The Last Chapter of EUC

This is a special edition of the Citrix AI Hotsheet. Instead of the usual conversation between Brian & Dave, this week Brian shares the keynote he gave earlier this month EUC Tech Cruise in Norway: "The Last Chapter of EUC."The talk lays out where the EUC industry stands in summer 2026 and where AI is taking it from here.Brian opens by looking at why the AI narrative has flipped (six months ago it was "is AI even worth it?", today it's "AI is too expensive") and argues both miss the real story. AI capabilities keep climbing, but diffusion (how fast individuals, teams, and companies actually absorb those capabilities) is the bottleneck.From there, he walks through his updated 7 Stages of Human-AI Collaboration roadmap (2026 edition): from using AI as a faster search engine, to a thinking partner, to a cognitive extension (your "second brain" / context vault), to a multi-tool agent, a fleet of AIs, a "pod" (worker + AIs), and finally the "published self".Finally, it's on to the last chapter of EUC. Brian argues the assumptions underpinning 30 years of end-user computing are changing, but the discipline itself isn't going away—it's getting bigger. He maps VDI, image management, profile management, endpoint management, performance monitoring, and the control plane onto a future built around context vaults, skills, agent workers, cognitive observability, and token routing. His take: AI won't eat all software, (only the shallow layer), and the skills EUC and IT pros have built for decades translate directly into managing this new "cognitive" world.Links mentioned in the episode:Citrix blog (Brian's regular writing): https://www.citrix.com/blogs/?s=bmadden&type=authorSeven Stages of Human-AI Collaboration roadmap, 2026 edition: https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2026/06/10/the-7-stage-roadmap-for-human-ai-collaboration-2026-edition/Skills Are All You Need: https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2026/03/12/skills-are-all-you-need/What's left for humans: https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2026/04/09/whats-left-for-humans/Brian's LinkedIn post announcing his second brain / context vault: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-built-second-brain-using-ai-its-changed-way-work-future-madden-0toteOSWorld benchmark: https://os-world.github.ioFind us online:Brian Maddenbmad.com: https://bmad.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bmadden/Citrix blog: https://www.citrix.com/blogs/?s=bmadden&type=authorSecond brain: https://brianmadden.ai