For Enterprises For the CEO and executive team

AI Strategy for Enterprise

Three days in which your executive team builds its own AI strategy and decides how the company will run it: which opportunities to pursue, what they are worth, who owns them and how progress is measured.

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Enterprise · For Executives
Duration
3 days
Who takes part
CEO and executive team
Where
Your company, a venue of your choice, or on campus
Back to overview
Why it matters

A plan of your own

Executive teams face the same questions: which AI initiatives deserve investment, who owns them, and how the company keeps control as they grow. The answers depend on your own work and data, on what the company stands for, and on what its owners and non-executive board will support.

Companies using AI 9 in 10

use AI regularly in at least one business function.

AI high performers 6%

of companies attribute at least 5% of operating profit (EBIT) to AI.

Redesigned work 3 in 4

AI high performers have fundamentally redesigned workflows, against one in four other companies.

How we frame the work

What a strategy must reconcile

An AI strategy holds only where three things meet. Where only two overlap, something is missing.

1What AI can do2What the company stands for3What the board will support Right, but unfundedFunded, but off-missionSupported, but not feasible Your AI strategy
  1. 1
    What AI can doWhich tasks it can improve today, at what cost and risk
  2. 2
    What the company stands forCustomers, people, values and the limits the owners set
  3. 3
    What the board will supportInvestment, oversight and the evidence directors need
  4. AI StrategyA strategy the company can fund, run and stand behind.
Where circles partly overlap
  • Right, but unfunded
  • Funded, but off-mission
  • Supported, but not feasible
The program

Day by day to a strategy

Before the program, we interview the CEO and representatives of the owners or the non-executive board, and each executive interviews two or three managers about their work. Their findings become the first list of AI opportunities. Each day narrows the options, so the team ends with a few well-supported choices rather than a long wish list.

Duration
3 days
Who takes part
CEO and executive team
Preparation
Executives interview their own managers
Where
Your company, a venue of your choice, or on campus
  1. Day 1 AI ambition and limits Output Where AI will and will not be used
  2. Day 2 Priorities and business cases Output Scored list of opportunities and business cases
  3. Day 3 Roadmap and operating model Output Strategy, roadmap, operating model and metrics
What you take home
  • AI strategyAmbition, limits and priorities your team has agreed
  • ROI casesValue, cost and payback for the strongest opportunities
  • 18-month roadmapPhased, with a check before each new investment
  • Operating modelWho owns AI, who decides, how new ideas surface
  • People planWho is affected and how the company supports them
  • MetricsWhat management tracks and what the board receives
  1. 01PreparationInterviews and reading, so the program starts from your own situation
  2. 02LearnShort faculty input on one part of the strategy or of oversight
  3. 03PracticeThe step is tried first on a teaching case
  4. 04ApplyYour team or board applies it to your own company
  5. 05Follow-upAn optional review once the first results are in

Every program is adapted to your industry, size and governance before it starts.

Choosing what to do

How opportunities are sorted

Every opportunity is rated on the value it creates and on how feasible it is with today’s data, systems, risks and costs.

Strategic betsHigh value, but groundwork comes firstPlan the groundwork
Do nowHigh value and ready to startFund and start
StopNot worth the effort or the riskDrop or park
Fill-insModest value, easy to do when capacity allowsHand to the teams
Groundwork, such as cleaner data or a new system, can turn a strategic bet into one to do now.

Who takes part

  • CEO and executive teamBuild and own the strategy, all three days
  • Selected function headsCan join to add depth from their own areas
  • Non-executive directorsCan join the final day to see the strategy and the proposed board metrics
With senior management

Adding senior management

Department heads know where time and money are lost, and they will lead adoption in their teams. Bringing them in adds one day and moves discovery from weeks of preparation into the room: executives interview department heads from other functions, and every function leaves with its own AI plan and a named owner.

Strengths
  • Practical opportunities from the people who run the work
  • Ownership and adoption start in the room
  • Preparation drops to a one-page sheet per department
Trade-offs
  • One extra day, and a larger group to bring together
  • Sensitive choices are discussed in a wider circle
  • Executives must make the final choices in front of their teams
Executives + Department Heads AI Strategy Carried by All 4 days
Family enterprise

The family enterprise version

Family enterprises face the AI questions every company faces, and several of their own: how AI fits the family’s values, how to invest with a longer horizon, how to keep the knowledge of the senior generation and long-serving staff, and how to prepare the next generation. A strategy that leaves these questions open will struggle to win the owners’ support. The family version adds a fourth day and puts these questions at the center.

AI Strategy for Family Enterprise The executives of a family enterprise build an AI strategy that serves the owners’ values, continuity and the next generation. 4 days
Also on campus in New YorkEvery program can run at your company or in your boardroom, or on campus at Columbia Business School, where our founder teaches AI. About the campus option →

Questions executives ask

  • Is this an AI course?

    No. It is a working program. Your team spends three days on its own company and leaves with a strategy it has built itself, not with notes on a generic example.

  • How much preparation does it take?

    Each executive interviews two or three managers about their work, and we interview the CEO and representatives of the owners or the non-executive board. With senior management, preparation drops to a one-page sheet per department.

  • Should our non-executive board be involved?

    Directors can join the final day. If you want both sides to agree from the start, the integrated program brings them in on the first day and the closing session.

  • What happens after the program?

    An optional review after 90 days, against the first roadmap check and the first metrics report. To put the strategy into practice, continue with a guided implementation track.

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