Field notes for leadership teams facing AI.
Short, board-grade pieces on AI go-to-market, capability and the technology bets that matter. Written for the room, not the feed.
Fractional AI leadership installs a named AI owner part-time. Learn what it delivers, when each alternative is right, and UK costs in 2026.
Copilot's paid market share fell 39% in six months. This is not a product problem. It is an architecture problem, and the organisations betting on Copilot are carrying structural risk they have not named.
AI pilots produce adoption metrics because the tool framing optimises for adoption, not commercial advantage. The governance gap is a capital allocation problem — not a technology failure.
Most organisations hire a Chief AI Officer before the mandate is in place. Three conditions make the hire defensible — and what a £150,000 wrong hire costs.
Most AI programmes produce activity but not commercial leverage. The gap is structural and it will not close by running more projects.
The board's accountability structure for AI does not form unless the board requires it. One named person with budget, initiative, and reporting authority — designated before any AI programme is funded.
Your first AI bet is not a pilot or an experiment. It is the decision that shapes your entire advantage trajectory — and most mid-market firms get it wrong.
AI investment has to show up in the P&L: every bet must make money or save money. Traditional ROI can't see the return in time — the Three Leverage Questions can.
The instinct to hire a CAIO is strong. But mandate clarity must come before role creation. Here is why most CAIO hires fail — and what to do instead.
Your AI initiative list is not a strategy. It is a symptom. And the longer it grows unchecked, the less likely any single initiative on it is to deliver the advantage you are paying for.
Boards that set a kill criterion before approving any AI pilot, and use The Seven Questions to challenge management, can make the Keep/Kill/Scale decision defensible.
Your buyers aren't just researching differently, they're running AI agents to evaluate you before any human at their company knows your name. And in most cases, those agents are deciding you're not worth talking to.