⁠João Rocha e Melo

The AI Trap

João Rocha e Melo is an electrical engineer from Instituto Superior Técnico who moves naturally between intense technical focus and human connection. He can spend hours coding and just as easily explain AI in a way that feels clear, relevant, and grounded in real life.

Curious by nature, João is constantly exploring new AI tools. One moment that stayed with him was helping a 90-year-old use ChatGPT — a powerful reminder of the scale of transformation we’re living through.

Today, he helps organisations move beyond simply buying AI tools and actually integrate them into how they work. His goal is simple: make AI part of the workflow, not just another subscription.

CATALYST - SPEAKER - FACILITATOR

“The AI Trap happens because people don’t ask for value, they ask for relief from friction”

We’re using AI to improve the past, when we should be reinventing the future.” João Rocha e Melo captures a subtle but critical risk. AI is being applied to optimise existing systems instead of questioning them. This creates incremental progress, not transformation. But the real value of AI is “indirect and often unimaginable (until it ceases to be so).” It requires a different way of thinking. He points to a simple but powerful question: “What is impossible to do in your business, but if it were possible, would fundamentally disrupt it?” That is where AI should be applied — not where it is comfortable, but where it changes everything.

The AI Trap