Building Climate Co-Intelligence

👋🏼 Hi, I’m Moiz. I'm a Fractional Head of Product who helps top climate-tech teams build product from strategy and discovery, to execution. You’re receiving this because you’re building in climate and we’ve crossed paths. Each issue distills one proven concept that I use with my clients - and gives you a way to apply it to your work.

This edition is about building Co-Intelligence with AI. It balances asking thoughtful questions about where AI is going with 4 practical principles on how to apply AI to your work. By asking the right questions and creating our own mental models, we can steer AI towards sustainable growth.

Here's what's inside:

• Insights from a thought-provoking AI workshop in San Francisco 🧠
• Build Co-Intelligence with AI, using 4 key principles 🚀
• Resources on Climate x AI, including an AI Powered Customer Discovery course⚡

Worth Repeating

“There’s nothing artificial about AI. It’s inspired by people, it’s created by people—and most importantly, it has to be guided by people.” - Fei-Fei Li

"AI is the new electricity" - Andrew Ng

What's the Net Impact of AI?

We’re at the collision point of climate goals and productivity gains offered by AI. Does the value we generate justify the resources we consume? We are all seeing how it can make our Product jobs meaningfully better: faster synthesis, clearer framing, sharper hypotheses.

However, it rides on physical infrastructure with real energy, water, and land footprints. So it really does matter how you choose to use it, what you measure, and what you’re willing to trade off.

I attended a great workshop at 9Zero in San Francisco (co-hosted by Cynthia Leung and Josh Felser at Climactic.vc) that framed the tensions we are grappling with:

1. Planetary Boundaries vs. Productivity

AI promises big gains in efficiency: from smarter logistics, an ultra-intelligent grid to more precise farming. But it also consumes enormous amounts of energy, water, and raw materials. The tension is whether those productivity gains truly outweigh the ecological costs of building and running AI.

The key question is: does AI help us live within Earth’s limits, or does it accelerate the strain on them?

2. Infrastructure Intensity vs. Service-Level Benefits

Behind every AI product lies a heavy footprint. This includes vast data centers, power-hungry chips, and cooling systems that draw on scarce resources. We need to justify that level of infrastructure dedicated to AI actually delivers to people and society.

The key question is: are we using all this hardware for breakthroughs that matter, or for marginal conveniences?

3. Short-Term Wins vs. Long-Term Sustainability

Startups chase traction even if the hidden environmental or social costs pile up. The tension is finding a balance between short-term wins and building AI systems that are sustainable and resilient for the long haul.

The key question is: how do we stay viable today while making sure AI is still a net positive 10 or 20 years from now?

Good questions like these hit me like a lightning bolt. The optimist in me believes AI’s benefits can outweigh its costs. What if it helps us decarbonize faster? Then the net gains could dwarf its footprint.

What is clear to me, however, is that the time to build your own mental model of the world is more important than ever.

Which led me back to one of my favorite books on AI: Ethan Mollick's book Co-Intelligence, Living and Working with AI.

Try This: Build your Co-Intelligence

Ethan Mollick has been studying AI for decades as a professor at Wharton. But when he started experimenting with LLMs, he felt as if he was interacting with an alien species. This alien species can enhance, augment, and replace human thinking to dramatic results. He calls this phenomenon Co-Intelligence. And given that AI is here, he offers 4 Principles for building Co-Intelligence

1: Always invite AI to the table.

Bring AI into everything you’re working on, unless there’s a clear legal or ethical reason not to. You’ll quickly find places where it surprises, disappoints, and helps in ways you didn’t expect. But remember AI is not a silver bullet. I treat its outputs like a Wikipedia page—directionally informative, often helpful, occasionally very wrong.

2: Be the human in the loop.

LLMs are more like your phone's autocomplete on steroids than they are akin to talking to humans. Never let it supplant your expertise. You need to interrogate its answers, inject your expertise, and curate the results. That’s how you sharpen your skills and forge new approaches to problem-solving.

3: Treat AI like a person (but tell it what kind of person it is).

AI responds best when given clear context and direction. Anthropomorphize intentionally: assign it a role, a perspective, and even constraints. Think of it as an infinitely fast intern who needs guidance to be productive. The more specific you are about what kind of collaborator you need, the more useful and relevant its outputs will become.

4: Assume this is the worst AI you will ever use.

Every limitation you run into today is temporary. As new models emerge with more capabilities and fewer flaws, your job is to adapt. Don’t get too comfortable with today’s tools or workflows. Build your processes and expectations to evolve as AI does, so you’re always working at the frontier rather than defending the status quo.

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With these principles in mind, use AI to help you become the best expert in the world in what you're doing.

AI is a general purpose technology. With these principles in mind, use AI to help you become the best expert in the world in whatever you're doing. There is no single manual or instruction book that you can refer to in order to understand its value and limitations.

Build your own tools, mental model, or use mine...

From Insight to Action

My goal is to use AI to become best in the world at Customer Discovery because I believe it's the ultimate skill in product building. I'm launching a cohort course on AI Powered Customer Discovery that makes it easy for you to learn my frameworks and system.

I've been helping a climate founder run AI powered discovery for his new product and the result speaks for itself...

​Happy to chat to see if its a fit. Ask me about a referral discount.

Few more resources for you:

• ​​Join our Free Lean Coffee​ sessions for Climate PMs - cohosted by My Climate Journey​. Oct 9th at 10am PT. Free!
• Check out this Open Source document on AI & Environment​
• ​​Here's my playbook​ on how I build product in climate
• Are you looking for help with strategy, discovery, hiring or anything related to Product? If so, feel free to reach out.