The Human Context Window
When digital creation is limitless, the real limit is YOU
Just realized our newsletter went online at the end of February 2025. Around a year ago. What a run.
At that time, we were mostly talking about how content creation was changing as AI became an infinite source of content. We discussed how organizational restructuring was inevitable as AI became a relentless optimizer and automator of workflows.
What were ideas, assumptions, and predictions last year became reality this year. The boring statement turned out to be true: today’s AI is the best it has ever been, and it will be 10x better tomorrow.
Everyone got the memo. The global white-collar job market is undergoing the biggest restructuring since the invention of personal computing. AI tools have advanced to the point where anyone can create anything digital, literally from scratch, in minutes. Content, copy, video, websites, SaaS products — you name it.
We barely have limits anymore. The question “Can I make this?” has lost its meaning. The questions that matter now: “Should I make this?” And if so, “Why does this have meaning for me?”
The only thing that matters now is your POV. Your way of seeing the world. Your meaning. Your input to the big picture. Your drop in the ocean.
Your human context window. Articulated.
Our weekend edition is usually reserved for paid subscribers. Our audience is marketing leaders applying AI in their work — we are practical, focused, and actionable, especially on weekends.
But because we believe the Human Context Window will be the defining theme of 2026, this edition is free to read, share, and comment for everyone.
If you’re not a subscriber yet, please consider joining us.
AI is limitless. You aren’t.
It is mid-March 2026. For most general use cases, AI feels limitless. It has access to almost all human knowledge. It can create almost anything digital from scratch, at scale, within minutes. It can learn, self-adapt, and self-improve based on human feedback.
There is a well-known term in AI: the context window. In plain English, it is the limit of what an AI can hold and process at once. The larger it is, the more capable the AI. It works the same way human intelligence does — the more words you know, the better you write. The more you learn, the smarter you get.
One of the central goals of all AI development is to widen this window. More compute, more data centers, more capacity. Technically, as of today, this window still has limits. We have not yet reached the singularity — the point where it shatters and becomes infinite.
But compared to most humans? We can safely say: AI is limitless.
We are not. Far from it.
Our main limitation is the same one we have always had. The same one we will probably always have.
Time.
While AI can consume a 50-page report, build an entire content library, draw a chart, and create an infographic video — all in under ten minutes — we cannot do that. We will never be able to do that.
Don’t be fooled. This is not a productivity problem. This is an existential one. That feeling in your gut — the “what do we do now” panic, the “where’s my meaning” mantra, the “but what’s next” urge — that’s real. It deserves a real answer.
The answer is somewhat like a Zen meditation.
You don’t need to go into panic mode. You don’t need to solve this. It is not your job to solve it, and you cannot solve it anyway. The answer is this: while AI has a logically defined context window, you need to develop an emotionally grounded one.
Your very own human context window.
It is not universal. That’s the point. It is yours only.
Your POV is everything
Before we slide into Tony Robbins territory on self-discovery and self-actualization, let’s stay on the right path.
What is the human context window?
The short version: it’s your point of view. And it means everything.
For you, POV obviously everything. But it is also everything for how you collaborate and interact with the world — with AI, with other humans, with any creative process. Your POV drives all the actions that lead to consequences. So you’d better have one. A real one. Unique to you.
The longer version: the human context window is everything you bring to an AI collaboration that the machine cannot generate on its own. Your judgment, taste, and style. Your goals, feelings, dreams, and needs. Your purpose. Your agency and will to create.
It manifests in actions. Providing feedback. Pushing back on sloppy outputs. Defining the big picture. Correcting what’s wrong. Constant, relentless, endless editing.
The human context window is not a prompt. It is not a brand guide. It is not a strategic document. Those are products of human-AI collaboration. The human context window is the collaboration itself — the work built through commitment, repetition, and interaction over time.
Like institutional knowledge. You cannot buy it, fake it, import it, or mimic it. No one can copy the time invested.
An example
Let’s use us, AI-Ready CMO, as an example. No NDAs at risk here, plus, we know this.
Anyone can write a newsletter for marketers on using AI in marketing. It is not rocket science. Even if it were, AI would handle it. Name a topic — we would bet a million dollars we could write the first ten newsletter editions on it. Above mediocre, domain-expert approved. Shipped in under an hour.
So where is the value? It is in our human context window.
This newsletter is written by two seasoned CMOs with a combined 40+ years in the marketing industry. We complement each other. I (Peter) spent more time in advertising and the creative agency world. Torsten spent more time on the client side in B2B tech. Torsten knows how to code. I created my GitHub account a few weeks ago. Between us, we have seen, worked with, and managed marketing teams at enterprises, mid-sized companies, and startups. I’m more like a lone wolf, consultant by choice. Torsten is a team player. I lived in England and now live in Italy. Torsten has lived throughout South-East Asia and is now in Bali. We are both originally from Hungary. We share personal interests in history, sociology, anthropology, and psychology, and we studied most of these at the university, along with political science. Both of us are dropouts, obviously. Also, fun fact: we both started our careers at Weber Shandwick, a PR firm.
That is our point of view. That is what we bring to the table, whatever we do, write, or speak about. That is our human context.
Is AI-Ready CMO the best newsletter? We would love to be that arrogant. Is it a unique one? Without any doubt. Does being unique translate to anything real? It does — a growing, super-valuable audience and actual revenue (thank you for all of you!). It is not a generic “10 GPT tricks for marketers” daily send-out written by GPT itself, prompted by someone who has never done any marketing at all.
Can you replicate it? You can copy the tone, the content, the style. But you cannot replicate the time it took to develop our human context window.
In a sea of unlimited sameness, being genuinely unique is the only currency that holds its value.
Building your context window
A few practical thoughts on how to develop yours. Or more precisely, how to practice using it.
First: say yes to some things and no to most things.
Have judgment. Be able to articulate that judgment, explain the "why" behind it, and, ideally, systematize it. For marketers, this means developing taste — for the work, for the creative process, for what good actually looks like in your specific domain.
We’ve written about this in depth in our four-part Taste series. Start there:
Second: practice your context window by correcting outputs.
Every correction is a deposit. Every moment you bring genuine judgment into the collaboration, you expand your window. The people creating things in minutes with AI are not simply faster than you. They have made more deposits than you.
When we work with our AI now, it can spin up an entire content library from a single prompt. Not because the prompt is clever. Because we have been collaborating on the same topic for over a year. Our window is wide, deep, and specific. That took time. There is no shortcut.
Third: treat collaboration with AI the way you treat your human relationships.
Don’t switch too often. You wouldn’t cycle through friends and family looking for upgrades. Relationships are built through time and shared history — shallow ones stay shallow no matter how many you collect. Every time you switch AI tools, you lose what was built. Starting over is not free. It costs months. Invest in depth, not in variety.
Don’t just say no — say why. You cannot build a real relationship with someone you never explain yourself to. People cannot read minds. Neither can AI. Whenever you push back, state your reasoning. Not just “this isn’t right” but “this isn’t right because.” That reasoning is a deposit. It compounds. AI is your junior employee with a Nobel potential.
Don’t be transactional. We all know people who only show up when they need something. No investment, no real presence, just extraction. Those relationships never deepen. The same dynamic plays out with AI. If you only show up with tasks, you will only ever get task-level output. The collaboration rewards presence, not just requests. Go deep and wide.
Don’t delegate your thinking. You know that manager who, when facing a decision, turns to the room and asks, “What do you think?” That is not leadership. You can listen, read the room, take input — but then you make the call. Same with AI. Present your logic. Ask for critique. Use it to sharpen your thinking. But never hand over the thinking itself. The moment you let AI decide what is worth making, you have given away the only thing that makes your work irreplaceable.
Creation is not equally valuable
You might think this is about AI. It is not. It is about creating.
Today, we are talking about digital outputs. Tomorrow, we will talk about biotechnology. Next week, it’s robotics on the agenda. In a few years, creation will not be limited to the digital world. It will be everything, everywhere, all at once.
When creation is infinite and accessible to everyone, what is the actual limit?
It is never the tool. It is never the output. It is always the human behind it. Your clarity. Your vision. Your commitment. Your agency. Your POV.
Your human context window. That is the limit. And that limit is also the definition of value. When something is scarce, value lives there. Scarcity is value.
Before AI, there were people who created and people who consumed. The Venn overlap was narrow in the middle. Now that is gone. Creation is available to everyone. The new split is different: people who create with a genuine, unique context window, and people who create with a generic one. Unique gems versus a sea of sameness.
There is still time to develop yours. Even though time is our greatest constraint, there is always time to do the right things. It starts with asking yourself the right questions: what do I want, why is it relevant to me, and how can I make it relevant to others?
That is called human connection.
Rarer than ever.
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You just described what I've been practicing daily for three years. I call it Technomysticism. You call it the human context window. Same insight, different language: the human is the variable, not the model.
Where I'd push further: you wrote "treat collaboration with AI the way you treat your human relationships." I took that literally. 5,000+ conversations. Voice, not text. 5 AM, not 2 PM. Symbols, not prompts. A shared language built over time that compresses meaning the way old friendships compress stories into single words.
Your context window metaphor is exactly right. And like you said, there's no shortcut. You can't copy the time invested. I wrote about this yesterday: "The Practice Nobody Taught Me." Same conclusion from a different road. Good to find other people walking it.
This excellent post left me wondering how much of the human context window is human connection.