What is Co-Intelligence about?

Co-Intelligence is Ethan Mollick's argument that large language models represent something genuinely new — not a search engine, not a simple automation tool — and that the right response is not fear or hype but active, informed experimentation. Mollick, a Wharton professor who has spent years integrating AI tools into his courses and research, writes from accumulated hands-on experience rather than theoretical prediction.

The book's central framing is the "jagged frontier": AI is not uniformly capable. It performs extraordinarily well on some tasks (drafting, brainstorming, explaining, coding at a certain level) and surprisingly poorly on others (math at a certain complexity, tasks requiring current factual accuracy, anything requiring embodied judgment). Most people don't know where their own tasks fall on that frontier, and most predictions about AI's impact ignore it. Mollick's practical advice is to try things systematically rather than assume.

A large part of the book is about working with AI rather than merely using it. Mollick describes treating the AI as a colleague — a strange one with unlimited patience and no ego — and adjusting your own thinking accordingly. He is candid about the risks: AI systems hallucinate, they can be confidently wrong, and they subtly shape the work they assist with in ways the user may not notice. The solution is not to avoid the tool but to develop critical AI literacy: the ability to evaluate outputs, spot errors, and use the collaboration without offloading judgment entirely.

Mollick is skeptical of both utopian and dystopian framings. He doesn't predict that AI will eliminate most jobs, nor does he dismiss the disruption. His argument is that the people who adapt early and thoughtfully will have a substantial advantage, and that waiting for the technology to stabilize before engaging is itself a costly choice. Co-Intelligence is practical, honest about uncertainty, and considerably more nuanced than most of the AI commentary published around the same time.