There’s a pattern I see constantly when I talk to other executives about AI.
They are enthusiastic. They are somewhat. And almost without exception, they frame AI as something their people will do. The analysts will use it for reporting. The engineers will use it for design. The customer team will use it in the contact centre.
Ask them what they use it for themselves and the answer gets vague. Too busy. Too senior. Too risky at their level. My favourite: “I don’t see how it can add value.”
I understand every one of those answers because I gave them all myself at one point. And I now think they are the single biggest brake on adoption in most organisations.
Here is why. AI adoption is not a technology rollout, it is a behaviour change. And people watch what leaders do with far more attention than they read what leaders write. When a leader talks about AI but never uses it, the organisation hears the truth underneath: this is optional, and it is for others.
The reverse is also true. When people see an executive draft something with AI, question its output in a meeting, or openly say “I got this wrong because I trusted it too much”, something shifts. It becomes normal. Fallible, useful, worth learning. Safe to try.
There’s a second reason, and it matters more in critical infrastructure than anywhere else. Executives who don’t use these tools cannot govern them. You cannot set a sensible risk appetite for something you have never touched. You end up either too permissive, because you don’t understand the failure modes, or too restrictive, because everything unknown looks dangerous.
So before you commission the strategy, the roadmap, or the working group, ask yourself a harder question. What did you personally use AI for this week? If the answer is nothing, start there.