S1:Ep75 The CEO Playbook for Scaling Business in the AI Era: Redefining Leadership & Innovation with AI at the Core

My today’s guest is Steven Hyde from London, UK. In this episode of the "Digital Transformation & AI for Humans" we are diving into Redefining Leadership & Innovation with AI at the Core - to create The CEO Playbook for Scaling Business in the AI Era.

Steven Hyde is the CEO and Co-founder of Push Group, a leading AI-powered marketing company helping businesses shining through performance marketing, data, and innovation. A recognized thought leader in leveraging AI to drive measurable growth, Steven draws on leadership experience from global brands such as Walt Disney and Pepsi.

With offices in UK, USA, UAE, Denmark, and Greece, Push Group empowers businesses through dynamic campaign delivery, on-demand team training, and expert consulting. 

The company has been recognized on the global stage - by winning Gold for Best Use of AI in Marketing and Performance at the AI & Data Awards 2025 and being shortlisted in six categories at the Global Search Awards 2025, including Best Integrated Campaign, Most Innovative Campaign (SEO), and Best Use of AI in Search and .

🔑 Key topics:

• Why the right moment for change is here and now - and why the CEO mindset must evolve in the AI era
• The biggest shifts in the playbook for scaling businesses compared to the pre-AI era
• How AI is unlocking exponential growth opportunities beyond efficiency gains and cost savings
• What ethical considerations should CEOs and board leaders prioritize in their AI strategies
• How AI transforms the way leaders should approach innovation, company culture, and customer experience
• What role human-centric leadership plays in balancing automation, creativity, and trust
• Leadership lessons from Disney, Pepsi, and global consulting to guide scaling business in the age of AI
• Required  organizational shifts - structures, processes, decision-making to embed AI into company DNA
• What CEOs and business leaders should unlearn to ensure sustainable growth in the coming years of AI transformation

🔗 Connect with Steven Hyde on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hydesteven/

🔗 Learn more about Push Group: www.pushgroup.co.uk

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Digital Transformation & AI
• 8:20 Stephen Hyde's Journey and Background
• 21:09 The CEO Mindset in the AI Era
• 26:40 AI's Impact on Business Growth
• 32:20 Human-Centric Leadership with AI
• 36:29 Organizational Shifts for AI Integration
• 41:21 Final Advice and Conclusion

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and welcome to Digital Transformation and AI for Humans with your host, emi. In this podcast, we delve into how technology intersects with leadership, innovation and, most importantly, the human spirit. Each episode features visionary leaders who understand that at the heart of success is the human touch nurturing a winning mindset, fostering emotional intelligence and building resilient teams. My today's guest is Stephen Hyde, from London, the UK. We are going to dive into redefining leadership and innovation with AI at the core. We will create the CEO playbook for scaling business in the AI era.

Speaker 1: 0:46

Stephen Hyde is the CEO and co-founder of Push Group, a leading AI-powered marketing company, helping businesses shine through performance, marketing data and innovation. A recognized thought leader in leveraging AI to drive measurable growth, stephen draws on leadership experience from global brands such as Walt Disney and Pepsi. With offices in the UK, usa, uae, denmark and Greece, push Group empowers businesses through dynamic campaign delivery, on-demand team training and expert consulting. The company has been recognized on the global stage, shortlisted in six categories at the Global Search Awards 2025, including Best Integrated Campaign, most Innovative Campaign in SEO and Best Use of AI in Search. I am honored to have Stephen as a part of the executive group of the AI Game Changers Club as a part of the executive group of the AI Game Changers Club, an elite tribe of visionary leaders redefining the rules and shaping the future of human-AI synergy. Welcome, steve, it's a great pleasure to have you here in this studio today.

Speaker 2: 1:57

Thanks, emi. I'm really looking forward to this conversation from the time I met you in Dubai back in May, so it should be a good talk we have.

Speaker 1: 2:05

It was amazing to meet you in Dubai at Seamless Middle East, and I've been looking forward to this conversation so much, so I'm happy to have you here today. Let's start the conversation and transform not just our technologies but our ways of thinking and leading. If you are interested in connecting or collaborating, you can find more information in the description, and don't forget to subscribe for more powerful episodes. If you are a leader, business owner or investor ready to adapt, thrive and lead with clarity, purpose and wisdom in the era of AI wisdom in the era of AI I would love to invite you to learn more about AI Game Changers, a global elite club for visionary trailblazers and changemakers shaping the future. You can apply at AIGameChangersclub, steve. To start with, I would love to learn more about yourself, about your journey, about your passions. Tell us more, please.

Speaker 2: 3:05

Wow, okay, your journey, about your passions? Tell us more, please. Wow, okay, um, so I'm quite old now but, um, I can give you a bit of background to kind of how I got to where I am now. So, um, very, very briefly, um, I came out of university 90s and I'd studied business, which was quite unusual at the time, but I came into a world if anyone remembers the 90s I came into a world where the best graduate jobs were to go work in in fmcg, so working in fast moving consumer goods for companies like coca-cola or mars or so on, and I eventually ended up working, um, actually funnily enough, in the middle east for a company and then eventually, uh, working for pepsi in the UK and then Disney.

Speaker 2: 3:44

But that was the 90s and that era was very, you know, that was all really, if we remember it, that was pre-digital really. And I think it's interesting that context, because obviously I've been someone that's seen the emergence of, firstly, digital and digital marketing and then seen now the emergence in the last, you know, five years really that's the time I'm really focused on it of of ai, and I think they are distinct eras, but we'll get to talk about that. But, yeah, that's the background. So I had a corporate career up until about 2002. Then I started emmy doing some like internet consulting and it's a marketing consult and then I met a guy who was co-founder of push in 2005 so 20 years ago. Is that ricky selenki, who's my co-founder, and we kind of met in london, an internet consulting forum, and I realized, wow, this guy knows loads about google adwords.

Speaker 2: 4:40

Google was new there, google advertising was new. Phrases like seo, seo and PPC were new to lots of people and that's how we kind of started. We started Push in 2007 together and we've grown ever since. So it started in a consulting room in London and has grown to be a business that's now in a number of different countries and along that journey it's been great, but there's been some downs and some ups. We've had a lot of different war stories from that experience, which I hope I'll share with you today, because it's not all plain sailing, it's not all easy. You don't just start a digital business and then it just goes fantastically from day one. There's lots of things that you get wrong as well.

Speaker 1: 5:26

And I truly appreciate your bravery and courage and also how humble you are, because there are leaders who tell about their business development and their stories only from the positive side of things, and you can do that as well. But the real story, it is always a story of ups and downs, as anything else in life, and I truly appreciate it and I'm excited to hear more about it, but I'm sure it will come through the conversation today. Steve, scaling a business has never been easy, but the AI era is rewriting the roles of leadership, innovation and growth. Ceos and board leaders today are not just leading companies. They are architecting intelligent organizations in the uncharted landscape. Let's start with your view. How must the CEO mindset evolve when AI sits at the very core of business strategy?

Speaker 2: 6:28

Wow. Okay, that's a really big question and there might be a big answer to it, but I suppose I think it is useful for us as human beings to get into context just how big this shift is, because different people have a perspective on just how much of an impact ai will have, and obviously I'm going to focus on marketing. But, looking at the white context of ai and business and ai in general, I think um, I'm a big believer in, in I kind of keeping up today and I read magazines like the economist every week, and the economist is really, I think, is really instrumental in just how it tries to portray this change in the macro or the global economy that we're about to experience. And I think, as human beings, one of the challenges we face is that we me, you and everyone watching this has not been through the kind of level of change that we're about to see in the next few years. Five years, ten year it's going to be immense. Started is happening, but it's not, and I think this is one of the dangers. It's not a small change and it's going to happen very, very quickly and there's lots of noise around and, for example, there are some people that sit in the camp that will say there's going to be mistakes, that may. There'll be ai companies that go down and and everyone will say, oh look, it's just, the bubble has burst and they did that with digital back in, you know, in the 2000 when the dot-com bubble burst. But this is definitely bigger than the internet. In my opinion, it's going to have a bigger impact. Um, you don't need to take my word for it.

Speaker 2: 8:01

If you look at some of the articles that have been put out there by really leading economists, they talk about the potential for massive increases in GDP that AI has for all countries and economies, and I think one of the challenges that CEOs face is typically not generally young people. They're perhaps maybe in their 30s or 40s or 50s or even older people. They're, perhaps they're maybe in their 30s or 40s or 50s or even older, and they net that. One of the big mindset challenges is how do you prepare for something that is going to be so big, so, so big and that have such a quick impact, particularly when you've got organizations that aren't used to changing a speed and at pace? There's a really interesting.

Speaker 2: 8:42

There's a phrase or a curve I often refer to and uh, coined by a guy called scott brinker who's at hubspot and he coined the phrase the martech curve.

Speaker 2: 8:52

If I try and demonstrate, it basically just has time on one side and the speed of change on on the other axis, and what it shows I think it's useful is that organizations change at a logarithmic rate. It's very hard to change a business, particularly larger or medium-sized businesses, really quick, but the challenge we all face is that word exponential and that technology is changing at an exponential rate. If you look at some of the improvements that we're expecting with AI in terms of its ability to handle more and more data, again that's exponential. And how do CEOs begin to handle? I think the first thing they need to do is almost start with a blank sheet of paper and think about their organization and their customers and understand that the opportunity is bigger than any opportunity for change that they have faced, not just in their careers, but probably it would have been in their careers of their parents or their grandparents. This is big and anyone that is thinking that what we're about to go through is just another small dot-com burst it's not.

Speaker 1: 10:04

It's going to be huge and we're seeing that already and we're seeing changes coming through which I'll try and allude to in the discussion that we have today I really appreciate that you highlight it as something outstanding, something we haven't been through before and something to pay attention to in a different way, because I see many leaders are still comparing it to what our civilization has been through and simplifying the perspective, which means that it might be comforting, but it is not going to prepare us to what's next to come. So I would like to dive a little bit deeper. How does AI change this traditional playbook of scaling a business in the digital world, and what are the biggest shifts CEOs must recognize compared to the pre-AI era? Because there is so much to catch up with and so much to introduce in order to survive and, specifically, if those leaders want to thrive.

Speaker 2: 11:12

Yeah. So I think, again, it's useful again, again in the context of growth and economic growth. So you know many. What people sometimes forget is that that if you look at the history of growth and economic growth, so you know, what people sometimes forget is that if you look at the history of the world, the growth rates were, you know, up to the year about 1700, before the Industrial Revolution started, they were literally 0.1%. I mean, this is all data that you can go and find for yourself from economics professors and it's certainly there in the Economist. But it wasn't until the Industrial Revolution that things restarted to grow. From the period of 1700, I think about the mid-1800s, the growth was about half percent and then with 1900, with the introduction of industrial scale, you had growth close to 2% and in the 20th century, growth close to 2% and in the 20th century growth close to 2.5%.

Speaker 2: 12:01

The what if? Is this what if? Growth, gdp growth can get to 10%, 20%, maybe even higher, and there are economists out there, really well-valued economists, that believe that AI gives the potential for that level of change. So I think that you know, from the point of view of the playbook, the phrase we often use is all bets are off. You have to start developing a mindset that could try to exploit or be aware that there's an opportunity for absolutely massive growth in economies and in business models. So that's the first big change of mindset, because so many CEOs are stuck in the roles where they know that they might get 4%, 5%, maybe 15% growth, but we are in a situation where we could see astronomical growth figures coming through.

Speaker 1: 12:53

Exciting times, truly, but I'm thinking also. Many leaders focus on efficiency gains, but where do you see AI unlocking exponential growth opportunities that go beyond cost savings, performance, efficiency? What are the ethical considerations leaders need to include into their agendas?

Speaker 2: 13:13

I mean. So there's lots. So we switched to AI for modus operandi. Three years ago we went to our team to talk about a manifesto for AI and understanding about how our team wanted to write the playbook really for our business. So there are lots of different ethical considerations.

Speaker 2: 13:33

The data suggests like in the field of marketing, there will be as much as one in every five jobs won't exist in just a few years. I mean, really we're talking a few years now. That's not to say that new jobs won't get created, but we are looking at a very significant change in that. So that data has come from. The international data group is suggesting you know, if we're a leader and you've got a business and you're looking at just in the field of marketing, by the end of 2028 one in five marketing roles could be performed by ai. So you have to. That's today's current roles. Clearly, I mean there's going to be new roles that emerge.

Speaker 2: 14:08

But the phrase that from marketing point of view, a marketeer won't necessarily lose their job to ai, but they will lose it to a marketeer that's using a well-versed with ai so some big, big, big, um, big numbers coming through so that just to reference, that's not, that's not steve's opinion. That's data from the international data group. So you know, we see in the agency field that the traditional agencies could be reducing staff by 40. That could be migrating execution to a certain limited number of ai enabled contractors and focusing many of their resources on advanced data governance. Then there could be migrating execution to a certain limited number of AI-enabled contractors and focusing many of their resources on advanced data governance and AI services. So it's a big shift. So I think the first ethical consideration is what does it mean for my existing team and employees? How do I make sure they're equipped to move into this new world? Because there's going to be new roles that are emerging. They're already starting.

Speaker 1: 15:01

You've already heard of of many names and there's new terms that are emerging, particularly in the field that I work in that's true, but as I'm surrounded by those ai game changers who are working with the agentic solutions, and then we are not talking about people anymore, we are talking about those technological implementations which are helping us being more efficient and helping businesses growing faster and even reducing the cost of running the business, but at the same time, they are already being sold for certain roles in the companies, those agents, which means that that is also not just competition with other humans who are better versed with AI, but also with technology itself. And actually just a few days ago, I have heard an opinion that, speaking about the industrial revolution, that yes, the cars replaced the horses, but there are still as many horses in the world. But unfortunately. I was just curious to take a look at the statistics and in those industrialized countries, the amount of horses went from 25 millions down to 3 millions. And that's something that happened in the past.

Speaker 1: 16:24

And I still think I don't want to compare what we are going through today with the Industrial Revolution, because I think it's so much different in many ways, so it is wrong to compare it one-to-one. That's why I never do that and I often even explain why when I'm asked about it. But I see that certain effects are going to take place and, yes, the amount of horses went up for a while and it exploded, and that's what we might see first, but what is going to happen then? That's a big question it's already started.

Speaker 2: 17:06

So there's data out there showing that if you look at startups, for example, and emmy. So if you look at startups, there's some studies done in the us. They're looking at measuring that the median number of days that a startup goes until it hires its first, hire its second person and its third person, and what's happening is from 2022 to now, it's shifting backwards. So basically, on average, a startup firm is taking longer than it did three years ago to hire its first person, longer than it did three years ago to hire its first person, longer than it did three years ago to hire its second person and its third. So you are eventually going to see we know we're going to see a lucky unicorn company created where it's just one person, that's. You know.

Speaker 2: 17:49

Everyone knows about that famous bet that Sam Altman has made that you know there will be at some stage. There'll be a business, a business model that is just one person and the rest is all agentic ai. So that's coming. It already started. And you've got other people like I think it was the head of shopify has said no new hires unless it can be proven that it can't be done by ai. So this is already started. We're already in this space, let's try and make sense of what happens next. It's not straightforward, but the impacts are going to be big.

Speaker 1: 18:21

I couldn't agree more, and you made me think about my recent conversation with one person who is offering fundraising as a service to startups and small businesses, and he told me you know, the trend is shifting because before they were asking for 100,000 and it was okay. So today I know that I can build the same for 10,000, and I've done that. So I'm reconsidering the game and that's what is happening as well. It's so many variables that we have to take into consideration in this transformation, but of course, this is both exciting and something we haven't been through before as humans, as leaders, as business owners. So we have to be adaptable and also we have to care about the consequences. Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1: 19:22

How should CEOs think differently about innovation when AI is no longer just a tool, but an embedded driver of strategy, culture and customer experience?

Speaker 2: 19:33

I feel that the evidence suggests that creativity, which is obviously a component of innovation, is still very much human-centric requirement is needed in order to get some some true groundbreaking creativity. I think what we've seen, that ai, as it currently stands and it's improving, of course, literally every day is very capable of producing content, output ideas that can accelerate existing idea models. But I still think that human touch is important to be able to challenge and build on some of the tools of work they are able to provide. So we're in an era now where, I think, from a marketing point of view, you've got hyper personalization, automation, automation that's AI-led, strong, generative AI, improving prompt engineering, great predictive analytics and so on. But the need for, if you like, the kind of the beauty in all of this is be able for human beings to work and understand how AI is adding value to their roles. But it also frees up people to become more creative, to give them that time to be doing a lot of less repressive tasks and focus on really true creativity.

Speaker 1: 20:49

I agree that certain jobs, and certain tasks as well, are, as my other guest mentioned once, dehumanizing. So at a certain point we are going to see a completely different landscape, and that's a great news. What role does this human-centric leadership play in balancing automation, creativity and trust as organizations scale, with ai at the core? What do you think about this?

Speaker 2: 21:19

Steve, I think, first of all, I think it's important to be open with teams. To be open with them about I mean really open, maybe more open than CEOs have ever been before. Ceos should be capable of saying I don't know where the future is going to take us exactly. I've got some sense of it, but they need to show that they're excited. But there are some things that they are also concerned about. I think it's important to involve people very early on in those conversations, like I said, as we did at Push, where we built out an AI manifesto with the team.

Speaker 2: 21:59

We're going through a process at the moment Emmy where, as a business, we are reassessing some of our cultural values. So, in the past, I'm not saying these are all not appropriate, but we're recognizing that the shift that we're going through, that we need to revisit our values and the way that we work. So I think that's an aspect of leadership that CEOs need to consider. Some of the ways that we work might change. So, for example, our previous values that we held dearly at Push that really existed, I would say, in the digital era and they grew up from the late 2010 period would have been values that we held about being always ahead, about being fast and what I mean by fast is about making decisions fast about. We had a value around classic one, but around family, and that was because we had a lot of young people joining us from other countries. We wanted to look after them and make sure that they felt part of the team. And also around being open. Now, as we go through the next few weeks, we're working through some of the values that we hold at the moment and there's new ones that are emerging, which are things like being able to be very direct and candid with feedback, so with things like tough love. It's going to be one because we're going to have to be able to move even faster, um, at the pace that we make decisions. Uh, we're also going to have to look to bet about kind of that.

Speaker 2: 23:27

We talk about things like relentless curiosity. Um, because we can't. It can't be, I think, in the previous world, and it's strange to think of this. So in our case, in marketing, where, you know, even 10 years ago, we were very google and meta-centric and we were looking at how those different channels we packaged on our clients in the previous world. You know, funny enough, things didn't change that much over the course of a year or two. Now we're seeing changes happening obviously a lot faster, and so we need a value set that responds to that and that the team are comfortable with, and we are going through that work at the moment. So I think one of the first things that I would say is important for human-centered leadership is to acknowledge your own excitement, but also concerns, and then bring those conversations into the team and talk about into the leadership team and talk about how they might be able to respond and be prepared that the values may change and the culture may shift.

Speaker 2: 24:32

One thing we've noticed so, emmy, you've heard of the phrase digital native, so we've noticed that actually, this is fascinating is that some of the people that have been at push in the past, when we said that we're shifting to being an AI first business, what's fascinating is some and these were people that may be in their 20s, late 20s some people were not comfortable with that change, wanted and I'm going to use it they wanted to be a PPC manager or a digital marketing manager, and they perhaps then they moved on to other digital agencies that aren't moving as fast as we are, but at the same time, we've attracted talent coming into the business. I have to say, a lot of it's from other countries, by the way. Attracted talent into business. There are people that are more ai native, ai curious. They start their day by looking you know, working on replit or working on an agentic tool. They just have a different mindset.

Speaker 2: 25:30

So I think we're seeing a shift.

Speaker 2: 25:31

From a human being point of view, we're seeing a shift.

Speaker 2: 25:34

It's no longer about conversation about people being digital natives. They now need to be AI native. They need to be AI first, and I think that does present a human challenge for all leaders to think about the people they have in their business. Maybe it's a time, emi, maybe it's a time to get you know if you want new blood into the business. Maybe it's a time to get you know even younger people in that are, you know, working on these tools day in, day out, just like my, for example. My 17-year-old son will be using AI tools almost constantly in how he completes his research. So I think there's a lot there to unpack, but I'd summarize that by saying how you definitely be open, admit that you don't know where all of this is going, but have an open conversation with your leadership team and talk about whether or not the values that you have or have had as a business, whether or not they're going to have or have had as a business, whether or not they're going to be appropriate for this new world.

Speaker 1: 26:31

I totally agree. It is important, and this AI native, instead of being just digital first, it is something what we are going to see impacting us more and more, and both you and I will belong to a generation which comes from the world where digital solutions didn't exist at all. So actually, we're the first generation who has seen all of it in one life, and it is amazing, it is exciting, and I think we belong also to that group of humans all the generation which has been through this transition which holds much more wisdom around how the world can be without those solutions and how humans can interact and what they can represent without being in this digital world or AI-powered world, and that's also a huge advantage. So, thinking about it, from your journey at Disney and Pepsi to building a global consulting business, what leadership lessons stand out when it comes to building, scaling and evolving in the age of AI?

Speaker 2: 27:50

When I think of the shift that I made from the corporate world of being, say, at Pepsi and then at Disney, I would say that one of the challenges some of the big existing corporates have is that they are so entrenched in working in a certain way that they fail to see the big shift happening and they just find there's an organization structurally just too hard for them to change. So, for example, at Disney, one of the businesses that we used to work with was Blockbuster and everyone knows what happened to them, how they were beaten eventually by Netflix because they just couldn't adapt quickly enough. So I think the first, the first thing to think about overall is to really help define what. What market are you in them? Who are your consumers? That's the first thing, because you know blockbuster weren't in the market for dvds and videos. They were in the markets for helping people enjoy entertainment, entertainment home, and they failed to recognize shift to streaming. So they did. They weren't quick enough on that and there.

Speaker 2: 28:53

But there are many, many examples of other businesses along the years that have made, to have not made that shift. You think, for example, businesses that you know really well that got caught out by this shift to e-commerce. So businesses like toys are us. You know, if you and I could jump in a time machine and go back to whatever 20, 2010 or 2007 and go into the boardroom of toys are us and they say, right, we're going to bring in these experts, steve and emmy are going to go in and they're going to talk to us about what the future looks like we could have told them, firstly, they might not have believed us, firstly, but secondly, even if they believed us, I don't think those businesses they were so entrenched in the way that they worked that they just could not reconfigure the business to adapt to the future. You get politics going on, for example. You get people fighting over the idea of people protect their little areas.

Speaker 2: 29:50

So one of the big things that we saw Emi back in 2008, 2009, we had big. I mean remember Google was formed in 1998. Google AdWords came out in 2004. Came out in 2004. But even by 2008, we had very well-paid marketing CMOs who were refusing to believe that Google was going to become a big thing. They would dismiss it and say people don't click on those ads. They would dismiss many other. Even when Facebook came along, they didn't see it and so their focus was on traditional media. Their focus was still on TV, on radio, on press.

Speaker 2: 30:33

Yeah, there's so much there to consider, but I think so many of these leaders they have to acknowledge, they have to be prepared that the change is going to come very big and very quick. Already seeing it now with our clients, I mean're seeing we've, we've seen, I think, a shift in website attention and in visits to websites because of the large language models. People are people you and I, people watching this. They are using tools like chat, gpt. They're using you know perplexity, claude. They're using it to find solutions and they're not going to websites they once have gone to. So the landscape, for a marketing point of view, is already changing very quickly and I think lots of businesses, particularly the bigger ones, are going to get caught out very quickly you just covered so many critical areas that I am truly, deeply impressed.

Speaker 1: 31:27

It touched my heart when you mentioned the example of Toys R Us, because, as a parent, I remember the disappointment when those huge, beautiful stores were closing and it was because they didn't get the chance to adapt and potentially, they refused adapting as well. I've seen the internal politics and the way people are fighting for keeping their status quo in the big corporations. It is also something that is going to hold back many industries from growing and potentially, unfortunately, even surviving this transformation. I also agree that those shifts they are going to be very fast, very powerful. That's why I would like to focus on them a little bit more. So in practice, what organizational shifts, structures, processes?

Speaker 2: 32:37

So, in practice, what organizational shifts, structures, processes or decision-making models are required for CEOs and board leaders to truly embed AI into the DNA of their company? Okay, first up is acknowledging, as we've just said, that this is a really big shift and there are still people, as you've said, that just don't acknowledge that. They think that this is a little bit of business as usual, and keep your eye a little bit on ai on the side. You know someone in it would have been tasked to go and have a look at it. So the first thing that I'd recommend is that they they get some either external advice on just how you know they can take, for example, an ai audit you know of just how ready or business ready there is, how ready their business is to be able to handle what's coming in the next couple of years. That's the first thing. But they might want to consider, just for example, as 20 years ago no one had heard of a chief digital officer or something like that, I would say to Decent-sized businesses, ambitious, they should think about having a C-level person that are responsible for AI integration. So we have a push we've had for two years. We have an AI integration director whose role it is to check across our business, different tools that we could be using to accelerate the adoption and automation of AI into our own business. That role is now. We're now playing that role in other clients. We're playing the role where we're going in. We're running AI audits. We're running them quite quickly as well, and then we're talking about the roadmap for the future for businesses as they move into the next couple of years.

Speaker 2: 34:10

So one other thing that I think is quite useful to consider from a mindset point of view, emmy, is that CEOs should not think of AI or the shift as, and many of them do. They think of it as like an IT project and they think of it, maybe, as like an expensive IT project. The first thing that they should do is to start to look to try and see how they can. They can get the right people in place and shift the culture to one of testing and experimenting and adapting, and not this is not something that they can keep on kicking the can down the road. They have to start now, and they have to start with looking at making sure that the conversation around ai is a regular monthly boardroom discussion.

Speaker 2: 34:59

It's not something that they review once every year. It's not something that they can just push to the it people. It needs to become right now on every single monthly board meeting that they have. So you it's not you know, when you have the board meeting you have to go through the classic stuff where you're going through. You know last conversations strategic objectives, you'll talk about marketing, finance operations. Ai needs to be in there on every single board meeting and it needs to be centralized. But it comes back to the question is they need to? Everyone is asking what are we doing about AI, but they don't know where quite to start. I would say start with some sort of external audit of your business.

Speaker 1: 35:40

Totally, and the fact that AI is taken for a part of IT. It is what I see again and again and that's why, when I've been preparing my masterclass I'm going to run on Monday for the board members I have special slides there to explain why AI is not just another IT project and how it needs to move and take the place which it deserves and that dedicated place. It's going to create the difference between the companies which are succeeding and the companies which are failing in this big I adoption. So I couldn't agree more and there we are 100% aligned, definitely. But I so much appreciate all of your insights around this because truly it should be a part of the current conversations, not just a nice to have, but a focal point focus on what is going to change and how to embrace those shifts in the best possible way in order to find those benefits and deal with the underwater stones which it brings as well.

Speaker 1: 37:01

Steve, what is one thing CEOs and business owners must unlearn if they want to successfully scale in the AI era? When I talk to leaders and I mention the unlearned part, they first get very surprised, because it's not often that we are thinking about unlearning and that's why my masterclass is also called Unlearn, adopt and Thrive. At the same time, they admit that the unlearned part might be the most difficult part for us, because we are used to running the business as usual.

Speaker 2: 37:42

Wow, I mean that's a really, really good question. It's not necessarily an easy thing to answer. I could go back to what I started the conversation with which you know almost unlearning that growth is incremental, that it's certain, that you know there's like a mindset, that of around growth, that growth might be five percent, ten percent, fifteen percent or whatever in an industry. I think that's one thing that people would need to unlearn that there is the potential for very dramatic growth in businesses. I don't know that that's the answer. That, I would say, is my number one for unlearning. I would say I think there's something around looking outside of their own industry and their own sectors, their own vertical markets, and looking at what's happening elsewhere. This is a time to be looking and trying to understand emerging new business models that are coming across a whole range of sectors. I think that's what I would be trying to do. I don't know if that quite answers how to unlearn something, but I think the problem with many CEOs is they tend to just stay in their lane. They look at their company and they look at the market that they're in or the vertical that they're in. They need to start looking outside of it because that's where they might get some lessons.

Speaker 2: 38:58

What we will see, or what we're starting to see already, is we're getting completely new business models emerging from this revolution. I mean absolutely unheard of business models that will transform. We saw something similar, but smaller, in the digital revolution. So you know, obviously in the digital revolution of the noughties, yeah, and e-commerce businesses emerged. Suddenly, people realized that they could go out and build their own e-commerce business. You know, before, back in 1997, if you or I said to someone we want to start a business and we want to sell some product, we'd start a shop, but then you had people starting e-commerce business. Well, now you're going to have a whole new range of business models coming through.

Speaker 1: 39:40

I don't know what they all are yet, but but ceos need to keep mindful and be looking at those that's super valuable and I agree, we don't know exactly what and, specifically, we can't think about how when we don't know what, but we have to be open and there are certain signs of what is about to come. So it is also about opening up our mind and having a broader perspective to be more receptive, probably, to those subtle shifts which are pointing in the direction of next coming steps of development. Steve, can you share one powerful piece of advice to CEOs, business leaders and executives on how to future-proof their leadership and ensure sustainable growth in the coming years of AI transformation? I enjoy our conversation so much. Just to wrap up with something super condensed, super valuable, so that everybody has this insight to land in their reality.

Speaker 2: 40:51

Okay, I think I'll go with one, which is almost two, but I would say you got to bring AI a conversation into the boardroom, which may mean bringing in an AI integration director or an external consultant. But packaged with that, I would say get an external AI audit, get a business to look and see where you're at, take someone else's point of view. That's the one piece of advice.

Speaker 1: 41:14

That is super valuable and thank you so much for sharing it. I truly appreciate your wisdom. Your also adapt and lead this change. Thank you so much, steve.

Speaker 2: 41:40

Thank you.

Speaker 1: 41:41

Thank you for joining us on Digital Transformation and AI for Humans. I'm Amy and it was enriching to share this time with you. Remember, the core of any transformation lies in our human nature how we think, feel and connect with others. It is about enhancing our emotional intelligence, embracing a winning mindset and leading with empathy and insight. Subscribe and stay tuned for more episodes where we uncover the latest trends in digital business and explore the human side of technology and leadership. If this conversation resonated with you and you are a visionary leader, business owner or investor ready to shape what's next, consider joining the AI Game Changers Club. You will find more information in the description. Until next time, keep nurturing your mind, fostering your connections and leading with heart.