Jesse James Garrett

You’ve seen the all-staff emails. The mandate coming down from C-suite executives regarding AI is overwhelmingly consistent: “Figure out how to use it or you’re fired.”

These people are telling you they don’t know what they’re doing.

Executive leaders literally do not know how AI tooling might impact their teams, their metrics, their outcomes. There is no top-level strategy. So they push the problem downstream.

But on the other hand: I don’t think we get to an AI-empowered future if the senior execs are making all the calls. The only people who can truly spot the best places to apply AI are the people closest to the work AI is meant to support.

What this asks of senior leaders is a lot less talking and a lot more listening. This is a process of collective discovery, and strategies set from above that aren’t built around a clear understanding of how your teams deliver value are doomed to miss the details that matter most.

Getting practitioners in the loop early is key to driving any design team’s AI strategy. As you’ve heard me talk about on Finding Our Way, AI has a multiplier effect on the value design delivers—but only if you apply it where that value can be recognized. The only people who can give you that insight are the people on the front line of that value delivery.

In my AI transformation consulting work, I’ve been helping leaders set strategies and build in the necessary feedback loops to evolve your processes while staying aligned with expectations from execs and partners. I work with leaders one-on-one as well as working with entire leadership teams to drive their tools and workflows towards the future.

In both cases, I’m finding that the leaders who are most able to accelerate their teams’ use of AI are the ones who create the communication channels that keep them connected with their most adventuresome practitioners. If you wait for requirements to get filtered through your middle management layer, you risk losing sight of the real opportunities AI provides.

When the going gets weird, keep your weirdos close.