AI Strategy for the C-Suite
A ~40-minute strategic brief for CEOs, CIOs, CDOs and board directors. Capital discipline, talent design, governance posture, momentum past year 1. Grounded in Stanford AI Index, McKinsey, BCG/MIT, EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF.
8
Chapters
~40 min
Duration
Intermediate
Level
No
Certification
Who this is for
For CEOs, CIOs, CDOs and board directors past basic AI literacy.
How this course works
- 8 audio-narrated slide chapters · ~40 min of focused content
- Capstone with interactive Markdown builder you take to your team
- Trust trip-wires on every play — what not to cross
- Free verifiable certificate on completion
What you'll walk out with
Specific outcomes from this course — no fluff.
- A clear-eyed view of the AI strategy landscape — Stanford AI Index, McKinsey 71% gen-AI use, the trough of disillusionment
- The CEO-grade portfolio shape — 6 plays that move the P&L, 3 that disappoint, stage-gates that kill bad bets early
- Capital discipline for AI investment — where the money actually returns vs where it goes to die
- Talent design for the AI era — build/buy/borrow, the role architecture, the AI fluency build for the existing org
- The governance posture C-suites have to defend — EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF, ISO 42001, sector overlays
- Momentum past year 1 — the patterns that compound vs the patterns that decay after the first headline
- 4 trust trip-wires every CEO needs in writing — the boundaries you do not cross regardless of pressure
Course content
8 chapters · ~40 min
Welcome
A 1-minute orientation — what the course covers, how to navigate, and what you walk out with. No audio on this screen.
The strategic landscape 2026
Stanford AI Index 2025: $33.9B corporate AI investment (GenAI $25.2B alone). McKinsey: 71% regularly use gen AI. Gartner <30% deliver business value. BCG/MIT: leaders capture 1.5–2x growth + 60% better cost productivity. IBM CEO Study: 64% see AI as decisive. KPMG: 70% top priority.
The 4 AI value patterns
Productivity (MIT/BCG/Harvard/Goldman 15–40% gains, MS Work Trend Index ~30% for active users), products (Salesforce Agentforce, MS Sales Agent — Air Canada cautionary tale), decisions (forecasting/pricing/routing, ML-on-structured-data mature), automation (back-office frontier). Pick 2 of 4 for next 24 months.
Capital allocation
3 rules: concentrate (2-3 patterns, 3-5 use cases), stage-gate (pilot/scale/embed with kill criteria), measure (Deloitte: only 25% have ROI frameworks). Gartner under-30% warning. The 80/20 of AI investment.
Talent and org design
WEF Future of Jobs 2025: 86% expect transformation, 40% expect reduction. 3 talent moves: identify AI-native operators, upskill the senior layer, hire a small specialist team. The CoE trap (pure CoEs fail). Hub-and-spoke + AI council pattern.
Governance the regulators accept
EU AI Act Reg. 2024/1689 (Annex III, Art. 26, Art. 50, Art. 99 fines up to 3% global turnover) in tranches through Aug 2 2026. US landscape Biden→Trump→AI Action Plan. NIST AI RMF as de facto US standard. 4-pillar governance (scope, risk, monitoring, audit). Cross-domain Mata + Air Canada liability.
Sustaining momentum past year 1
The year-2 trap (pilot proliferation, no scaling). 3 fixes: kill 2 of every 3 pilots, scale 1 by embedding (not marketing), make AI-augmented work the default (perf reviews, hiring criteria, output expectations). Anthropic RSP + OpenAI Preparedness Framework as vendor safety landscape.
Board reporting
Tetlock: calibration > confidence. 5 metrics on the 1-page board dashboard: investment, productivity (measured), risk register, regulatory posture, talent. Big-4 advisory 2024-25: audit committees increasingly require AI-use disclosure in MD&A. Confidence labels (strong/suggestive/vendor-claim).
Making it stick: your AI strategy on one page
4 pieces: 2 value patterns · capital envelope · AI council · governance posture. 4 trust trip-wires: no untested model in regulated decisions, no vendor lock without exit clause, no AI-generated board content unverified (Mata principle), no "set and forget". Interactive one-pager builder.
Want this delivered inside your organisation?
The course is the starting point. The same content powers a 4-week pilot, an org-wide rollout, or a continuous build engagement — set up on your data, with your team, by Gennoor Tech.