Why Executives Should Experience AI Firsthand

Successful organisational transformation has always flowed from the top. Whether implementing new strategies, shifting business models or new ERPs, meaningful change demands visible, authentic leadership. Bringing AI into your business is no exception.

As leaders across industries make big decisions about AI investments and adoption strategies, there’s one weakness: many leaders are supporting AI initiatives without ever personally engaging with the technologies they want to champion. This disconnect doesn’t just limit understanding—it undermines how successful the transformation will be.

For SME leaders especially, your direct engagement with AI tools isn’t merely educational—it’s the foundation upon which successful company-wide implementation depends. Your hands-on experience becomes the catalyst that accelerates internal support, drives meaningful change, and ensures lasting adoption.

Why Personal Experience Drives Organisational Transformation

Using AI yourself (instead of just delegating to IT) creates real momentum:

You model the behaviour you seek. When your team sees you investing time to learn and apply new tools, they recognise that adaptation is a priority worth their attention. Your actions speak louder than any company-wide memo or initiative.

You build authentic leadership credibility. Teams can immediately distinguish between leaders who speak from experience and those who recite talking points. Your firsthand knowledge allows you to communicate with nuance and conviction that inspires confidence throughout your organisation.

You gain insight into implementation challenges. Personal experience reveals adoption barriers your team might face, allowing you to address concerns proactively rather than reacting to resistance after rollout.

You identify organisation-specific opportunities. Generic use cases rarely capture the unique value AI can bring to your particular business context. Direct engagement helps you recognise applications that align perfectly with your company’s specific needs and culture.

You establish realistic expectations. Hands-on experience helps you set achievable timelines and outcomes, preventing the disappointment and scepticism that follow overpromised results.

Quick Wins for Busy Executives

You don’t need to become a technical expert. Start with these low-investment, high-return activities that fit into your schedule:

Create a Daily Intelligence Briefing

Have AI summarise overnight industry news, competitor updates, and market trends each morning. This simple application can save you 30+ minutes of reading time while ensuring you don’t miss critical developments.

How to start: Use a general AI assistant to create a prompt that pulls together news from your industry and summarises it in bullet points. Refine the prompt over several days until the output consistently delivers what you need.

Enhance Your Meeting Preparation

Before important meetings, use AI to analyse background information and suggest targeted questions. This approach improves meeting outcomes while reducing prep time.

How to start: Feed upcoming meeting agendas and background documents into an AI tool. Ask it to identify key discussion points, potential concerns, and specific questions you should consider.

Implement Email Intelligence

Use AI to categorise incoming messages, draft responses to routine inquiries, and summarise lengthy email threads. Many executives reclaim 5-10 hours weekly through this application alone.

How to start: Begin with having AI draft responses to just one category of routine emails. Once comfortable, expand to other categories and additional email management tasks.

Create Decision Support Frameworks

Test AI’s ability to organise complex information and highlight key considerations for pending decisions. This application helps ensure you’re considering all relevant factors.

How to start: For your next significant decision, input the relevant information and ask the AI to organise it into a structured framework that identifies pros, cons, risks, and opportunities.

Taking the First Step

The gap between leaders who personally engage with AI and those who delegate understanding continues to widen. The former are making more informed investments, identifying unique competitive advantages, and developing more effective implementation strategies.

The good news is that meaningful engagement doesn’t require technical expertise or significant time investment. Begin with just one application from our “quick wins” list this week. Spend 30 minutes exploring how it might fit into your workflow.

Your personal experience will do more than improve your AI decisions—it will transform how you lead your organisation through this period of technological change. In a business environment where AI capabilities are evolving monthly, there’s simply no substitute for trying before you lead.