Most AI projects are quietly burning cash because the executives funding them still haven’t had their own “A‑Ha” moment.
In this clip, recorded at my recent keynote at The Galien Foundation in Poland, I spoke about a sceptical CEO who shared a rich SWOT analysis of their business. It took the company ten days to analyse it.
That same morning, while ironing my shirt, I asked an AI tool to do the same job. It took just two minutes.
When we walked through the AI’s suggestions for how the company could adopt AI line by line, department by department, the room flipped from “AI is a risk” to “I didn’t know it could do that!”
By the coffee break, the CEO had eight pages of notes and just one conclusion. “We’re doing this.”
Here’s the blunt truth. Buying Copilot is not a transformation; signing off on an AI budget is not leadership.
Until senior leaders personally experience what AI can do for their business, become digitally curious and understand the transformative power of the tools, they will under‑invest, under‑train and under‑estimate its impact.
If you control the budget, your first job is to get curious enough to create your own A‑Ha moment. Because somewhere, a competitor is already turning ten‑day jobs into two‑minute tasks.
Start your new year on the front foot with an impactful keynote, roundtable or short-term consulting with me to get you ready for the year ahead – because 2026 is going to see more companies have their own “A-Ha!” moments and shift from pilots to performance.
