Search was supposed to democratize knowledge. Instead, it trained the world to confuse convenience with truth. Vaclav Vincalek, serial entrepreneur and founder of HISWAI, argues that what most people still call “search” is no longer designed to help them understand more clearly. It is designed to keep them inside a profitable system.
TAMPA BAY, Fla., June 4, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The modern search experience is not broken by accident. It is working exactly as its business model demands. On this episode of Disruption Interruption podcast, host Karla Jo Helms (KJ) speaks with Vaclav Vincalek, founder and CEO of HISWAI (Human Intelligence Supported with Artificial Intelligence), about why large language models are being mistaken for knowledge systems and why the next real disruption in tech may be less about better answers than better judgment. The economics help explain the problem: Alphabet reported $82.284 billion in Google advertising revenue in Q4 2025 against $113.828 billion in total revenue, so about 72.3% of the company’s quarterly revenue still depended on advertising. That is why Vincalek argues, “Google is not a search engine. Google is a marketing engine.”
Why the Search Status Quo Keeps Users Dependent
For Vincalek, the status quo has been normalized simply because people have lived with it too long. Search still looks simple: one box, one query, thousands of results. But he argues that this model never really solved the harder questions around information discovery. Users still open endless tabs, lose context, struggle to preserve findings, and have little visibility into how or why certain results were prioritized. “Somehow we got used to it and think this is how it’s supposed to be,” he says. “But there’s a better way to do that.”
That design flaw becomes more serious once business incentives enter the picture. Vincalek argues that platforms like Google do not help users reach truth efficiently. “The objective of Google is not to make the search the best,” he says. “It is to make search as profitable as possible because they are in business of selling ads.” In his view, the more friction users face, the more chances the platform gets to keep them searching, clicking, and being monetized.
He believes the problem worsens when search begins making silent decisions on the user’s behalf. Modern systems increasingly predict context, infer relevance, and decide what information users should see, often without their awareness. That may feel helpful on the surface, but in practice it narrows discovery and can reinforce ideological and informational echo chambers rather than challenge them.
Replace Artificial Confidence with Transparent Search
Vincalek’s sharpest criticism is reserved for the way large language models are being sold to the public. His point is that systems like ChatGPT absorb vast amounts of information without validating accuracy, cannot reliably explain their own reasoning, and still have no mechanism for forgetting false information once it has been embedded. “You have a system which is built on false premise,” he says. “It’s called language model, not knowledge model.”
That concern shapes the philosophy behind HISWAI. Rather than pretending a machine can hand users truth, Vincalek brings a different perspective: “What we should be going after is transparency,” he says. “What I need to know is where you found this information so I can go trace it for myself.” HISWAI’s early focus is to make that process more efficient, not by replacing human judgment, but by helping users search more deeply, preserve what they find, and keep control over their own information layer.
For Vincalek, the real danger is not the technology itself, but the temptation to let it think for us. Systems designed to sound fluent and confident can quietly train people to surrender judgment instead of sharpening it. His response is not to reject technology, but to reject passivity and re-center search around verification, ownership, and human discernment. In his words, “Don’t offload responsibility and thinking to machines. That will harm you.”
Links
Disrupting Digital Gaslighting: Vaclav Vincalek on Reclaiming Truth in the AI Era
Disruption Interruption is the podcast where you will hear from today’s biggest Industry Disruptors. Learn what motivated them to bring about innovation and how they overcame opposition to adoption.
https://omny.fm/shows/disruption-interruption/disrupting-digital-gaslighting-vaclav-vincalek-on-reclaiming-truth-in-the-ai-era
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/vincalek
Company Website: https://hiswai.com/
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Disruption is happening on an unprecedented scale, impacting all manner of industries — MedTech, Finance, IT, eCommerce, shipping, logistics, and more — and COVID has moved their timelines up a full decade or more. But WHO are these disruptors and when did they say, “THAT’S IT! I’VE HAD IT!”? Time to Disrupt and Interrupt with host Karla Jo “KJ” Helms, veteran communications disruptor. KJ interviews badasses who are disrupting their industries and altering economic networks that have become antiquated with an establishment resistant to progress. She delves into uncovering secrets from industry rebels and quiet revolutionaries that uncover common traits — and not-so-common — that are changing our economic markets… and lives. Visit the world’s key pioneers that persist to success, despite arrows in their backs at www.disruption-interruption.com.
About Vaclav Vincalek
Vaclav Vincalek is a technology entrepreneur, CTO, and strategic advisor who has spent more than three decades helping startups and fast-growing companies use technology as a competitive weapon rather than a decorative layer. Based in Vancouver, he is the founder of HISWAI (Human Intelligence Supported with Artificial Intelligence) and a longtime leader across fintech, AI, software development, cybersecurity, and custom technology strategy. His career includes leadership at MeetAmi, Pacific Coast Information Systems, DevNetwork, and multiple advisory and board positions. His work sits at the intersection of business strategy and emerging technology, with a focus on how machine learning, AI, and data systems can be deployed to solve real-world problems while preserving human agency and trust. That philosophy drives his work on HISWAI, where he is challenging the assumptions behind search, information ownership, and AI trust.
About Karla Jo Helms
Karla Jo Helms is the Chief Evangelist and Anti-PR® Strategist for JOTO PR Disruptors™. Karla Jo learned firsthand how unforgiving business can be when millions of dollars are on the line — and how the control of public opinion often determines whether one company is happily chosen, or another is brutally rejected. Being an alumnus of crisis management, Karla Jo has worked with litigation attorneys, private investigators, and the media to help restore companies of goodwill into the good graces of public opinion — Karla Jo operates on the ethic of getting it right the first time, not relying on second chances and doing what it takes to excel. Helms speaks globally on public relations, how the PR industry itself has lost its way, and how, in the right hands, corporations can harness the power of Anti-PR to drive markets and impact market perception.
References
Alphabet Inc. (2026, February 4). Alphabet announces fourth quarter and fiscal year 2025 results. s206.q4cdn.com/479360582/files/doc_financials/2025/q4/2025q4-alphabet-earnings-release.pdfJohnston, M. (2025, January 5). How Google (Alphabet) makes money: Advertising and cloud. Investopedia. investopedia.com/articles/investing/020515/business-google.aspLin, S., Hilton, J., & Evans, O. (2021). TruthfulQA: Measuring how models mimic human falsehoods (arXiv preprint arXiv:2109.07958). arXiv. arxiv.org/abs/2109.07958Xu, Y. (2024). Machine unlearning for traditional models and large language models: A short survey (arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.01206). arXiv. arxiv.org/abs/2404.01206
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