Notes from a research interview with Giuseppe Aquila, President and Chief Executive Officer, ELMO & Montegrappa S.p.A. — a preview of the forthcoming article "Artificial Intelligence Should Serve Identity"

 In most organisations, the assets that are hardest to replace are invisible. They live in the judgment of a few senior people, in ways of working nobody has written down, in relationships and a reputation accumulated over decades. They are difficult to identify and quantify — and so, when AI arrives, they tend to be neglected, when in fact they are the strongest differentiators a company has.

I chose Montegrappa as the main case for this research because it is one of the rare places where those assets can be seen with the naked eye. Founded in 1912 in Bassano del Grappa, in the Veneto, it is Italy's first manufacturer of luxury writing instruments — a house whose pens have been carried by writers, collectors and heads of state for over a century, and where machines and hands have worked together from the beginning. The knowledge is quite literally in the craftsmen's fingers: artisans who understand pressure, resistance, temperature and timing through their hands. Processes can be documented and measurements recorded, but, as Mr. Aquila told me, description is not mastery. That knowledge passes to the next generation in only one way — a younger artisan works alongside a more experienced one, observes, practises, makes mistakes, and gradually develops the sensitivity the work requires.

The allocation has remained constant for a century while the line it governs has moved: technology does what technology does best — precision, repeatability, technical capability — and the human hand does what it does best, which is to interpret, refine, create and give character. The more capable the technology becomes, in his view, the more precious the second half is.

And AI? Mr. Aquila has no objection to a new tool, a new technology or even an unconventional material if it allows the house to make something better; Montegrappa has never survived by standing still. Craftsmanship has always evolved alongside tools — the question is not whether a tool is traditional or advanced, but who is making the decisions, where the intent comes from, and whether the result retains authenticity and provenance. Guided by a real author with genuine intent, AI can become an extraordinary instrument for creativity, and may allow designers and artisans to achieve things previously impossible. The problem begins when the tool replaces authorship rather than extending it.

And profit? Essential — without profitability there is no sustainable company. But it is a means rather than the purpose. He inherited more than a company: knowledge, reputation, skills, relationships and a cultural legacy, and he feels it is his responsibility to hand them to the next generation stronger than he received them. Some innovations serve that. Some have to be refused.