AI agents free up CEOs’ time to think ahead

{"text":[[{"start":5.82,"text":"As the agentic revolution makes AI personal assistants a reality, a growing number of chief executives are beginning to deploy them to help run their companies."}],[{"start":14.82,"text":"Agentic tools, generative AI-powered programs that can perform complex tasks autonomously for users, are already being used to help with compiling board papers and condensing research tasks, allowing company leaders to focus more on strategic thinking."}],[{"start":29.84,"text":"Chief executives of some of the world’s biggest technology companies were among the first to advocate for AI tools’ power. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said he uses at least 10 of his company’s custom Copilot agents, which he described as AI chiefs of staff."}],[{"start":45.86,"text":"Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said he uses AI as a “tutor”. Meta is creating an avatar of its CEO Mark Zuckerberg to engage with staff in his stead."}],[{"start":55.88,"text":"Leaders at younger, tech-focused companies are also using their skills to integrate AI into their own work. Christian Nentwich, chief executive of British agentic AI software developer Duco, says he built his own “critic agent”."}],[{"start":68.86,"text":"“I have it running constantly to see whether I’m spending time on things that are important.” He says the agent tracks the topics of his meetings, emails and messages, and “pulls him back on track” if he is getting distracted."}],[{"start":80.4,"text":"The technology is also being embraced by less AI-centric companies."}],[{"start":84.4,"text":"Rob Hornby, co-chief executive of consultancy AlixPartners, has built his own tools using AI: he uses the models to research and critique his writing, testing his arguments. Hornby describes AI as a “content partner” but is careful about what he lets it do — he writes the first draft himself and warns that the technology often hallucinates citations."}],[{"start":105.28,"text":"Hornby also uses it to “inject a perspective into a discussion when you have a person missing”."}],[{"start":110.64,"text":"Pippa Begg, chief executive of UK advisory firm Board Intelligence, says implementing an AI strategy should start at the top of companies. “If chief executives are serious about [integrating AI] they have to shut the chapter on the way they used to work,” she says. “You have to be willing to change your behaviour.”"}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":126.88,"text":"Begg uses an AI avatar, a digital version of herself, in videos in place of a company-wide email to staff. “I have used an avatar when I have been under the weather, and I know what the team needs is to feel inspired . . . a leader under the weather doesn’t build confidence.” She adds, though, it cannot replace “getting everyone together”."}],[{"start":146.8,"text":"Not everyone agrees that using avatars is appropriate. Nick Murray-Leslie, chief executive of Chatsworth Communications, says he would “die on a hill before I let a machine speak for me to my clients, contacts or team. Relationships are built on trust, judgment and personal chemistry”."}],[{"start":164.02,"text":"Others say they use AI like a “thought partner”, a way to learn and challenge themselves, or to understand what is happening across their company."}],[{"start":172,"text":"Airbnb chief executive Brian Chesky recently told a conference: “What I’ve done is . . . take 18,000 keynote slides, 50,000 Google Docs, tons of company information, and develop this brain, this intelligence corpus. I trained my intelligence corpus and I used it to help me run the company.”"}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":191.12,"text":"Chesky wanted to know how he could stay updated without time-consuming meetings. “This intelligence layer means I now have total information,” he said, adding that the tool had cut in half the number of meetings he needs."}],[{"start":202.76,"text":"Most of the leaders interviewed say AI tools give them more time for strategy. Critical thinking is also becoming more important for their teams, now AI is increasingly doing jobs such as making slide presentations and writing board papers."}],[{"start":216.84,"text":"Board Intelligence’s Begg says: “It becomes quite exposing as to who in your team has that muscle, that skill set,” adding “that’s going to be the human quality which will separate the best going forward”."}],[{"start":228.2,"text":"This is worrying for some people who work with CEOs. Rosemary Parr, Global PA Association founder, says “there is nervousness” among personal assistants that chief executives with AI will leave their assistants “understretched”. Parr teaches assistants how to use AI as one way to deal with that anxiety."}],[{"start":246.02,"text":"Kunal Kapoor, Morningstar chief executive — who uses Silicon Valley start-up tool Instinct in his personal life and has also experimented with Meta’s Muse — thinks carefully about how his team uses AI."}],[{"start":259.64,"text":"In a recent internal hiring process, he says “one of the things I did was go and look at [AI] token spend that the applicants had used so far”, then removed some candidates with low usage. “I’m not looking to put someone in the role that might have been acceptable two years ago,” he adds."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":275.64,"text":"While many leaders appear confident using AI tools, some still find it daunting. A report this month from the US National Bureau of Economic Research found that more than one-fifth of surveyed executives from Australia, Canada, Germany, Mexico, South Africa, the UK and US did not use AI at work. The average weekly use time was 2.1 hours."}],[{"start":297.54,"text":"But even expert users such as Hornby at AlixPartners, whose technology background enabled him to build his own AI tools, are sceptical that they can replace the humans around him. “I have an absolutely extraordinary assistant, who is so much better than any electronic equivalent,” he says. Hornby’s assistant uses AI, which he supports. “It is helping her with her workload . . . helping her retain the parts of the job that are most in need of her expertise.”"}],[{"start":323.52,"text":"Hornby also dismisses the idea of an avatar for communicating. In internal feedback, “one of the things people say they like is the personal connection I build with them,” he says. Delegating that communication to an avatar would be “undermining my own leadership”."}],[{"start":338.2,"text":"“Perhaps humans can specialise in human distinctives and offload some of the things humans are not so good at,” Hornby says. “People bring wisdom, experience, empathy and all these things that AI can’t replicate.”"}],[{"start":354.28,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1793370010_5811.mp3"}