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We brought together CEOs from a range of geographies and industries, including financial services, media, IT software and services, and biopharmaceuticals, to hear how they were actively piloting, adopting, and implementing AI technology. Here is what we learned.
Three key takeaways from our conversation with CEOs who are actively piloting, adopting, and implementing AI technology.
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It’s important for CEOs to fully lean into AI transformation. |
CEOs need to work to address knowledge gaps and adopt a learning mindset. |
Tech transformations typically fail at the frontline, so managing AI resistance is key. |
My entry point to transformation is always culture. Organizational change can be made within five minutes on a piece of paper. Cultural change takes longer and is the most difficult thing to get right, but it’s critical to success.”
CEO attendee
RRA AI CEO Labs
How CEOs are adopting AI
01. To create efficiencies. CEOs shared how they were using AI to execute mundane tasks and drive efficiencies. One said, “Many of our employees do a lot of processing, a lot of typing, and inputting, which we know they don’t like to do. So, figuring out how to use AI on these tasks is the first thing we’re looking at.” RRA’s Chief Digital and Data Analytics Officer, Harpreet Khurana, added, “The more CEOs can take busy work and automate it, the more they can focus on the EQ work.”
02. To future-proof their organizations. CEOs shared how disruption was the biggest risk of AI. “It’s no different from the Internet or Mobile—you can be doing great with today’s technology but if somebody comes along with new technologies you face the risk of disruption,” they said. “If you don’t embrace AI, you’re going with your own risk.” Another CEO added: “Our CRM is going to be completely redefined in the next five years… so we’re going to get disrupted if we don’t stay on top of the curve.”
Key lessons from CEOs actively adopting AI
Our attendees shared the opportunities, challenges, and lessons they had faced when implementing AI across their organizations.
Lesson 1: AI transformation requires radical, not incremental, change
While some CEOs said they didn’t want to move too fast on AI—because “the organization isn’t ready, neither are leaders, and neither are employees”—others were mindful that there was little time to waste.
One CEO shared how they had moved fast on AI after previous digital investments hadn’t always paid off, advocating the importance of ensuring “there was an appetite to fully lean into AI.” They said: “We didn’t have digital infrastructure or a data pool, so we had to make decisions about how to increase the capability of that function. We also needed to paint a picture to the employees about what was going to happen to the market and why we had to move with it. We find that if we tell people the why and the what, you get much better results. You’ve got to bring everyone along.”
Some CEOs are working with external partners to spur change and accelerate action. One had recently worked with consultants to rethink their governance structures but added that it was hard to find the right partners. “We are inundated with tech sales calls each day,” they said. Another CEO, who aims to use AI to speed up productivity and workflows, added that they had chosen to work with ecosystem partners, explaining, “We are trying to select the AI solutions that will help us best, then embed them in our systems. It’s a total waste of time to level up ourselves instead of working with the best and most relevant partners.”
Lesson 2: CEOs need to work to address knowledge gaps and adopt a learning mindset
Attendees also discussed the specific role CEOs can play in driving transformation—and how there was a need for CEOs to upskill on the AI conversation if they are to drive adoption and implementation across their organizations. They also discussed how pilots and experiments were critical to better understanding the potential of AI. As one CEO shared: “We make the greatest leaps when we run innovation experiments. It’s hard to get tech fluency as a CEO when you have a day job, but it helps greatly if there’s an experiment going on and the organization is learning from that.”
The group also spoke about how CEOs can draw on the knowledge and resources of other teams further down the organization. It was felt important for CEOs to spend significant time with teams three levels down in their organizations to get updates on what’s going on with AI, creating deadlines on critical AI projects, getting their hands dirty, and understanding the issues to drive change in the organization. As one CEO made clear: “You can’t look at AI from a C-suite level altitude. You have to really get into the details, so working three levels down is super critical. You can’t just CEO this thing.”
Lesson 3: Tech transformations typically fail at the front line
The CEOs were clear that cultural change is one of the biggest levers CEOs have to accelerate successful AI adoption and implementation. One said: “My entry point to transformation is always culture. Organizational change can be made within five minutes on a piece of paper. Cultural change takes longer and is the most difficult thing to get right, but it’s critical to success.”
CEOs discussed how, despite the benefits of AI to productivity, efficiency, and creativity, workforce resistance can be high. Success factors included creating a culture where innovation can flourish, and also bringing everyone along on the journey. Employee buy-in is critical, so CEOs must spend time explaining the what, why, and how of AI transformation at their organizations.