Let’s say you want to build something from raw materials, like a garden deck or lay a new patio. It’s tempting to rush out and buy shiny new tools not just because that’s a fun thing to do: spending money and time in that way feels like progress and gives us a dopamine hit. I’ve done it. Marley’s garage is full of redundant purchases. The right answer is to sit down and plan what you are building, look at your existing tools and work out what you actually need. It’s the same

AI should be led by the CEO, not the CIO, CDO, CAIO or the CDAIAO (made that one up.) AI is a business transformation not a technical one. It should a top 3 long term strategic priority for a business. Of course you need finance, risk, IT and business input on the project but the ownership should sit with the CEO. Why? Technically led AI “transformations” result in endless technical POCs to prove technical capability. They spit out tools selected for feature compatibility, no

If you are rolling out Copilot or ChatGPT to your company and are trying to teach everyone “prompt engineering” then you are heading for a mess. Why? Prompts are critical for accuracy of outcomes. A small, human, variation in prompts will produce huge variations in quality and outcome. This is just a non-starter for structured workflows. Effective prompts and instructions sets are non trivial; some of our scenarios run into 100s of lines. How do you audit all the prompt/outc

There is lots of talk about AI taking jobs. This might happen. It might happen quickly or slowly. New categories of jobs will appear, roles will change task mix and some tasks will completely disappear. The net position will likely not alter too much. This is what history tells us. When Google first bounced on to the scene, there were no SEO agencies. And now there are. With AI they become GEO agencies or they perish. And so the cycle continues. The best defence? Network wide

I was at the Microsoft AI Tour last week. Microsoft exists to sell products. I worked there many years ago in their industry team and the license always won over the solution. It’s in the DNA. They do make some great products. We are a top-tier Microsoft AI partner and we deploy them in our engagements. But AI is not about software products. It's so far away from what most businesses need that its like trying to sell them a chocolate eclair to hammer in a nail. AI transformat

I met a VC last year. They passed on us because we have a strong professional services component to our mix. We believe that AI is a business transformation and it needs consulting and people to enable that transformation. It’s easier to scale a product than a services company, they said. I suggested they might be wrong and that 2026 would usher in a new AI era. (There may have been other reasons, of course, perhaps me suggesting they might be wrong being one of them….) VCs a

I speak with lots of business owners and CEOs. I see these patterns and questions in those conversations: 1. How do I double revenue in next 24 months with same cost base? 2. Can I take 25% of cost out (overhead) in next 6 months? 3. I’ve had an “incident”. How do I not have an “incident” again? Could be cyber breach, H&S failure, poor data reporting…something worthy of Board worry. 4. How do I take my market share from 10% to 50% in next FY? These are the actually driving fo

Let me know if this sounds familiar pattern for teams trying to drive AI adoption in their business. The Board says “we need to get AI done” so you decided to create an AI committee. You bring in all departments and meet every month to steer the plan. You set yourselves some goals to make an impact in the next six months. The committee meets and starts the journey. After six months nothing has changed. Committee members spend the hour before the meeting doing their tasks and

The short answer: yes in the near term, not necessarily in the long term. AI will cut the time needed for many repeatable tasks, but history suggests new categories of work usually emerge as technology lowers costs and expands demand. The view in brief New technologies usually create short-term disruption before settling into a new equilibrium, often with higher overall employment. The hard part is the transition: new roles appear over time, not overnight, and workers have to