AI Agents in Business: Inside Bentley Lewis with Lewis Maleh

What AI Actually Demands From Leaders, with Cristina Gurguta

AI doesn't remove the need for leadership. It just raises the standard required."   This week I sat down with Cristina Gurguta. Director of Research and Innovation and Associate Partner at INSUS Industrial Sustainable Solutions, and the voice behind the Baby Data Scientist platform.   Cristina started her career as a police officer investigating fraud. Now she investigates data. The overlap, she says, is bigger than you'd expect.   In this episode we get into: ✳️ Why most AI pilots fail and technology is almost never the reason ✳️ Her kill switch protocol, built to shut down AI proposals before they cost the organisation anything ✳️ How she ran an 8-session AI accelerator across 1,500 people, from beginners with no technical background through to data scientists ✳️ Why the AI orchestrator role that's emerging doesn't require writing a single line of code ✳️ What the 4,000 Weeks question really means now that AI is giving back hours each week ✳️ A book recommendation involving vampires. You'll have to listen.     Connect with Cristina: LinkedIn:  [http://Linkedinlinkedin.com/in/markwschaefer]https://www.linkedin.com/in/cristinagurguta/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/cristinagurguta/] Website: https://www.insus.ch [https://www.insus.ch] Website: https://thebabydatascientist.com/ [https://thebabydatascientist.com/]   Books mentioned on the show: Four Thousand Weeks: Embrace your limits. Change your life. Make your four thousand weeks count. [https://amzn.to/4ed2Oor] Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles Series 1-5 Books Collection Set (Interview With The Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen Of The Damned, The Tale Of The Body Thief, Memnoch The Devil) [https://amzn.to/4v0nBmm]   Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction to AI Leadership 03:32 Challenges in AI Adoption 04:48 The Importance of Practical AI Models 06:06 INSYS Approach to AI Training 07:22 Scaling AI Training Across Organizations 09:10 The AI and ML Accelerator Program 11:22 The Kill Switch Protocol in AI Projects 15:13 Navigating AI Risks and Regulations 18:13 The Role of AI Orchestrators 21:36 The Productivity Paradox: AI and Meaningful Work 24:02 Empowerment Through AI: Changing Roles and Skills 26:29 AI as a Tool for Enjoyment and Efficiency 26:49 Integrating AI into Daily Life: Tools and Applications 30:30 Building AI Intuition: Leadership in the Age of AI 31:28 Mentorship and Lifelong Learning 35:10 Experiences Beyond AI: Human Connections and Growth 36:54 Future Aspirations: Expanding Horizons in AI   Get your copy of the Multiply Method ✖️ It's a FREE roadmap walking you through how to multiply the capabilities of your people and your business with AI. www.theaileaderlab.com/roadmap [http://www.theaileaderlab.com/roadmap]   Connect with Martin: Websites: www.theaileaderlab.com [http://www.theaileaderlab.com] LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/martinjwheatley [http://www.linkedin.com/in/martinjwheatley] Subscribe to The Frontier Leader Show wherever you listen to podcasts.

The ROI of a Lightbulb: Rethinking AI and Leadership, with Mark Schaefer

Strip the humanity out of your business to cut costs and you don't get a leaner company. You get a worse one.   Mark Schaefer, marketing futurist, author of 12 books and the man behind the blog GROW, joins Martin Wheatley to talk about the part of the AI conversation almost nobody is having: not how we use AI, but how our customers are starting to.   We get into: ✳️ Why protecting your brand's DNA matters more as AI spreads, and how "humanity as a luxury" could become a genuine point of difference ✳️ Cognitive offloading vs cognitive surrender, and the MIT study where 73% of people accepted a wrong answer from AI ✳️ The single thing Mark thinks leaders get most wrong (it involves trying to prove the ROI of a twenty-pound subscription) ✳️ Why smaller businesses may be better placed to get this right than the giants ✳️ Markbot, the free AI clone Mark built from 16 years of his own work   Whether you're weighing up where AI fits in your business or trying to bring your people with you rather than past them, there's plenty here to sit with.   Connect with Mark: LinkedIn: Linkedinlinkedin.com/in/markwschaefer [http://Linkedinlinkedin.com/in/markwschaefer] Website: BusinessesgrowMarketing Keynote Speaker, Strategy Consultant, and Author | Mark Schaefer [https://businessesgrow.com/]   Mark's books mentioned on the show: How AI Changes Your Customers: The Marketing Guide to Humanity's Next Chapter [https://amzn.to/43RSjlN] Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World [https://amzn.to/4g6Yr0R] Known: The Handbook for Building and Unleashing Your Personal Brand in the Digital Age [https://amzn.to/4obHcxo]   Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 02:12 Mark Schaefer: A Journey Through AI and Marketing 03:47 The Psychology of AI and Its Impact on Humanity 06:27 Cognitive Offloading: The New Norm? 09:08 Relationships with AI: A New Frontier 11:05 AI in Therapy: A Double-Edged Sword 13:26 Human Connection in an AI World 13:56 The Backlash Against AI 16:48 Balancing AI Implementation and Human Touch 20:16 Creating a Custom AI: Markbot Experiment 21:40 Scaling Mentorship and Leadership Tools 24:26 The Three Pillars of AI Strategy 30:09 Transcendent Content and Personal Experience 31:55 Challenges in AI Adoption for Leaders 34:54 Key Takeaways for AI and Leadership     Get your copy of the Multiply Method ✖️ It's a FREE roadmap walking you through how to multiply the capabilities of your people and your business with AI. www.theaileaderlab.com/roadmap [http://www.theaileaderlab.com/roadmap]   Connect with Martin: Websites: www.theaileaderlab.com [http://www.theaileaderlab.com] LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/martinjwheatley [http://www.linkedin.com/in/martinjwheatley] Subscribe to The Frontier Leader Show wherever you listen to podcasts.

Connection Intelligence: Leading Across Generations and AI, with Jenny Ainsworth

When AI can outpace what you know, what's actually left for a leader to do? Jenny Ainsworth has a stark answer, and a useful one.   Jenny is a bestselling author and founder of the Connection Intelligence methodology. Before that, she was Disney's European training manager, with 20+ years working with leadership teams across sectors from finance to pharmaceuticals. Her new book Connection Intelligence [https://amzn.to/4djGYAB] lands in a workplace now juggling four generations and an AI tool for every task. In this conversation we get into: * Why leaders who define themselves by what they know are the most exposed when AI lands * What Connection Intelligence is, and why Jenny puts it in the middle of a Venn diagram rather than next to IQ, EQ and DQ * Jack Dorsey's Block cutting 4,000 management roles, and what quietly gets lost when you do that * A "start, stop, continue" question that builds psychological safety without making a song and dance of it * Using a one to ten confidence scale to surface where a team really is with AI, without anyone getting shamed * The three connections Jenny argues every employee needs in order to do their best work at work   The thread running throughout: tech and humanity aren't opposites. The leaders who get that will be in a very different place to the ones who don't. ⭐️ Make sure to grab a copy of Jenny's book today: "Connection Intelligence" by Jenny Ainsworth [https://amzn.to/4djGYAB]⭐️ Connect with Jenny: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennyainsworth [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennyainsworth] Website: https://jennyainsworth.com [https://jennyainsworth.com]   Timestamps: 00:00 Welcome to the Show! 01:43 Introduction to Jenny Ainsworth 03:04 The Evolution of Leadership and Connection Intelligence 05:27 Understanding Connection Intelligence 07:08 Generational Perspectives in the Workplace 09:59 Flexibility in Leadership Styles 12:52 AI's Impact on Leadership 16:55 Balancing Technology and Humanity in Leadership 18:11 Building Psychological Safety in Hybrid Teams 20:58 Building Psychological Safety in Teams 25:07 The Importance of Connection in the Workplace 28:49 Leveraging AI for Enhanced Productivity 31:54 Key Takeaways for Effective Leadership     Get your copy of the Multiply Method ✖️ It's a FREE roadmap walking you through how to multiply the capabilities of your people and your business with AI. www.theaileaderlab.com/roadmap [http://www.theaileaderlab.com/roadmap]   Connect with Martin: Websites: www.theaileaderlab.com [http://www.theaileaderlab.com] LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/martinjwheatley [http://www.linkedin.com/in/martinjwheatley] Subscribe to The Frontier Leader Show wherever you listen to podcasts.

Leaders Aren't Ready for What AI Is Bringing, with Pierre Naggar

"Leaders are not ready for what AI is going to bring." That's how Pierre Naggar opens this conversation. And it lands hard.   Pierre Naggar is the founder of BrightPro and spent almost 30 years in digital marketing and advertising tech before moving into AI automation.   In this episode, we get into what's actually going on inside companies trying to adopt AI, and where it tends to come unstuck.   We cover: * Why most CEOs still hand AI to the CTO or the IT team, and what that quietly costs them * The case for a Chief AI Officer * AI readiness and data readiness, including projects Pierre walked away from because the data wasn't there yet * The cost trap when a prototype moves into production, and why model drift quietly eats your ROI * AI is coming for the jobs you should never have been doing in the first place   The important bit: AI adoption isn't transformation. Pilots and Copilot rollouts don't count for much until the operating model itself starts to shift.   If you're a senior leader trying to work out whether your AI activity is actually going somewhere, this one's worth a listen.   Connect with Pierre: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pierre-naggar/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/pierre-naggar/] Website: https://www.brightpro.ai [https://www.brightpro.ai] Email: pierre.naggar@brightpro.ai [pierre.naggar@brightpro.ai]   Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction to AI Leadership 01:46 Pierre Naggar's Background and Experience 02:34 The Birth of BrightPro and AI Opportunities 04:24 Personal Journey with AI Tools 08:21 Practical Implementation of AI in Organizations 13:40 The Role of Chief AI Officer 18:34 Governance and Accountability in AI Implementation 24:23 AI Adoption: The Current Landscape 30:28 Leadership and Organizational Readiness for AI 38:07 The Future of AI: Opportunities and Challenges 43:42 Outro   Book Referenced: The Profitable AI Advantage by Tobias Zwingmann [https://amzn.to/4wBRESM]   Get your copy of the Multiply Method ✖️ It's a FREE roadmap walking you through how to multiply the capabilities of your people and your business with AI. www.theaileaderlab.com/roadmap [http://www.theaileaderlab.com/roadmap]   Connect with Martin: Websites: www.theaileaderlab.com [http://www.theaileaderlab.com] LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/martinjwheatley [http://www.linkedin.com/in/martinjwheatley]   Subscribe to The Frontier Leader Show wherever you listen to podcasts.

AI Agents in Business: Inside Bentley Lewis with Lewis Maleh

Most teams are using AI now. Nothing in the actual business has changed. If that sounds familiar, this episode is for you. Lewis Maleh runs Bentley Lewis, a global executive search firm with team members in London, the US, Europe, Tokyo and Mumbai. He's one of the few founders I've spoken to who's moved past "the team uses ChatGPT" and built AI properly into how the firm operates. Which is a different conversation entirely. A few things you'll hear: ✅ Meet Nina, the AI agent on Lewis's team. ✅ What happens when you send your AI avatar to an interview ✅ How he is now building internal apps without writing a line of code, using voice-to-text and Claude ✅ The split in the recruitment market between AI-screened entry level and 100% sourced executive search ✅ How his team has learnt and grown together with technology I came away from this one thinking about the difference between having AI in your business and AI being in the business. They're not the same thing, and the gap between them is where most firms are stuck. Connect with Lewis: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lmaleh/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/lmaleh/] X: https://x.com/lewismaleh?s=20 [https://x.com/lewismaleh?s=20] Website: https://bentleylewis.com [https://bentleylewis.com] "The Recruitment Show with Lewis Maleh" podcast is available on Apple, Spotify and YouTube: https://linktr.ee/BentleyLewis [https://linktr.ee/BentleyLewis] Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction to AI Leadership 01:38 The Evolution of Recruitment 03:29 The Journey of Bentley Lewis 06:14 Adapting to Remote Work 09:48 The Impact of AI on Recruitment 11:27 Networking in the Age of AI 15:14 The Future of Work and AI 19:40 Navigating Job Market Changes 22:28 Exploring AI Tools and Their Impact 27:10 The Evolution of AI in Business 32:02 Building and Utilizing AI Agents 36:03 Investing in Team Development and Networking 37:32 Three Things Get your copy of the Multiply Method ✖️ It's a FREE roadmap walking you through how to multiply the capabilities of your people and your business with AI. www.theaileaderlab.com/roadmap [http://www.theaileaderlab.com/roadmap] Connect with Martin: Websites: www.theaileaderlab.com [http://www.theaileaderlab.com] LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/martinjwheatley [http://www.linkedin.com/in/martinjwheatley] Subscribe to The Frontier Leader Show wherever you listen to podcasts.