Will leaders without AI knowledge remain relevant today?

I regularly meet a lot of senior leaders, from team leads and all the way to CEOs, that work at and run different industries. They are smart, experienced and respected individuals who have worked and have built successful organisations, made tough decisions and earned their place at the table too. Many of them are confident in their judgment and proud of the instincts that got them where they are today. Nevertheless, with some, when the conversation turns to anything related to the Artificial Intelligence (AI), I often hear the same remark ie “This is not for me, but for the IT or Tech Team”!. Now that confidence is exactly where the risk begins. In a world increasingly shaped by data and algorithms, a leader’s relevance may no longer be on par with AI-enabled peers unless they actively upskill and engage with it. Hence, I decided to focus this week's article on whether leaders without AI knowledge can be relevant today and mostly the near future.
Let me be clear, at least for now, AI will not replace leadership, yet expose leaders that simply rely on intuition, hierarchy and their past success. Why expose? Because the world today depends on data that moves in real time and AI insights that are paramount for organisational success (of course from clean, accurate and validated data input). AI’s biggest value is speed and clarity. It helps organisations see patterns, forecast outcomes and test scenarios faster than any human team ever could. Leaders who understand AI do not just guess but combine their experience with evidence (backed by data). AI brings that power to leadership table.
AI literacy is now a leadership skill and definitely not just a technical one. Just like leaders do not need to be accountants but must understand financial reports, they do not need to build AI models but they must understand how AI works (in general), value it can create and how it helps with decision making. Effective leaders should use AI as a thinking partner and not as an authority. AI (if used and implemented correctly) helps inform strategy yet leaders ultimately provide judgment (and that’s where AI fails as machine). In addition, AI can highlights risks and leaders in return weigh trade-offs. Finally, AI shows probabilities but leaders decide direction. These are few examples of how AI and leaders can collaborate and work together today and definitely for the future.
Smart leaders should start experimenting with AI early. They should not wait for perfect AI strategies. They should invest time and money into pilot tools to see how they work and add value into their organisations. For example, in a marketing department to understand customers, in finance department to improve forecasting and in operations department to reduce inefficiencies. Small pilots create learning. Learning creates confidence. Leaders need to stay involved in order to understand, be relevant and up-to-date in this crucial era of AI-enabled world. They should not only leave it to tech or IT departments, nor outsource it to consultants and advisors (who may be happy to take them for a ride and speed their irrelevance today).
Leaders that ignore AI will ultimately fail and reasons include becoming slow to decide/act, lose important opportunities and finally operate at higher costs (which could be improved, thanks to AI automation and proven support systems). On the other hand, leaders that utilise AI correctly will make consistent, faster and confident decisions. That’s when leaders replacement will not be a question but rather a necessity if organisations wish to prosper and grow.
To conclude my article this week, let me emphasise that the future belongs to leaders who are curious enough to learn, humble enough to adapt and smart enough to combine human judgment with artificial intelligence. In the end, leadership has always been about relevance and AI is now part of that definition. Until we catch up again next week, stay updated and be AI-ready.