Ninety–Year–Old Ideas and AI Agents in a Single Talk

At BrainTalk 2026, held on 11 June at FUTUREA in Ostrava, we welcomed six guests: Libor Witassek, Stanislav Martinec, Jan Mašek, Petr Kazík, Jaroslav Drahoš and Jiří Kastner. We built the framework for the day around the legacy of the two Baťas and the work of Professor Milan Zelený. The event was moderated by Jiří Kratochvíl.

One moment, we were in 1930s Zlín, and ten minutes later we were discussing AI agents that detect errors in technical drawings. That was exactly the point. Technology changes every quarter, while the fundamentals of business have remained unchanged for ninety years.

The guests came from very different fields, from printing and modular construction to theatre, yet they arrived at similar conclusions. What keeps a company afloat is the ability to learn quickly and to unlearn just as quickly what no longer works. In a crisis, it pays to invest because everything is cheaper and the competition is looking elsewhere. And a corporate culture built around this mindset is an economic necessity.

Petr Kazík turned this idea into a concrete challenge. He said that medicine is the best–educated field in this country because it is the only one to have retained teaching hospitals, where leading doctors teach. There is nothing stopping companies from doing the same and setting up their own school. ‘You can do it tomorrow afternoon. The ministry won’t do it.’

One theme came up again and again: the gap between what we know and what we actually do. Libor Witassek summed it up with a phrase he has been championing for fifteen years: ‘Innovation without implementation is hallucination.’ Jiří Kastner then asked the audience a question that left the room silent for a moment: who has experienced a million–crown investment in technology, and who has experienced a million–crown investment in the education of a single manager?

Thank you to everyone who devoted an entire day to BrainTalk. The ideas are now waiting to be implemented.