Wiley · August 2026
The AI Instinct
The Future of AI and Human Decision-Making
Foreword by Kai-Fu Lee · Advance review by Joscha Bach
AI was built by modeling human cognition. For decades, machines excelled at deliberate reasoning while humans dominated fast, intuitive thinking. That boundary is fading. The AI Instinct explores how modern AI systems already shape what gets trusted, believed, and decided, and asks a practical question: how do we preserve agency when cognition itself becomes shared?
Drawing on Rana Gujral's experience building production AI at Behavioral Signals and his research across paralinguistics, cognitive science, and the philosophy of mind, the book proposes Artificial General Experience as a missing dimension in the path to AGI, and hybrid cognition as the likely architecture of superintelligence.
Three Core Ideas
Artificial General Experience
Intelligence without experience is hollow. Until we measure the path to intelligence and the path to experience side by side, "AGI when?" is the wrong question. AGE introduces experience, continuity, and consequence as the missing axis in the pursuit of general intelligence.
Hybrid Cognition
Not "us versus them" but the blend of human biology and machine intelligence into shared systems that shape how we think, decide, and live. The boundary between brain and device is already becoming porous.
Superintelligence as Fusion
Superintelligence is not a disembodied alien mind. It is a fused mind, a hybrid agent that draws simultaneously from biology and computation.
What's Inside
Seven chapters that take you from how the human mind works to what lies beyond artificial general intelligence.
Our Definition of "There" Is Wrong
Why this book, why now, and the three ideas that frame the journey
The Nature of Human Cognition
How the brain works, dual-process thinking, emotion, bias, and how AI mirrors human thought
AI in the Real World
Applications across healthcare, defense, finance, education, security, and customer experience
The Emergence of AGI
Multiple pathways to artificial general intelligence, models of consciousness, and the AGE pathway
Human-AI Hybrid Cognition
Collaboration patterns, trust, cognitive privacy, neural interfaces, and measuring hybrid decision quality
Explorations of a Hybrid Humanity
Ethics, identity, synthetic experience, spirituality, love, youth, and the future of agency
What Lies Beyond AGI?
Superintelligence, multi-substrate minds, life as knowledge, and what we become
Who This Book Is For
Scientists, engineers, and AI researchers seeking frameworks beyond benchmark performance
Philosophers and cognitive scientists exploring identity, choice, and distributed cognition
Leaders, founders, and decision-makers in high-stakes AI environments
Cognitive, Behavioral, and Emotion AI practitioners building trust-critical systems
Students and younger generations preparing for sustained human-AI partnership
For readers who seek to understand not only how AI functions, but how it is reshaping what it means to think, to choose, and to be human.
About the Author
Rana Gujral is CEO of Behavioral Signals, where he builds production AI systems for voice intelligence, interaction analysis, and deepfake defense. Previously, he founded TiZE (acquired by Alchemy) and led Smart Home at Logitech through a platform rebuild that set the path to a $4.4B IPO.
He speaks at global forums including the World Government Summit, World AI Cannes Festival, The Next Web, LEAP, and TEDx, and writes for TechCrunch and Forbes on applied AI, voice intelligence, and responsible deployment. He was named an “AI Entrepreneur to Watch” by Inc. Magazine.
Foreword
Kai-Fu Lee
TIME100, Author of AI Superpowers (NYT bestseller) and AI 2041 (Best Book of the Year, WSJ)
Kai-Fu Lee is one of the most respected voices in artificial intelligence. As the author of AI Superpowers and a pioneer who has led AI research at Google, Microsoft, and Apple, he brings a unique vantage point on where AI is headed. He contributes the foreword to The AI Instinct, framing Rana Gujral's exploration of hybrid cognition and Artificial General Experience within the broader trajectory of AI's impact on human civilization.
Advance Review
Joscha Bach
Philosopher and AI Researcher, Founder of the California Institute for Machine Consciousness
Joscha Bach is a cognitive scientist and AI researcher known for his work on cognitive architectures, artificial consciousness, and the computational foundations of the mind. His advance review of The AI Instinct, titled "The Age of Artificial General Experience," examines the book's arguments through the lens of cognitive science, philosophy of mind, and the history of AI.
Praise for The AI Instinct
“AI is like bamboo, popping up everywhere, affecting every aspect of our thought and our lives and confronting us with an existential question: what will it mean to be human? Gujral's timely and comprehensive book surveys that landscape, helping us face that question.”
Barbara Tversky
Past President, Association for Psychological Science; Professor Emerita of Psychology, Stanford University; Author of Mind in Motion
“Gujral masterfully bridges the gap between our intuitive System 1 reactions to technology and the rigorous System 2 analysis required to govern it. An essential guide for navigating the profound structural shifts in how we live, work, and relate to one another.”
Ramesh Menon
CTO at the United States Department of Defense and CAIO at Defense Intelligence Agency
“Rana Gujral's book reframes advanced intelligence around experience, then traces the implications for hybrid human-AI cognition, governance, and preserved agency. The result provides practical clarity without sacrificing philosophical depth.”
Ben Goertzel
AI scientist and AGI pioneer; CEO, SingularityNET; Chair, Artificial General Intelligence Society
“Once humans and machines become a coupled system, the security problem changes. You're no longer securing software, you're securing decision-making. The AI Instinct explains why that matters.”
Bruce Schneier
Security technologist and author of Rewiring Democracy
“The scope of Rana Gujral's thinking is exceptional. Unlike many current critics of AI, he points out tremendous chances and opportunities. He understands that the present focus on technical capabilities and mitigation of rapid adoption falls short.”
Joscha Bach
AI Researcher and CEO of California Institute for Machine Consciousness
“Offering a rare blend of technical clarity and philosophical depth, The AI Instinct redefines artificial intelligence as a force that reshapes the way we think, feel, and decide. The concept of Artificial General Experience is both provocative and practical.”
Dr. Pawel Gora
Founder & CEO, Quantum AI Foundation
“Rana Gujral moves beyond the stereotypical discussions and adds the missing pieces essential to gaining valuable insights into this unstoppable technology. He explores how AI signals the next stage in human evolution as we merge with our technologies.”
Tom Foremski
Silicon Valley Watcher
“The AI Instinct makes a case the field needs to hear: that the experiential dimension of AI deserves as much serious attention as the capability dimension. Gujral's vision of superintelligence as fusion rather than replacement is both more plausible and more interesting.”
Cameron Berg
Founder & Director, Reciprocal Research