From tool to stance, future perspectives with Lorenz Maschke

When Lorenz Maschke talks about Artificial Intelligence, technology is not the focus. The Head of Innovation, Digitalisation and Startups at the Chamber of Commerce Salzburg thinks of transformation as a permanent state, as constant change, and warns against understanding AI as a miracle machine.

“Without human expertise it won’t work. AI is not a problem-solver, it is a tool. And whoever applies tools wrongly causes damage.”

1. From fear to curiosity

Just two years ago, headlines about job loss, loss of control and loss of values dominated. Today Maschke senses something new in companies: curiosity. Entrepreneurs want to know how they can use AI beyond the familiar use cases. No longer whether, but for what.

That is a decisive shift. Because whoever is afraid seeks security. Whoever is curious seeks possibilities. Maschke describes this stance as the core competence of the future: the ability not to fight uncertainty, but to navigate it.

Transformation has not been here since yesterday, it is accelerating exponentially. In this environment, however, security unfortunately does not arise through control, but through clarity and orientation.

2. A Fool with a Tool is still a Fool

Maschke speaks plainly: the AI euphoria has a downside. Many use tools like ChatGPT without reflection, copy results, and sometimes even disclose confidential company data. In doing so, they confuse efficiency with thinking.

“If I use AI without knowing where I want to go, then that makes no sense.”

This stance has long been a topic in creative and knowledge work. “A Fool with a Tool is a Fool,” they say there, or more simply: “Crap in, Crap out.” Whoever thinks strategically, whoever prompts, checks, combines, creates real added value. Whoever only copies remains interchangeable.

Maschke draws the parallel to industrial history: from the typewriter to the computer it took decades, but the leaps of AI happen exponentially. Speed becomes a selection factor. Quality no longer arises through the possession of knowledge, but through how one handles it.

3. The new qualification shock

What is special about this revolution: it no longer affects only manual occupations, but academic ones too. Doctors, lawyers, analysts, their “black boxes” are being broken open by AI. What used to be specialist knowledge becomes a mass phenomenon.

Yet Maschke sees no threat in this, but rather an opportunity for strategic repositioning.

“Companies have to ask themselves: which processes can I sensibly accelerate, and which are better left human?”

The real challenge lies in integration, not in substitution. AI does not replace work, it shifts it. What remains is thinking, evaluating, shaping.

4. Data, the forgotten foundation

Among all the buzzwords of “prompt engineering” and “use cases,” Maschke reminds us of what many overlook: data.

“A sensible use of AI needs a clean data basis. Without consistent data I cannot expect consistent results.”

He names examples from Salzburg:

• Automated invoice recognition
• HR analyses
• Hotel communication software

These are all processes in which AI has long been quietly running along. The technology disappears into the surface, becomes self-evident, invisible. And precisely that harbors new risks. When users no longer understand how a system works, they lose the ability to control it.

5. Education as an economic factor

Maschke extends the line further: from the economy into education. Children and adolescents are technically far ahead of the adults. What they lack are the values that go along with usage.

“How they handle it responsibly, that is the point. Technically, you no longer need to tell them anything.”

The same applies in business. Companies do not need more information, but reflection. The Chamber of Commerce Salzburg therefore relies on programs like the “AI driving licence” from WIFI Salzburg: a strategic basic training that combines awareness-raising, data competence and ethical consciousness. Because whoever trusts AI blindly is led by it. Whoever understands it can lead.

6. Europe between regulation and reality

On a global level, Maschke sees a field of tension: in the USA people experiment, in Europe people regulate. Many criticize this reality as an obstacle to innovation. Maschke counters:

“A certain amount of regulation makes sense. No one wants critical AI systems with social scoring or data misuse.”

Europe may not be able to keep up financially, but it has other strengths: a high level of education, ethical consciousness, a pronounced inventive spirit. The danger lies in the loss of optimism. Austria, he says, is well positioned, “but we lack the good mood.” This cannot only be confirmed through surveys, it is actually palpable as well.

The Covid pandemic, human isolation, the financial pressure in its wake, the wars, migration and its challenges, the difficult housing market, artificial intelligence, and the political stance and situation. All of these points have left traces in the present. And yet: whoever loses faith must find it again in order to actually make headway.

7. Agility as a survival principle

For companies, Maschke sees the keyword “agility” as the core factor that secures the future. As a start-up expert, Maschke observes that the most successful companies are those that think like startups. Short development cycles, international thinking, early testing. This applies to technology firms just as it does to traditional businesses.

“The carpenter, too, can think internationally. It is about openness and agility.”

Agility means the ability to constantly readjust oneself. Whoever waits for security gets overtaken. Whoever acts stays relevant. Maschke puts it almost philosophically:

Perhaps direct human interaction will gain more significance again. If in a video call I don’t know whether the person opposite me is real, the real regains value.

The future of the economy is thus also a question of culture.

8. Human, machine, moment

Between automation and mindfulness stretches the new playing field of work. Maschke deliberately balances it himself: “My counterweight to all of this is, I leave the phone at home and go for a walk in the forest.”

This sentence is more than an aside. It describes the paradox of our time: we build systems that think faster than we do, and at the same time we have to learn to feel more slowly again. Perhaps that is the true transformation: not the leap from analog to digital, but from driven to conscious.

9. From tool to stance

At the end of his conversation, Maschke says a sentence that stays with you:

“The moment we explain technology to children, we ourselves are already a piece of the past.”

With that he hits the core of the digital present. Technology ages by the second. What remains is stance. Stance means:

• Curiosity instead of fear.
• Strategy instead of hype.
• Learning instead of knowing.

It is what AI cannot replace, and what makes the difference between reaction and shaping. Maschke calls for more awareness: “Companies should understand why they act, before they ask themselves with what.”

Transformation then becomes a state. And precisely there, in this stance, the future arises.

The future is not programmed. It is interpreted.

Maschke reminds us that technology is only as intelligent as the intention behind it. Whoever shows stance stays capable of action, even in a world that rewrites itself anew every day.