AI Literacy: A Must-Have Skill for the Modern Business Leader

Today’s business leaders need to sharpen their AI literacy skills to implement, scale, and leverage the technology in their organizations effectively. In this exclusive interview, Daniel Käfer, former Danish Country Head for Meta and Global Digital Marketing Director at Ooredoo; shares expert insights on why AI implementation starts at the top, what makes a successful AI strategy, measures to recruit and retain AI talent, and more.  

   

Key Takeaways from Daniel Käfer 

• “AI is not hype. In five years, ChatGPT and similar tools will be 10 times more effective than it is today. AI is going to grow quicker than anything we’ve seen before.” 
• “It’s the responsibility of the CEO and board members to set the direction for AI in their organizations, not the Head of Digital or other roles.” 
• “Building a digital transformation-AI team and retaining the most talented employees will be more challenging than ever.” 
• “Get started today. Experiment with different AI tools to help you understand the technology. When you use your knowledge together with the tools, you will see the power of AI. Invest the time needed to get the best results.” 

 

Why is AI considered a super trend?

AI impacts all other trends. No trend in the world is bigger than AI and I believe we are just in the beginning. AI will impact every area of our life. I think we still see people divided. There are more people discussing AI than using it. AI is very underestimated; most people understand to what extent AI can support us with many of the challenges we face.  

When I speak to business leaders, AI is under-hyped and under-leveraged. There’s some fear when it comes to AI on many levels. Even when people consider their own career, right? How do you embrace something that will become more intelligent than you and will probably outcompete you in several areas?  

The average age of a board member in a S&P 500 company is well into his 60s. And if you look at the users of ChatGPT, it’s only really used among college students according to the numbers. There’s a generation gap to some extent and the 2% who have tried that ChatGPT has not really tried it. They scratched the surface but were left disappointed.

But it’s a complex tool. It’s like giving somebody a huge book and they only go through a few pages and say, “It’s not for me, I’m not sure what it can do for me.” So, I think it’s misunderstood. I think people do not invest the time they need in AI to really understand and leverage it at this point. 

 

What are the building blocks of a solid AI strategy?

Before we were discussing AI, we were discussing digital transformation. I’ve been part of putting a digital transformation team together myself and trust me, it’s difficult. It takes experts to hire experts. When you add AI to this complexity, it gets even more difficult. So where do you start?  

You need to start at the very top and make sure that AI is part of the strategy at the CEO and board level. You cannot just assign someone to take care of AI, it must be at the very top level. Get some people in and start working on strategy. The type of AI tools you choose doesn’t matter at this point.  

The most important questions now are, “Do we use AI?” And the answer should be yes. And the other one is, “How do we use it?” And then make some strategic decisions. For example, there could be areas in terms of copyright where you might not want to use AI for music or pictures. However, there could be other areas where AI could be leveraged, such as recording, transcribing, and summarizing meetings. You might also use it in recruiting or marketing.  

There are so many areas, but I think it’s more about defining how to use it, where to use it, and then creating a plan for using it. You might not start with a perfect tool. I don’t think that’s a big issue. It’s more about getting it at the right level and having a strategy in place. 

 

What jobs will AI replace? What can leaders do to prepare their employees?

I spoke with people from the advertising industry, and they admitted that a job that would normally take two to three weeks with four full-time people plus contractors can now be done by one person in a matter of hours with the help of AI.  

Firstly, people will not lose their jobs to AI, but they will lose their jobs to people using AI. There’s nothing we can do about that. That’s just the fact of the future and this will only accelerate. People always say, “If I only have more time to do this.” With AI you do have more time. When I was working at Ooredoo and Meta, there were a ton of projects where we wished we had more time. They were not completed because there were not enough resources.  

As long as we’re asking for more resources, and I’ve yet to meet a company that’s not doing that, AI does not have to displace jobs. However, I’m not saying that there’s no risk of losing your job to AI. Most people see the greater good of AI, but they do not want to be negatively impacted by it. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. Jobs with repetitive tasks will be the first to go. But skills like good communication and coming up with out-of-the-box ideas cannot be replicated by AI. 

Leaders need to encourage their people to be open to change and identify where they can add value in the future.  

 

Why must leaders include employees in the company’s AI strategy?

Transparency in communicating the benefits of AI is important. AI can be a big motivator in a way. For example, employees may want to know how AI will improve the company’s offerings.  

If AI replaces automatic tasks, then some roles won’t be needed anymore. But if those people pivot, they can do something much more interesting in the workplace. Therefore, leaders need to explain the benefits of AI and the expectations needed for their employees to reap its benefits. You can’t say nobody will get fired because of AI and do the opposite. When one person loses their job, everybody will panic.  

It’s about getting the process clear on the management level and then explaining the benefits to the employees. But of course, be clear about the risks of not moving forward and developing AI. 

One of the biggest pitfalls around AI implementation is talking about it but not doing it.  

When leaders talk about how important and effective AI is but don’t have a plan, employees will not feel involved at all. There will be a huge negative effect if you don’t build that strategy.  

 

Why should leaders consider a humble approach to AI adoption?

I think we are all riddled with fear that we need to be a know-it-all at the executive level. I listened to a keynote from one of the Coca-Cola executives last week. The funny thing is, he started out saying, “I’m just learning, I’m actually really new to this, I don’t know a lot.”  

And of course, he’s got a great career within Coca-Cola so I’m sure he’s brilliant. But he just had this very humble approach to say that they’re still testing things out, some of it works and some doesn’t, and they don’t always know why.  

If we could have this humble approach, I think that will help in the future to map out where we can add value instead of being a know-it-all. We are not self-critical enough to know where we can add value and where we count. 

 

What are the challenges of recruiting and retaining AI talent?

The first challenge is understanding what you want. You may want somebody who’s skilled in AI but what does that mean? Is that a prompt engineer or someone who understands AI strategy? I would always recommend getting the strategy right first to build the frame of your AI department. Actually, I don’t see it as an AI department, I see it as a digital transformation department anchored very high up in the organization. 

It’s a mindset more than a technical skill.  

It’s about creating processes and making decisions. You don’t need a super technical guy to use Bard or Midjourney. Anybody can learn that. It’s like going to the gym. Once you start, it gets easier. If you have a decent digital transformation team, they can probably be part of the process. I would get the AI strategy in place before I do anything else. Unless you want, for example, to build a sophisticated chatbot, then hire an external expert. 

 

What is your advice for dealing with risks associated with intellectual property and privacy?

A tool like Midjourney basically works like an artist who gets inspired by millions of different artists until it creates something new. I think the more the models are trained, the less likely a prompt will be so specific that a single work would infringe on another work.  

The other risk is how a model is trained and who would be liable. I’m not a lawyer but I think that, for example, if Midjourney is trained on certain works and the copyright owner doesn’t allow it, Midjourney would be the first target more than its users.  

But that said, this is where companies need to sit down with their lawyers and assess AI risks. We don’t know where this ends and I do foresee many lawsuits within art, graphic design, and music. We will also see regulation taking place differently across the globe. I think Europe will lead with regulation but lack innovation, unfortunately. It also depends on where you do business, whether you’re global or local.  

 

How can companies with limited resources utilize AI?

AI and big tech have created huge advantages for smaller companies. ChatGPT is just one of the tools, but you can have a whole army of tools playing together for a couple of $100 a month.  

It’s not that complex. If you use ChatGPT in your strategy process, if you learn how to have conversations with ChatGPT, you’re already halfway there. Then you start to understand how you can use AI. You don’t have to build your own AI systems. It’s a matter of looking at your processes to see where you can save time and which areas need improvement.  AI can offer quick help with some processes but sometimes it’s more about opening your mind. For example, asking AI if it’s realistic to break into a new market.  

While AI may not give you the answer in the first prompt, it will start a conversation. 

 

*The interview answers have been edited for length and clarity.