I presented at the SwitchON conference in early 2026 and loved it, a virtual room with over 800 registrations. I watched some of the presentations live on the day, and have since pored over the presentation pack that followed.

SwitchON was thoughtful. Strategically mature. Architecturally confident. There was clear intent to position enterprise architecture as a shaping force in the decade ahead. AI featured prominently. Governance was reframed as enabling rather than restricting. Operating models were described as dynamic rather than static. Value was articulated in sharper terms than we might have heard even five years ago.

I thought as I looked back over the presentation material that this is not a community stuck in the past, and I’m cheering on the fact.

And yet, as I re-read the slides, one tension kept surfacing for me, a tension that I am trying to amplify with my work on Whatever Next? and The Human Gap. The presentations showed an enterprise architecture profession in touch with the human side, but one that could do so much more to embrace it.

Across the presentations, I saw phrases such as “align architecture to business value,” “optimise workflows across the estate,” “unlock AI-driven productivity,” “strengthen governance and decision rights,” and “map digital maturity to future capability.” These are not careless statements. They signal discipline. They signal strategic reach. They reflect an ambition to operate at enterprise level rather than remain buried in technical abstraction.

Even when experience entered the narrative, it often arrived through structure. “Embed user journeys into the operating model.” “Improve experience through platform consolidation.” “Design scalable services.” People were present in the language. Customers were acknowledged. Employees were referenced. Experience was considered.

I recognise this because I have built from that starting point myself. There is comfort in coherence. Capability maps bring clarity. Target operating models create alignment. Data architecture offers a sense of control over complexity. As architects, we are trained to see interdependencies, flows, constraints, interfaces. We are rewarded for structure.

What we are less trained to see is what it feels like to live inside the structures we design.

Over time in my role in enterprise architecture I have begun to notice something uncomfortable. Some of the most elegant architectures I had helped shape did not land as intended. The logic was sound. The governance was clear. The roadmap was disciplined. And yet, adoption stalled. Resistance surfaced in subtle ways. Workarounds reappeared in corners we had not anticipated.

That is the human gap at work: the distance between the plan and what people actually believe, experience and do.

Scanning back through the presentations, it took me a while to understand why they were getting close but weren’t as human as they could be. And then it hit me…

Human-aware transformation factors people in. It recognises that adoption matters. It references culture. It includes change management as a workstream.

Human-first transformation begins somewhere more fundamental. It begins by asking what the lived experience actually feels like before structural decisions are locked in.

• Where is friction already eroding trust?
• What invisible work is being carried that never appears in the metrics?
• Which assumptions about judgement are we about to automate without understanding the context they emerged from?
• How does 9am on a Monday actually unfold for the person navigating this workflow?

These are not soft questions. They are rigorous in a different way. They require architects to expand the circle of who shapes the early thinking. Not as stakeholders to consult once the draft is formed, but as co-designers of coherence from the outset. It’s the experience facet of the EDGY framework.

In my session someone asked how we become more aligned with the business and more understanding of the customer impact. I stressed it’s going to take teamwork and collaboration.

If enterprise architecture wants to move from human-aware to human-first, we need deeper partnerships. Service designers not just at prototype stage, but at strategy stage. Change practitioners not just to manage resistance, but to surface meaning and belief before scope is frozen. HR leaders not just to implement new structures, but to explore how identity, belonging, and power shift when operating models change. Frontline operational teams not just to validate requirements, but to reveal the lived complexity behind the process. Data ethicists not just to audit AI, but to shape how intelligence is framed before it is scaled.

AI, in particular, featured strongly at SwitchON. Productivity gains. Automation potential. Insight generation. Acceleration. All valid. But AI is not simply a technical enabler. It is a human delegation decision. Every workflow we automate is a choice about where judgement sits. Every model we train encodes assumptions about what matters. If we start with efficiency, we risk amplifying yesterday’s logic at unprecedented speed. If we start with lived experience, we have an opportunity to redesign the logic itself.

None of this diminishes enterprise discipline. In fact, it sharpens it. Human-first transformation demands clearer value articulation because value must be felt, not just forecast. It demands more explicit assumption testing because behavioural realities are less forgiving than financial models. It demands governance that protects trust, not just compliance.

Instead of starting with the target operating model and asking how people will adapt, we start with lived tensions and ask what operating model would genuinely support them.

Instead of scaling platforms and layering adoption activity on top, we explore where meaning already exists and design systems that strengthen it.

SwitchON showed a community that has grown in confidence and capability. The technical depth is evident. The strategic ambition is clear. The conversation has moved beyond frameworks for their own sake. The next evolution feels quieter, but more profound. It is about stance rather than structure.

Transformation rarely fails because the diagram was wrong. It fails because no one recognised themselves in it. Because the friction that mattered was never named. Because the architecture optimised flow but neglected feeling.

If we want transformation to stick, recognition is not optional. It is foundational.

So perhaps the question for our discipline is no longer how to refine the framework, but how to refine our starting point.

Are we designing systems that acknowledge humanity?

Or systems that begin with it?

Whatever next?