“The Wheel is Turning: Rethinking Leadership in the Age of AI”
A summary of resources, hot topics and what I have been debating with classmates about AI since completing an applied science course with LSU over the last five weeks.
Our Monday online sessions with our instructor, Danoosh Kapadia, had a common theme. The workflows and prompt chaining we had been focused on weren’t just impacting our proposed P&L models, but the overall business plan altogether. AI isn’t just adding new tools to marketing—it’s rewriting the entire playbook. And most leadership teams aren’t moving fast enough to catch up and more importantly…empowering their employees to get comfortable with using these tools.
If you’re thinking about AI as simply the next wave of automation or efficiency, you’re already behind. It’s more like installing a new operating system—one that demands different skills, team structures, and leadership mindsets.
Just this week, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, admitted that ChatGPT’s user experience issues are a symptom of something deeper: we’re building in real time, and the tools are outpacing the training wheels we thought we needed. (TechRadar article)
This means friction is baked into the process—and executives must lead with experimentation, not perfection or expecting new solutions modeled to old standards.
I’m proud of this certification as it clears for me one of the first fundamental blocks in AI knowledge and validated a number of other use cases for AI, even if it’s “shadow AI” exercises outside what’s been approved at work. Don’t wait to start learning.
Where Marketing is Breaking and Rebuilding
AI is reshaping how we think about:
Customer segmentation
Media buying
Content generation
Creative development
Personalized service at scale
The result? Marketing teams that once needed six months to launch a campaign now need to operate at the speed of consumer behavior. My teams have leveraged these new opportunities to determine even if what is in the marketplace now is working to its full potential.
Yet there’s an ongoing debate in the AI community: what if today's AI is already enough? Nate’s Newsletter makes a strong point (read here)—it’s not about chasing bigger models, but building smarter strategies on top of what we already have. Nate’s newsletter is one of my “go tos”, but I find AI tools great at generating concepts and pointing us in the right direction, but still falls short with the true qualitative and quantitative analysis needed with customers for greater annual planning.
Here’s your big question for you all as leaders:
Are you using AI to genuinely improve strategy and creativity—or just chasing shiny new features due to the speed of response?
The Ethical Red Line
Speed and scale are powerful. But without ethical boundaries, they become dangerous.
The Neuron Daily showed how AI is rapidly transforming healthcare (article here), raking in profits—but not without raising serious questions around equity, transparency, and bias.
Marketing leaders face the same dilemma:
Can you target without exploiting?
Can you personalize without invading privacy?
Can you scale without losing human connection?
These aren’t “nice to have” discussions anymore—they’re survival strategies.
The New Executive Mindset for AI
To thrive, leaders must embrace three things:
✔️ Insatiable Curiosity: Try, test, break, and rebuild faster than yesterday.
✔️ Strategic Patience: Don’t adopt AI because it’s trendy—adopt it where it amplifies brand value and more importantly arms the marketer with true brand intelligence.
✔️ Ethical Courage: Be confident and don’t move forward UNLESS you are committed to build trust before you build scale.
The real winners won’t be the fastest movers—they’ll be the most thoughtful ones.
We’ve been talking about you and your education of AI, want to know more about AI Agents? Start here. I also look to Kevin Weil, CPO for OpenAI and the weekly updates he shares for shipped features. I witnessed him do the same at Twitter, Instagram and with 76,000 followers he’s ahead of the wave of what’s next.
What About You?
You may want to start here and see what Shiv Singh has to say with “The Memo Every Leader Should Read”
What’s one leadership adjustment you’re making (or resisting) because of AI?
Drop it in the comments—I want to hear how you’re navigating this in your world.
If this sparked something for you, check out more of my writing on brand, growth, and leadership here: John D. Ross Jr. Substack Library 🚀
Here’s 3 Links that Wowed Me in the Last Week
Pudding’s Wine Selector, an AI GPT based on a few key wine label questions.
Exploring Substack I see a rise in poetry content that inspires creativity, I am willing to step up my poetry reading game and see what comes of it. Already it’s a slow down and think exercise for me rather then scanning for the next great article or infographic.
I love the Allman Brothers’ music and there’s no one better to get a behind the scenes look than from Alan Paul.
