2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) are rapidly becoming essential business tools, but their collective impact on engineering firms is yet to be determined. Whereas AI and GAI are best suited for the technical domain – in which the laws of nature underlying math, physics, and chemistry – can be reduced to complicated but calculable formulas, all organizations emerge out of the complex, social domain – in which social regularities constantly change due to the often unpredictable phenomenon of “emergence.” This project investigates the question, “What principles should leaders in engineering firms privilege to amplify the positive benefits of AI and AGI as tools while guarding against their destructive effects as agents of emergence?” The project first explores the Cynefin Framework to demonstrate the theoretical application of AI and AGI in both the closed systems and open systems contexts. Second, the project highlights the social science of organizations as open, complex adaptive systems, with an emphasis on the effects of emergence on organizations and their operating environments. Third, insights from the business leadership, organizational psychology and social physical literatures are applied to the potential impacts of AI and AGI on engineering firms in order to determine key principles for incorporating them during this initial period of technological innovation. It concludes with recommendations for future research.