AI Is Not The Disruption. You Are.
Exploring why strategies stall—and how AI Transformers might finally bring them to life.
Why do brilliant strategies often die in execution? Because thinkers and doers aren’t always in sync.
Creators and builders, on the other hand, are made for the AI era — and they may be the ones who finally bring strategy to life (if you don't know who they are, you should definitely go here).
Equipped with the indisputable evidence required to take action (or not!), creators and builders will be outliers at first.
Especially if the organisation is not built for them to thrive. Particularly if leadership is not upgrading its operating system accordingly.
Let’s dive into what is required to unleash the power of AI in the business world. Let’s talk about what it takes for them to move the needle. Let's describe what kind of organisations they will need to transform.
Disclaimer: any resemblance with future reality may not be purely coincidental.
Business decisions aren’t made on a whim. In large organisations, governance is sacred — and often synonymous with approval layers, delays, and inertia.
Don’t get me wrong: speed isn’t always the goal. In slow-moving industries, depth, consensus, and deliberation often matter more than acting fast.
But as Kathleen Eisenhardt showed (here for example), high-velocity industries demand a different approach: decisions must be adaptive, collective, and tightly synced to the rhythm of the business.
AI doesn’t just bring speed. When used wisely, it brings precision — the right insight, at the right time, tied to the right tempo.
Enter the AI Transformer.
Not the technology kind. The human kind. With a mindset shift.
A person who bridges roles, redefines silos, and operates fluently across functions — with AI as their co-pilot.
Take the product designer from my previous post. She is no longer just refining features. She is also:
A product finance designer, forecasting ROI at feature level
A product marketing designer, generating campaign variations by audience
One person. Three perspectives. Real-time collaboration with multiple teams.
In the past, this level of cross-functionality was aspirational.
In the near future, it will be essential.
This isn’t about job titles. It’s about versatility, fluency, and collaborative mindset. And yes — it will be hard: there is no Duolingo for learning how each business function speaks.
But as AI lowers the friction between insight and action, we’ll need a new kind of talent:
Builders who think.
Creators who deliver.
Transformers who connect the dots.
The AI Transformer is not just coming. They are already here — hiding in plain sight. If your organisation hasn’t found one yet, chances are you’ll need to grow your own.
In my next post, I will explore how to spot, support, and shape these cross-functional changemakers.
But for now — what about you? Will you help build them? Or will you become one?