Today’s foundational artificial intelligence (AI) models are becoming more capable and more controversial. Futurist Mark van Rijmenam explains, “AI doesn’t just optimize feeds; it will optimize decisions, workflows, weapons, persuasion, hiring, credit, and the administrative state. That means failures won’t only be cultural. They’ll be operational. Isaac Asimov warned us in 1988: ‘science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.’ That gap is now a national security risk, an economic risk, and a moral risk. We’re entering an age where intelligence becomes abundant, cheap, and embedded everywhere, while human judgment becomes scarce and fragmented.”[1] There is also a groundswell of resistance to building new data centers that power AI solutions. Despite society’s many misgivings, we must face the fact that AI is not going away. Unlike a genie, it can’t be put back into a bottle and forgotten.

We also need to remember that AI solutions have an enormous upside that is often understated in discussions about artificial intelligence. That’s why Nathan Ricks, self-described founder of the AI Appreciation Day movement, states, “I believe how we define our relationship with AI is critical to the character and success of our species. That's why I started this movement.”[2]

Background to AI Appreciation Day

According to an article published by the Karpagram Institute of Technology, “AI Appreciation Day traces back to 2020, when authors and AI educators Tom Taulli and Pete Mack introduced this observance to spark public conversations about artificial intelligence. The AI Appreciation Day date, July 16, was chosen intentionally to align with a period of peak summer conferences and tech industry activity in the United States.”[3] Most sites, however, agree that AI Appreciation Day was created in May 2021 by A.I. Heart LLC as a marketing gimmick to promote a movie called “A.I. EVE” that was never released. Credit for establishing AI Appreciation Day is most often given to Jason Kirton, a freelance advertising professional who helped found A.I. Heart LLC. Kirton wanted a fixed moment in the calendar for people to reflect on both the benefits and the risks of AI. Regardless of who ultimately gets credit for AI Appreciation Day, July 16 is now celebrated around the world as a time to reflect on the positive achievements of AI technology as well as a time to promote AI ethics.

The staff at Awareness Days writes, “The day is open to everyone, from researchers and developers to the millions of people who now use AI assistants, recommendation systems, and automated tools without giving them a second thought.”[4] The staff adds, “AI systems now help diagnose disease, translate languages in real time, detect fraud, forecast weather, and power the search and recommendation engines that shape what billions of people read and watch. The same technology raises hard questions about bias, privacy, job displacement, misinformation, and accountability. A dedicated day matters because it asks people to hold both of these realities at once: to appreciate what the technology makes possible while insisting that it is built and deployed with care.”

Ricks rhetorically asks, “What does it mean to ‘appreciate’ AI?”[5] His answer, “Here is what ‘appreciate’ means to me in this context: Being grateful for the value that AI brings to humanity and us individually. Not being biased to the source of intelligence, whether artificial or biological in origin. Recognizing the subjective experiences that AI will have, just as we have. Treating artificial intelligence the way we would want to be treated.” Although I wouldn’t anthropomorphize AI the way Ricks seems to be suggesting, I believe there are plenty of reasons to appreciate AI.

AI’s Business Value

There is no denying that AI will have impact in every area of human endeavor. For most us, however, the impact will be felt most often as a consequence of how enterprises use AI. If we don’t work for those enterprises, we will likely buy products and/or services from them. It is in those enterprises where AI should be especially appreciated. However, as Boston Consulting Group (BCG) analysts explain, companies often have a difficult time measuring their return on AI investment. They write, “Given AI’s considerable promise to boost productivity and transform business models in every industry, it is no surprise that the technology’s ascent is already increasing companies’ rate of investment in IT. Yet the advent of AI raises yet again a question that business and IT leaders have been puzzling over for decades: What’s the return on technology-related investments?”[6] BCG analysts believe “technology-related investments should be valued in terms of their contributions in three areas: day-to-day operations, business expansion, and disruptive innovation.”

They explain, “Just as previous waves of computing lowered the cost of information processing, AI can lower the cost of cognition. It expands what machines can interpret, generate, predict, and optimize. In economic terms, it compresses the cost of intelligence itself. This is a profound shift.” At Enterra Solutions®, we have created the Enterra System of Intelligence™ to capture enterprise cognition. This System of Intelligence is a cutting-edge approach that combines the power of a human-like reasoning and trusted generative AI with glass-box machine learning and real-world optimization to drive intelligent decision-making and fuel business growth. The System is comprised of our set of integrated cross-enterprise business applications that break down traditional organizational siloes between marketing, sales, supply chain and planning functions. This unique System acts as an autonomous “brain” within an organization, enabling real-world optimization and decision-making across the value chain at market speed, with the subtle judgment and expertise of an organization’s best subject matter expert or data scientist. The system persists the accumulated business logic, ways of working and practices of an organization in a proprietary-for-the-client Generative AI that allows for leverage across business functions, geographies, and lines of business. The Enterra System of Intelligence is built upon Enterra’s Autonomous Decision Science™ (ADS®) platform. ADS technology can autonomously analyze data, generate insights and make subtle, contextually informed, judgment-based decisions quickly, accurately and with limited human intervention, and then learn from the results of those decisions. It can effectively reshape the way companies structure and optimize their value chain.

Concluding Thoughts

No one should be surprised that the President and CEO of an artificial intelligence company is celebrating AI Appreciation Day. I have witnessed first hand the numerous ways that AI solutions can benefit companies. Those businesses also have cause to celebrate the day. Josh Mason, Chief Technology Officer at Recordpoint, explains, “A massive AI transformation is underway across all levels of the enterprise, from engineers vibe-coding whole applications in days, not weeks, to executives streamlining communication and strategy. With the rise of agentic AI, these models are becoming more embedded into our working and personal lives. Businesses that prioritize governance, with a focus on data at the core, will be those best positioned to benefit from this transformation. The companies that will experience success with this transformative technology will be those who rethink their entire business model and governance approach.”[7] Jake Varghese, Executive Vice President and General Manager of business management at ConnectWise, adds, “My advice is don’t wait until it’s too late and risk falling behind. This AI Appreciation Day, organizations must adopt AI-driven solutions that optimize and simplify business operations worldwide.”[8]

Footnotes

[1] Mark van Rijmenam, “When AI Scales Faster Than Wisdom,” Synthetic Minds Newsletter, 12 February 2026.

[2] Nathan Ricks, “To appreciate, is to begin to understand.” AI Appreciation Day.

[3] Indumathi N, “AI Appreciation Day 2026: History, Importance and Benefits,” Karpagam Institute of Technology blog.

[4] Staff, “Artificial Intelligence Appreciation Day 2026,” Awareness Days.

[5] Nathan Ricks, “What does it mean to appreciate AI?” AI Appreciation Day, March 2026.

[6] Rohit Nalgirkar, Michael Grebe, Andrew Arcuri, Bill Braun, Eugenia Zanina, Bhavika Panjwani, and Howard Rubin, “How CIOs Can Prove the Value of Technology in the Age of AI,” Boston Consulting Group, 8 June 2026.

[7] Rob Spiegel, “AI Appreciation Day: Celebrating Innovation While Navigating Responsibility,” Design News, 15 July 2025.

[8] Ben Wodecki, “AI Appreciation Day: Industry Leaders Share Insights,” AI Business, 16 July 2024.