AI isn’t what you do, it’s how you think

The AI problem isn't awareness. It's that nobody at the top knows where or how to start. So they don't. AI isn't a tool problem. It's a thinking problem. And it can only be solved from the top.

Now, they accept what bubbles up from the silos instead. IT runs it as technology. Marketing experiments with a tool. And most employees use shadow-AI with the obvious data and security risks.

All well-intentioned. None of it strategic. None of it connected. So none of it compounds.

The same mistake we made with social and content

This isn't new. We've been here before. When social media arrived, marketing picked it up, corporate communications and PR claimed it, and customer care used it — all from within their own silo.

When content became a discipline, everyone claimed a piece: marketing, sales, PR, corporate comms, customer care, HR. Again, nobody owned it as a whole.

→ AI is the third time we're making the same mistake. Except this time the stakes are even higher. The technology is more powerful, the impact bigger, the pace intense. And we're just at the beginning. 

The gap between organizations that get this right and those that don't is growing. Fast.

Digital shame: why leaders hesitate

The digital shame at board level is real. There are just a handful of board members who have the time and interest to understand AI. 

Most barely scratch the surface — using Copilot or ChatGPT as a time saver or a replacement for Google. And it takes guts to admit you're running behind on AI and ask for help.

The shift you need isn't about technology. It's about thinking

Don't focus on what to do with AI. Focus on how you think.

→ As long as AI is treated as a tool — layered on top of how things already work — the gains stay small and local. Nothing that changes how the whole organization actually works.

The real question isn't which tool to use. It's how to rebuild your processes around AI. And that can only be owned and driven at the top, not siloed in one team and with the mandate to make it a new way of working rather than an add-on.

→ A lot of what gets called AI strategy is cost-cutting in disguise. 

Fewer people. Cheaper output. Faster for less budget. But AI won't replace your people. It will change what you need them for. The real ROI isn't in the hours saved. It's in what you do with them.

The proof is already there: 3 cases

Klarna used AI as a tool to replace people – and failed. But IKEA and Morgan Stanley changed how they think, and used the freed up time to improve their ROI. 

Klarna replaced 700 customer service agents with AI. The numbers looked great. Then quality dropped, complaints went up, trust eroded. By 2025 the CEO was publicly saying they got it wrong. The savings didn't last. The damage did. That's what happens when AI is a cost-cutting decision dressed up as strategy.

IKEA made a different choice. Their chatbot Billie handled 47% of all customer questions. Instead of cutting the staff it freed up, they reskilled 8,500 of them to interior design consulting, remote sales, and complex customer support. The result was €1.3 billion in total revenue through their remote customer channel.

Morgan Stanley didn't replace their 20,000 financial advisors either but gave back time. What if AI handles the document searching, the research summaries, and the repetitive admin? 98% of advisors now use the AI daily. The result was $64 billion in net new assets in a single quarter.

Same technology. The difference was the thinking behind it.

When leaders use AI visibly, it shifts culture

When board members use AI themselves, visibly and openly,  it changes the culture. You stop asking your people to change while you watch from a distance. 

→ You're in it together. That kind of excitement builds loyalty. And once it's gone, it doesn't come back easily.

The thinking is harder than the technology, and that's the advantage

Change how you think about AI and you don't just get better results today. You build a company that's ready for what comes next. Nobody knows where AI is going. 

Most companies focus too much on the technology and not enough on the people. 

→ The companies that get that right have faster adoption, a culture already built, and an advantage that compounds.

The tools are the easy part. You can buy those tomorrow. 

The thinking is harder. And that's where it starts.

About my confessions

More about me and my confessions. Why I hold content to a higher standard. And why I write what most people in this industry won't say out loud.

I'm a content strategist with a university background in marketing, media, sociology, and psychology. I've worked in this industry for 25+ years and for 50+ global brands and agencies. 

I've seen a lot. Made many mistakes. Learned even more. 

Now, I share all this to inspire everyone working in marketing and communication to more accountable work. There's already too much crappy content out there; no need to add to it.

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Most content advice tells you what to do. This tells you how to think. For marketers and communicators who want the difference. 

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