Audacity as a method.

MIT Technology Review closes 2026 with an issue titled Impossible. Corinne Iozzio, the print magazine’s new editorial director, introduces it with a word I really liked: audacity.

She describes herself as a “systems thinker” who tells herself no too often. As soon as she has an idea, she puts together a feasibility assessment, a timeline, a budget. And she admits that sometimes you need to stop holding yourself back and do the thing.

Anyone working in strategic consulting knows this tension well. Our job is to say honestly what is mature and what is not. But the opposite risk is just as real: an analysis so cautious that it never identifies the right moment to act.

A thermometer from 0 to 10

At the heart of the issue is a special report, Are we there yet?, which places six technologies that have been “on their way for years” on a progress scale from 0 (“we don’t know where to start”) to 10 (“we’ve made it”).

None is at zero, and none is at ten. I find this the most useful message: almost everything that matters lies somewhere in the middle. In that middle ground, decisions are made not with a yes or a no, but with a how and a when.

Two lessons from the special report

The first comes from solid-state batteries, the most advanced technology in the group. Companies are adopting a playbook borrowed from nuclear fusion: starting with high-margin, low-volume niche markets, such as aviation and defense, to fund development and move down the cost curve. It is a market entry strategy that applies to many emerging technologies, including AI.

The second comes from road safety. Hoboken, New Jersey, has had no traffic fatalities since 2017. The result comes not from a miraculous technology but from a combination of familiar, inexpensive measures. A municipal official says: “It’s like selling insurance.” Prevention is difficult to sell because its success is an event that does not happen. Anyone working with public administration knows this well.

Curiosity and humility

In the same issue, Grace Huckins encourages us to remain curious about AI and avoid prematurely closing off questions such as “does it understand?” or “does it think?” Huckins does not argue that AI is conscious. The argument is that ruling it out with certainty would first require knowing what consciousness is, and we do not. The AI Hype Index at the end provides an ironic counterpoint: luxury retreats for influencers and AI lab leaders all calling, together, for a slowdown.

Between the enthusiasm of hype and skepticism on principle, there is a space. It is the space for serious assessment.