Chief AI Officer

This question came up recently on a call with one of the business owners I support:

What does it mean to be an AI-first business?

That’s what the owners wants to build because he understands it’s the future.

We’re starting to hear that phrase a lot now—AI-first company, AI-first organization, even AI-first solopreneur.

But then…what does it actually mean in practice?

Then yesterday, we were talking again about everything it’s going to take to make the business work.

Because things are moving so fast.

An opportunity that exists today might not be here a month from now.

You can’t plan like you used to.

You have to act fast, and build fast.

Execution has to move at a whole different speed.

And that’s when he said something that really stuck.

He told me he wants me to be like a Chief AI Officer.

Similar to how you might have a Chief HR Officer.

But instead of being in charge of people, it’s AI agents, employees and automations.

It’s having the mindset every time a need or opportunity came up of asking:

Can we build an AI agent or tool to do this?

And then just building the thing without overthinking or over-analyzing it.

It got me excited about what we can do with that approach.

And aligns with what I’ve been realizing I need to do more of.

Two directions to choose from

I think we all need to start asking ourselves some honest questions about where we stand with AI.

One direction is full human.

You decide you’re going to build without AI.

Because you believe it hurts the human connection, or weakens your voice, or flattens what makes your work special.

And you believe you’ll stand out by not using it.

If that’s your approach, and you arrive at it thoughtfully and consciencely, I respect it.

But it needs to be deliberate. Not just “I don’t like AI.”

You need to decide where that boundary is and what it really means.

Like the Amish.

Not anti-technology. But extremely intentional about how and why they adopt anything new.

The other direction is what I believe in.

AI is here. It’s changing everything.

And I want to figure out how to use it well.

I still care about doing meaningful work.

I still want to create value for real people.

But I want to move faster. Be more creative.

And do more than I ever could alone.

This is just something I’ve been thinking about a lot since that conversation yesterday.

And my encouragement is this:

Really think about what role you want AI to play in your business.

Because a lot of us are still only using it to speed up content creation.

And that’s fine.

That’s where this newsletter started too.

Helping people write better emails with AI.

But that’s barely scratching the surface.

Hit reply and let me know what you think?

Which camp do you fall into?

And how are you thinking about building an AI-first business…even if it’s a business of one?

Nathan