We often think of thinking as something we do alone. Yet many of our best ideas emerge through conversation with others. Interthinking offers a way of understanding how people, and perhaps AI, can think together.
Knowledge Café
Interthinking: Can We Think with AI?
Date: Tuesday, 18th August 2026
Time: 14:00 to 15:30 GMT+1 (London time)
—it might still work for you if you’re open to an early start or a late night.Host/Speaker: David Gurteen and John Hovell
Location: Online Zoom Event
Price: Free
Introduction
This event is part of a series of online Knowledge Cafés on Conversational Leadership, held on Zoom.
Each Café explores a theme drawn from my online blook on Conversational Leadership.
Ahead of each Café, I may invite you to read one or more related posts from the blook to help prepare for the conversation.
If you’re new to the Knowledge Café concept, please note that this is a participatory event, not a webinar.
Theme: Interthinking: Can We Think with AI?
For centuries we have tended to think of thinking as something that happens inside our individual minds. Conversation simply allows us to exchange the thoughts we have already had.
But what if some of our best thinking only becomes possible **through conversation with others**?
Neil Mercer, Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Cambridge, coined the term interthinking to describe the way people think together through conversation, building ideas that none of them might have developed alone. Although his research focused on learning, the idea has profound implications for organizations, communities, and conversational leadership.
Today, however, a new question is emerging.
As AI becomes part of more and more of our conversations, can it also become part of our interthinking?
Can AI help us explore ideas, challenge assumptions, and see possibilities we might otherwise miss? Or does its presence change the nature of our conversations in ways we do not yet fully understand?
This is not a session about prompt engineering, AI tools, or the latest technology. It is about conversation, collective thinking, and the changing relationship between people and AI.
As always, this will be a Knowledge Café rather than a webinar. There will be no presentations and no experts providing answers. Instead, we will explore these questions together, drawing on our own experiences and perspectives.
Whether you are enthusiastic about AI, sceptical of it, or simply curious, I hope you will join us for what promises to be another lively and thought-provoking conversation.
The question for our conversation will be: Interthinking: Can We Think with AI?
John and I will discuss the Café’s theme and pose a question to initiate the conversation. Then, in Café style, we will divide into small groups for three rounds of discussion, followed by a whole-group conversation.
Reading Material
If you have time, please read this post on the theme in my blook. It provides a helpful background for our conversation.
Upcoming Events
Event: Interthinking: Can We Think with AI? Tuesday 18th August 2026 14:00 to 15:30 GMT+1 (London time) - We often think of thinking as something we do alone. Yet many of our best ideas emerge through conversation with… 
Event: Conversational Leadership Workshop 2026 7 - 11 September 2026, Warbrook House, Hampshire, England - We are living and working in conditions of uncertainty, complexity, and rapid change. Many leadership approaches still rely on control,… Join one of my upcoming Knowledge Cafés or workshops and explore Conversational Leadership in practice.
Engage in thoughtful conversation, challenge assumptions, and connect with others working in knowledge, leadership, and organisational change.