AI Can’t Touch This: Why Taste Matters Even More Now

Think about your favorite piece of technology. Maybe it’s your iPhone. Would it still be your favorite if it did the same things but looked like a Motorola Flipout?

Now, think about your favorite marketing campaign. Mine is Patek Philippe’s iconic ad: “You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely hold onto it for the next generation.” Would anyone remember it if the tagline had been watered down to, “Patek: A watch your kids will want someday”?

In both cases, the magic came down to choices. Apple and Patek made the right ones. But for every Apple and Patek, there are countless Jaguar’s – brands that made choices destined to end up in the graveyard of irrelevance.

So, what separates the great from the forgettable? Taste, which as Paul Graham puts it, is the ability to tell the difference between good and bad.

And this ability commands a new premium today. Why? Because AI is redefining the value of a knowledge worker. It’s automating the tedious tasks we’ve spent hours on and generating insights and options at a speed that feels almost magical. In this new world, a knowledge worker’s value will lie in doing what AI still can’t—deciding, from a sea of possibilities, which one to pursue.

Till now, taste has felt like an art—something innate, possessed by a few, and hard to explain. But as its importance grows, we need to ask: can taste be developed intentionally, like any other skill?

Taste: The Critical Factor
When most people think about taste, they think of art, food, fashion, or music. Push them to consider taste in business, and they’ll point to design or product.

They’re not wrong—but they’re missing the bigger picture.

Taste shapes every decision we make. The problem a company decides to solve. The values it champions. The structure it adopts. The tagline it crafts. All of these require judgment, and taste is the filter through which these decisions pass.

Here’s the challenge: these choices don’t exist in a vacuum—they impact employees, customers, and the brand itself. Getting them right requires balancing empathy with a clear point of view—a combination that confuses most. The leaders who consistently strike this balance, and make the right calls, are the ones with taste in spades.

For those who do, here’s the good news: in the age of AI, taste is the critical filter that turns data into meaningful experiences. But as taste becomes more valuable, we can no longer leave it to instinct or chance.

Instead, taste must transform from a mysterious art into a teachable, scalable skill.

Exposure + Curiosity
I’m no expert in taste development, and I’m not sure anyone truly is right now. But solving new problems starts with talking to people smarter than you. So this weekend, I turned to the Topline Slack channel.

What we landed on was this: depth and breadth of exposure are the foundation of developing taste.

Depth matters because you can’t tell good from bad if your understanding is surface level. If the only art you’ve seen is what hung in your childhood home, how much can you really know?

Breadth is equally important. It provides context and fosters metaphorical thinking. People with great taste often have diverse interests and draw from them to form a unique yet relatable point of view.

But exposure alone isn’t enough. Without curiosity, it’s just noise. Curiosity fuels reflection, empathy, and the ability to nurture a distinct perspective. Exposure is the vehicle; curiosity is the fuel.

We also discussed how pivotal moments in life often have an outsized impact on the taste a person develops, and how great taste requires both humility and confidence—humility to learn and evolve, and confidence to trust your judgment.

Interestingly, technical expertise isn’t necessarily linked to great taste. Rick Rubin, who can’t play a single instrument, has produced some of the greatest music of our time.

How do we tie all this together to help people develop taste? Will organizations build this internally, or will we rely on third parties? Is it even solvable—or does the rising importance of taste simply give those who already have it a bigger edge?

I don’t know the answers yet, but I’m confident they’re not far off. In the meantime, I’ll be placing even greater importance on ensuring that the people we hire have good taste.