If you're C-suite, you probably spent most of yesterday in meetings. And today. And tomorrow's already booked solid too. God knows how you have the time to read this (but please do).
When I was doing your job it meant my thinking time happened in the shower, on the loo, walking the dog, on the commute. I know this is easier for me to say now that I'm not drowning in back-to-backs, but...
Were I still in a C-suite job, I have no idea how I'd have kept up with AI. Almost certainly from skimming think-pieces in Campaign, sitting through jargon-heavy presentations and nodding along in meetings thinking I 'got' it. And I may have even actually 'got' some of it.
And that is properly dangerous. AI will touch every part of your business and the same for your customers and clients. What's more, it's changing every month, every week, every day.
In my experience, you only really understand it when you properly take the time to play with it. And that doesn't mean accessing an LLM via a chatbot. It means building something you actually care about. What annoys you outside of work? What hobby could use a simple tool? Use something like Loveable and spend a weekend solving a problem that's been bugging you for years.
But you are so busy, where are you going to find the time? I bet your CTO hasn't even had the chance to vibe code anything and see whether the hype is real.
So how the hell are you and your leaders making the decisions you need to make to keep up? By the time AI insights filter up to you, they're already diluted by well-meaning people who probably don't really understand it themselves - or, just as dangerous, out of date. I guarantee that last week's "don't let your developers vibe code" advice is being turned on its head by new approaches that genuinely work. If you're relying on memos and second-hand reports, you're in trouble.
This isn't something you can let happen without you understanding it. And you can't hope it goes away or becomes old news.
YOU AND YOUR LEADERSHIP TEAM HAVE TO FIND THE TIME. Admit what you don't know. Get your hands dirty. Learn.
If you don't, either someone will sell you something that will destroy your business, you'll make a horrible decision about an implementation, or you'll just miss it all entirely.
If any of this makes sense to you and you fancy a chat about practical ways to get your team properly up to speed, drop me a line. Even if it's just to swap notes about learning on the loo.