side brings context, experience, constraints, doubts, and a critical point of view. The AI side helps organize, structure, challenge, and enrich that thinking.
The goal is not to delegate thinking to machines. The goal is to show how AI can help humans think better — more clearly, more broadly, with more angles considered — without replacing human responsibility for judgment and meaning.
The process in simple terms:
- I start from real questions, field situations, tensions, and strategic dilemmas drawn from industrial life.
- I outline the core idea, stake out a position, and define what matters and what does not.
- AI systems help me test assumptions, explore alternate perspectives, connect distant topics, and surface angles I might miss alone.
- I then edit, refine, cut, and reframe until the result feels honest, useful, and intellectually coherent.
The final responsibility always remains human: for what is said, what is left unsaid, and the position taken.
Why this matters.
If AI is going to be integrated into industrial decision-making, management, and strategy, we need concrete, visible examples of what “human-centered AI” actually looks like in practice. This laboratory aims to be one of these examples.
Here, AI is not a hidden ghostwriter. It is an explicit partner in the creative process — a tool for amplification and clarification, not a substitute for experience or accountability.
Slow content, deep thinking.
This is not a daily blog chasing algorithms. Articles appear when there is something worth saying. Each piece aims for depth over breadth, nuance over certainty, substance over buzzwords.
I would rather publish one reflection that changes how you see a problem than ten posts you scroll past without noticing.
Multi-format by design.
Text is the backbone, but not the only form. Articles can lead to audio versions, talks, or visual frameworks when it makes sense. The point is not the format itself — the point is to make ideas accessible to people who think and work in different ways.
Who This Is For
You are probably:
- a manager or director navigating industrial transformation — operations, innovation, strategy, or some combination of the three;
- someone with technical depth and strategic responsibility, bridging the gap between shop floor reality and executive expectations;
- based in Europe (or working with European industrial contexts), dealing with specific regulatory, cultural, and strategic constraints;
- tired of consultant platitudes and looking for substance: field experience over frameworks, honest failures over polished success stories.
You recognize these challenges:
- balancing quarterly pressure with long-term transformation;
- justifying innovation investment with uncertain ROI;
- preserving tacit expertise while adopting new technologies;
- translating between technical teams and executive committees;
- making strategic decisions with incomplete information;
- leading change without losing organizational humanity.
You value:
Critical thinking over hype. Complexity over simplification. Honesty over marketing. Substance over buzzwords. European context over imported templates.
If that resonates, this laboratory is for you.
What We Are Building Here
An experimental space.
This is not a finished product. It is an ongoing exploration of how humans and AI can collaborate to produce high-quality strategic thinking. The format will evolve. Contributors will join. Experiments will be tried, some successful, some not.
A community of thought.
Not a community in the social media sense of followers and reactions. A quieter community — people who care about the same questions, who may disagree on answers but share a respect for complexity and a desire to think seriously.
A proof of concept.
A proof that human-centered AI is possible. That slow, reflective content still has value in a fast, shallow environment. That European industrial thought leadership does not have to copy anyone else’s narrative.
An invitation to dialogue.
The best thinking happens in conversation, not monologue. I learn as much from readers as from writing. If these reflections spark thoughts, challenges, or experiences worth sharing, let’s connect.
Let’s Continue This Conversation
Follow the laboratory:
→ LinkedIn Page – Latest articles, reflections, and discussions.
Read the reflections:
→ All Articles – Browse by theme or chronology.
Connect directly:
→ LinkedIn Profile – For substantive exchanges and dialogue.
Learn about contributors:
→ Contributors – Who creates this content and how.
This laboratory was founded in 2025. It is an experiment in transparent human–AI collaboration, slow strategic thinking, and honest industrial dialogue. We are building it as we go. If you are curious, join us.