Why 2026 Demands CEO-Led AI Transformation and Agentic Solutions
Episode 10 - Why 2026 Demands CEO-Led AI Transformation and Agentic Solutions
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[00:00:28] Mark Redgrave: Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Prompt and Circumstance Podcast. This is episode 10, guys, 10.
[00:00:36] Mike Richardson: Whoa,
[00:00:37] Mark Redgrave: We made double figures
[00:00:39] Mike Richardson: we're hitting the big time.
[00:00:40] Mark Redgrave: like, like
[00:00:41] Tom Adams: I think. I think we're there.
[00:00:43] Mark Redgrave: yeah, I'm like,
[00:00:44] Tom Adams: I think
[00:00:44] Mark Redgrave: have, you know, I wouldn't have taken that bet like six months ago, which we make it to 10.
[00:00:50] Mike Richardson: What you think we'd fall out with each other before we got here?
[00:00:53] Mark Redgrave: Yeah. Or like, you know, we'd just be, you know, like, uh, Ryan, who's not here to defend himself would've made us so depressed with his intellect. We'd have to call it off.
[00:01:03] Tom Adams: Yeah.
[00:01:03] Mark Redgrave: But luckily that hasn't happened. So good stuff. Um, other thing, just before we get going guys, it's, it's like the end of January. It's gone.
[00:01:12] Mike Richardson: I know.
[00:01:13] Tom Adams: It's
[00:01:13] Mark Redgrave: we've won 12th of this year. 8% has gone poof, like.
[00:01:17] Mike Richardson: January's a weird month, isn't it? It's like, it's like I, I'm still trying to find my stride. I'm still trying to get back into the groove and it's like, how on earth can it be the end of January already? Almost what happened?
[00:01:30] Mark Redgrave: super weird, right?
[00:01:31] Tom Adams: Yeah, but Mike, we kind of follow your schedule a little bit 'cause we're forced to and, um, you're, you're like a madman. You're, you're just like, full on madman. 'cause last, last episode, you, you were in your car driving somewhere and doing a podcast while you were driving somewhere with your laptop, you know, and, and technically you should have been pulled over and charged for that,
[00:01:54] Mike Richardson: I was not moving everybody. I was stationary. The.
[00:01:57] Mark Redgrave: be honest. I've got, I've got a standing call out with a local pd. If you find Mike just arrest him, like it doesn't really matter. He's done something.
[00:02:07] Tom Adams: yep.
[00:02:08] Mark Redgrave: So look, guys, we we're gonna get into it. I'm actually excited for the conversation today, which is great. Let me, um, for those of you listening, watching, uh, welcome.
Um, let me introduce you formally to Partners in Crime. Uh, Ryan Neiman can't be with us today, which, you know what? There go the brains
[00:02:23] Tom Adams: Sad. I know. I know.
[00:02:25] Mark Redgrave: I'm not sure how this is gonna go, but, um, he's doing, he's clearly got something better to do,
[00:02:30] Tom Adams: Yep. Clearly.
[00:02:31] Mark Redgrave: you know,
[00:02:31] Mike Richardson: is clearly gonna be a second rate episode everybody.
[00:02:35] Mark Redgrave: yeah. Um, but don't fear because the Three Musketeers are here.
So let me introduce you to the, the voices on the call. send your Tom Adams rap. I'll tell you, rapidly reaching guru status,
[00:02:47] Tom Adams: no,
[00:02:47] Mark Redgrave: the, the stuff, what, what you guys can't see or hear is Tom shares with us offline, all this stuff. And I'm like, I like Tom, you are killing it and you're making me feel.
[00:03:00] Mike Richardson: we are not worthy.
[00:03:03] Tom Adams: Well, thank you. I am,
[00:03:03] Mike Richardson: can't wait to what he's, what's gonna say about me now,
[00:03:06] Tom Adams: I'm great. I'm grateful to be here. I'm grateful to be here as your, uh, resident guru since Ryan can't be.
[00:03:13] Mark Redgrave: Yeah. Big shoes to fill though, mate. Big shoes to fill. send you Mike Richardson. Um, you know what, he's got this thing going like, I'm the slow one. I'm the, like, I'm not buying it Tom, but talking about you, Michael. Yeah. Bullshit. Like I, you are, you are, like, you, you are, you are there like,
[00:03:33] Mike Richardson: Hey, under promise and over deliver. That's my mantra.
[00:03:36] Mark Redgrave: You are hovering over
[00:03:38] Tom Adams: Yep,
[00:03:39] Mark Redgrave: Um, I'm not full. I'm you're not, I'm not fooled mate. Not fooled. So, um, so yeah, but, but welcome, uh, welcome Michael.
[00:03:47] Mike Richardson: good.
[00:03:48] Tom Adams: We embrace the fake out.
[00:03:53] Mark Redgrave: and those of you dunno Mark, mark Redgrave. I'm the guy on the mic today. Um, I dunno much I make up for it with fast hands and loud shirts. So if you're watching on YouTube, I've got a really nice.
[00:04:03] Mike Richardson: That's a
[00:04:04] Tom Adams: beautiful. It's smoking hot
today. Yeah, you're smoking hot.
[00:04:07] Mark Redgrave: that's pretty much, but, you know, no, no, no. Hopefully enough to, to get us through the next kind of 40 minutes look.
Um, looking forward to a great conversation. We've got a couple of really interesting reports to go through today, actually, which I think should be good. Uh, good, good kind of, uh, ingredients. But first, like, that was the week that was, so let's do a quick spin around as we normally do, um, things that caught our attention this past week.
Mike, why don't you kick, why don't you kick us off with this
[00:04:29] Mike Richardson: Yeah, I was blessed to have our previous guest, Riley Strickland, again, talking to one of my groups. He did a phenomenal job as usual. And, uh, towards the end, you know, someone asked him, well, tell us more about the tools that you use. And in particular, they asked, what is a tool that you use to help you with email?
And he said, I use Fyxer AI. And so I'm now using Fyxer AI. I'm still, you know, kind of finding the groove with it. So far I like it. it adds a folder structure to your email inbox. It works with Gmail or Outlook and no doubt. Some others, it adds a folder structure and it tells you this one needs a response.
This one is just FYI, this is just a notification, et cetera, et cetera. And those that need a response, it pre-draft a response for you. And it's just sitting there, you know, waiting for you to edit it and press send. And over time, obviously it learns your preferred re response style and tone and voice and uh, you know, I've got lots to optimize, lots to tweak, lots to figure out.
But you know, actually, so far, so good. I'm enjoying it and it's no doubt saving me some time, in my day.
[00:05:41] Mark Redgrave: Good. Lovely. I, I'll, I'll check that out. I hadn't heard of that one, so Yeah, I'll give that a rip. Tom, what about you mate?
[00:05:47] Tom Adams: Well, one of the things I promised in our last episode was I was gonna try and create something with voice only this year and last weekend, I decided I'm gonna create a website about my AI coding journey because I'm not a coder and I did it, I would say 95% with voice. like I literally didn't type anything.
That was kind of my underlying intention to see if I could pull it off. And, uh, over the weekend, the course of the weekend, I was able to create a whole website. With my development journey that had all been done just by voicing what I wanted to see to AI agents, to AI tools and things like that. So that was kind of fun.
But I, I think the bigger cool thing this last week or last couple of weeks. Oh yeah. So a as, as you might remember, I love Claude, uh, and a Anthropic. And Claude dropped this thing called cowork this week, which is. Fascinating, which it basically, you give it access to a folder on your computer and tell it what you want it to do, and it just goes to work and it works away on your behalf.
[00:06:51] Mike Richardson: It's.
[00:06:52] Tom Adams: Claude Cowork. And it comes with, the clawed download, uh, currently. Those of you I know, and I'm sad to say that those of you who work on Windows, it's not quite there yet for us who work on Mac, who tend to have a, you know, a, a different view of the world. Um, it's working for us.
So it's fascinating and I love it.
[00:07:14] Mike Richardson: So I am the slow guy in the room 'cause I'm still a Windows guy.
[00:07:18] Mark Redgrave: Mike, your time will come. It's, you know, like it's just, you have to build. Into these things, you know?
[00:07:23] Mike Richardson: Resistance is futile.
[00:07:24] Mark Redgrave: Yeah. Eventually. But I have to say though,
and for all of those people, all these people watching and listening, if you are a Mac user, the, the glass iOS update on the iPhone is a disaster.
Like absolute catastrophe. So if you're sat there going, like, feeling like I am, like, yeah, my love affair, my love affair ended this week with Apple, but I, they, hopefully they'll fix it, but we'll see. something that stuck out for me this week, just because I'm sort of talking to a number of, of clients about sort of capability and forward planning.
I read a really good article about like the A-M-D-C-E-O, who's a lady called Lisa Sue. I think it was titled Hiring A Forward, and I thought it was really interesting just because, you know, she's like, we are not hiring less people, but we are hiring. Different people. And I, and I, and I just thought, I thought, yeah, look, this is really interesting topic.
Maybe we should talk about this in an episode coming, because I was thinking if you are a CI think most CEOs would agree with that, right? Like, I need different people. But I wonder how we test for that. How do we, you know, like if you, if you say we need to hire different people with different skills, what is that?
And it just left me thinking, because I think this fu future, forward capability is a beautiful
[00:08:36] Mike Richardson: Yeah.
[00:08:37] Mark Redgrave: idea. But it's like, what, what do I do? What, what am I looking for? What am I testing for? How do I test it? So that was just, that's been ringing around in my head,
[00:08:46] Tom Adams: saw someone, I saw someone this week who, who, uh, related to that said, check somebody's GitHub.
[00:08:53] Mark Redgrave: Ooh.
[00:08:54] Tom Adams: And, um, you know, it, it's GitHub is is the repository where you put tools you're, you're building and working on that have been coded and, um, and their mechanism to get forward thinking people was. Go look at their GitHub.
They, they have to share their GitHub with you. And if they've got nothing at GitHub and they don't even know what that is, uh, they may not be AI forward.
[00:09:16] Mark Redgrave: for technical roles, Tom, right? So like on non-technical roles, I'm like, it's an, it's an equally big challenge, right? yeah, so I, I thought, like, my question was like, what should CEOs be looking for was like the thing that I wrote down on my wall. So, I just, just look, just before I came on the call, I got this thing video of Musk in, in Davos and he said, and he said, right, there's only one place to put data centers.
Yeah. Space. Yeah. And it's like solar powered data centers in space like two to three years. And I'm thinking, so we've got a SpaceX IPO about to happen. I'm like. So,
[00:09:51] Tom Adams: Oh,
[00:09:51] Mark Redgrave: so, so that was a bit of, bit of fun. I'm just like, okay. Yeah,
just when you thought you knew what was going on, Mike. Like they start talking about shit like that. It's funny, right?
[00:10:04] Mike Richardson: Everybody's in Davos though. Every, anybody who's in anybody is in Davos.
[00:10:08] Mark Redgrave: yeah,
yeah.
Apart from
[00:10:10] Tom Adams: That may be where Ryan is. Ryan May be
[00:10:13] Mike Richardson: Yeah.
[00:10:14] Tom Adams: That's where he is.
[00:10:16] Mike Richardson: that's what it's, he's on a secret mission again.
[00:10:21] Tom Adams: Dallas Davos, Dallas.
[00:10:25] Mark Redgrave: He.
[00:10:26] Tom Adams: Tomato tomato. Right, right.
Yes.
[00:10:32] Mark Redgrave: Okay, look, let's get into it. So I thought, uh, last podcast conversation was really accelerated into somewhere super cool, I thought. Um, and obviously the theme of that was like predictions for 26. And there were a couple of things that, really key themes that came out and led us down a good path, I think.
And, and it was like this concept, couple of things, but this concept of like. 26 is gonna be like a chasm will emerge. Right? And this concept of like, they're gonna be the cans and the cans, the wills and the won'ts, the winners and the losers, and, um, you know, the, the, the, so this concept that like,, um, it's going to divide so you know, as a leader, um, and it doesn't matter whether you're a small co, big co, mid co, like.
Think about which side of the fence you wanna be on. Right? I think that was a great conversation that we had and, and that led me to, uh, Ryan, who, um, God, he's having a lot of input in this, even though he is not here. It's kind of frustrating. Um, but, but he, he, he, um, sent a couple of great reports he shared with the four of us this week.
[00:11:31] Mike Richardson: Yeah.
[00:11:32] Mark Redgrave: And I thought like there was so much good stuff there. And what we'll do for everyone listening and watching is we'll post the links, Tom, can't we, we can post the links to these reports 'cause they're really good. Um, and, uh, I'll just tell you what they are and then what I wanna do, guys, it's like, like we've all had a good look.
I think there's some. Some highlights that, that sort of stepped out at us. I want to just go around the room and have a bit of a chat 'cause there's so much meat in there. Um, I thought it, you know, that could be a great way, you know, really building on this concept of like, okay, if this is go time. Yeah, like, like what are we learning?
Like let's help people with this go time because we, it's a call to action, but it's like there's a lot to think about. So that's sort of, that's sort of what I wanna do. Uh, let me just tell you about the two reports.
So the first is, um, from, uh, a company called, uh, wing vc. They're based in San Francisco.
Um, it is a, you know, a VC company. Uh, they basically, these are both January reports, by the way. So fresh off the press, they surveyed. 180, um, thousand, like, uh, what they call chief level people in tech. Um, it, it was very tech skewed this report. Um, but basically like chief, chief level people in technology, ai, and adjacent things. Um, interest, just looking at the demos on the report, it seems to me that like half of them were like 5,000 and above employees, and half the respondents were 10,000 plus. So these are big enterprises. Right. But I like, I think it's relevant for us to discuss because like, you know, big enterprises where the, where lots of these things are.
Sorted, advanced, you know, so, so still feels relevant. The second report, so that's the Wing VC report and
the second report is, um, uh, from BCG. It's got a super catchy title. is As AI Investment Surge CEOs Take the Lead. Right? So it's not really a title, it's more a description, but I think it's 25 slides.
We'll, we'll put the link in the notes from this, from this podcast. But look, 2300 people, much more revenue split on this one, Tom. Yeah. 'cause so, which I thought was, which I thought was really interesting, but you know, so some small, it's still like a hundred million, but from a hundred million up to 5 billion plus, but a real thick middle in that 500 to 5 billion, which, which is good.
All C level, 30% CEOs. So really like another really, really good group. the questions they asked were in the context of like 26. So the theme we, the theme we sort of explored last week. the question fee that I set you guys before we came on the call was Right.
What stands. Yep. The homework, what stands out? I think there's plenty for us to talk about and, and what we did as we did last time. You know, we don't, there's no structure to this. Let's just build on everyone's insights, right? Because, um, so I dunno what I, um, I dunno who wants to kick it off, but,
[00:14:28] Mike Richardson: not me. Not me.
[00:14:30] Tom Adams: I,
[00:14:31] Mark Redgrave: okay, so
[00:14:31] Tom Adams: to always jump in first. Uh,
[00:14:37] Mike Richardson: can go first if you want.
[00:14:39] Mark Redgrave: You know, which would you like? The red one? Red pen. The blue.
[00:14:46] Tom Adams: and I always want, I always want to go first, so I, I can't help myself. Yeah, I have a, I have a last name, Adams. And so all through public school, high school, all those kind of things, I was always chosen first, so I just expect that people will, uh, so the first thing that jumped out to me came from the BCG report, which is, uh, and the, the, the data was 90% of CEOs believe AI agents will finally deliver measurable.
ROI in 2026, which I, I found fascinating. And so to me, what, what I got from that was ag agentic AI is the inflection point, really. Not chat because chat, while it supports things, um, it, it really, it's a ag agentic stuff. It's what Mike just talked about instead of, just having AI. You go, you go into chat and have them write your email in response.
Now, an agent in this new tool that Mike's using is actually looking at his stuff, putting it in categories, and then writing the draft email in response. That's ag agentic in a really small, simple way. But what I, I believe CEOs are thinking is, um, this is happening. Um, your friend, um. Uh, at McKinsey, uh, mark, just, uh, in a, in a video I saw this week talks about how now McKinsey counts 25,000 AI agents as employees now.
Like they're, they're literally starting to think in terms of, of these people. The, these agents hold seats in our organization and produce results. Um. so I think what I saw in the report that jumped out immediately was this inflection point of 2026 will be agentic. While we talked about it last year, AG agentic stuff will kind of get, get officially embedded.
Um, so if chat GBT is from a CEO perspective, if chat GPT is where your AI story stops, you're still talking about tools, not transformation. Like that's, that's to me a really important distinction.
[00:16:49] Mark Redgrave: that. Love that.
[00:16:51] Mike Richardson: And you know, for me, I always think about. The, the mid-market CEOs who kind of, you know, are behind me on this podcast. You know, the, the 5 million, 15 million, 50 million, a hundred, $150 million kind of members that, you know, we have in our peer groups and those kinds of things. And they're, they're just bewildered mostly about ag agentic and how on earth do I even make a start?
And then I told you about that member last time, who started from nothing. I have no idea how to start. He figured out how to just take a first baby step and, you know, and, and compound from there. And before you know it, he had a working agent in N eight N and he was able to demo it to his peers. And so I think this first point is, is demonstrating that, yeah, in the bigger organizations with deeper pockets, this is where it's at.
This is what this year's gonna be about. And yeah, of course the, the kinds of members we've got with, with shallower pockets, uh, it's gonna take 'em a bit longer and they'll come along a bit slower, but it is still where it's at. All
right. If you're just playing with chat, you're tickling this, you're not
tackling this.
[00:18:04] Mark Redgrave: yeah, yeah. so that's a great connection with your first point about Fyxer, right? So, so, so I think the interesting thing for me is. We've already seen a jump shift. 'cause I think last year, right, people were going, okay, here's ai. there's this thing called agentic and everyone's gone now.
That's super cool. Like, like imagine if these, like this technology could actually be connected and sequenced to create end to end capability. And, and, and it felt like. Yeah, we'll get there. I think we've got into January and like we are there. So, so it's sort of like the, and I think this is typical of like accelerated adoption curves, right?
Which will be part of this wave. So Mike, said your Fyxer, that's Angen solution, right? And it's like, because it's, it's creating an outcome for you. You don't have to connect the technology, you don't have to worry, like, so, so this is gonna be super exciting for people and accessible I think.
[00:19:01] Mike Richardson: And I know that Tom wants to talk to himself in the mirror, you know, for three weeks and create this, you know, self-built DIY agentic thing. And he does a remarkable work, and I've seen him demo some of it and all of that. But, you know, we all know that the reality is I'm, I'm not gonna do that. I mean, I, it's just not gonna happen.
I might, I might tinker with a few bits and pieces, but for me it is gonna be more about. You know, when these pre-canned apps come along and get made available to me, I'll snap 'em up and, and deploy them. And, you know, I'm not, this isn't a commercial for Fyxer, although it's gonna sound like it.
I mean it,
[00:19:47] Mark Redgrave: applications are.
[00:19:48] Mike Richardson: But that thing was work, that thing was working for me in less than a minute. I mean, it was amazing.
[00:19:54] Tom Adams: Yep.
[00:19:54] Mike Richardson: Download here, boom, boom, boom, and then bang, they're in my inbox. It's like new folder structure and incoming emails are being categorized according to those labels. And here's your first draft. It's like, oh my gosh, I'm in business already now.
Like anything, we talked, you know, over many episodes about the fact that in many ways this isn't about ai, it's about strategy first. And yes, mapping AI onto that. But then you run into, and Riley doubled down on this when he was with us. You run into change leadership and change management, overcoming resistance, and working through the pain.
I've had a painful week because all of the ways in which I used to handle my email don't work anymore. And you know, there've been times where I'm thinking, where I've just sent an email, where is it?
[00:20:50] Tom Adams: Right.
[00:20:51] Mike Richardson: You know? And I've had to sort of just stick with it. Don't panic. Go with the flow and just let the hidden possibilities of this new app reveal themselves to you and just keep going with it because, and don't pull the plug on it, you know, just keep going.
[00:21:12] Mark Redgrave: You need some, like QA don't you, in a, in your own way because it's like, it's like, am I okay? I I've got a different workflow that's emerged here. Yeah. And I'm trusting technology, but I kind of need a QA equivalent. Like, am am I tackling my email? But am I, you know, it's interesting, right? just keeping it light for a second on that like light app side before we go, 'cause I've got some much deeper enterprise stuff to talk about, but it's like, I notice in the Wing report, 61% of workloads were being handled by.
Open ai, which I thought was super interesting because like we're like, I'm hearing, I'm hearing this narrative and actually believe this narrative that like Claude is heading to enterprise, open AI is heading to consumer. We've heard it before, right? We're kind of experiencing it, but I thought, I thought that was quite interesting.
Open AI is dominating, and why I was thinking for, for people who might be listening, it's like. Like there, there's this, there's this thread that's like, um, if you're, if you're just on open ai, it's like you're really not with it. You're a little bit of a laggard. And it's like, no, that's not, that's not true.
That's what that said to me. Open AI guys. If like, just use something,
[00:22:19] Tom Adams: Right, right.
[00:22:21] Mark Redgrave: you know? So that stuck out to me as a bit of a interesting statistic. Like I, I was, I was surprised by that.
[00:22:27] Tom Adams: for me, it's, it, um, they're, I don't know. It's like I have a team and I have my Claude team and I have my open AI team, and they do different things really well. Like all of my voice agents that I've built all work with open ai, whisper, like, that's how they all work. Uh, and I love how.
How open AI does certain things, but I, I love how Claude helps code. I mean, Claude's Extraord extraordinarily good at coding, but to me, uh, it's not good at some other things that chat, GB t's exceptional at and Gemini. Then you throw Gemini in the mix and you start playing with the Rock, and now you got four people in your camp.
and there's some really good value in seeing all of the tools, but it's not about the tools. Ultimately, they're just tools.
[00:23:10] Mark Redgrave: Yeah. Mike, what, um, lead us take, take us on a different direction for a second. What, give, gimme something that stood out.
[00:23:16] Mike Richardson: Yeah, so I'm gonna be Churchillian for a little bit here. How could I not be? Winston Churchill said something like, in the, in the history of human conflict, never have so many owed so much to so few. Well, in the case of AI never has so much money being spent on so many things with so few results. That's what, you know, 2025 and 2024 and maybe 2023 was all about, but including up until 2025. And that's not gonna continue everybody, because what these reports now say is, this is now firmly on the CEO's desk. And, uh, it said in one of the reports, 72% of CEOs now say they are the main decision maker on ai, and 50% believe their job s stability depends on getting it right, their job.
Stability. So now they've got to prove this out. They've gotta show results. They need to return an ROI on this. Otherwise they are gonna have a target on their back. And I think that is gonna change everything. Certainly. You know, in the domain of those bigger companies with those deeper pockets that we've been talking about.
But that is gonna flow downhill to the mid-market and the smaller companies in the same way it, this is now fair, fair, and square firmly on the CEO's desk. That's what I picked up.
[00:24:51] Tom Adams: And I, I think based on that, Mike, and, and through, as I read these reports, which again we'll make available, but uh, it's like AI was a tech bet for a while and now it's a CEO job risk bet. Like, it's, it's if you're not, if you're not thinking about this, but interesting, out of the ba uh, the BCG, I think it was.
Um, not ju not just do they believe it's their, their job stability, but, um, it's now becoming evident that CEOs show the strongest conviction across the board in terms of, of the, the research that it, they're now leading the pack in many of their companies in the C-Suite about. How important this is. Now it's moving from just, Hey, we need to do AI to CEOs going, crap, I gotta get my my stuff together here because I'm responsible.
And so they're, they're having the strongest convictions based on these particular, um, research reports that I thought was really interesting.
[00:25:48] Mark Redgrave: Yeah,
[00:25:49] Mike Richardson: This has always been the case, right? Where CEOs have eventually woken up to the fact that culture is not something that lives in the HR
department. It lives on my desk. Agility is not something that lives in the IT department. It lives on my desk, and I think the I, the AI has now arrived in the same place.
This is not something that. Lives somewhere else. It lives here and I have to be in the driving seat of this thing. I cannot be a passenger on this bus in any way, shape or form. I need to be on the drive in the driving seat of this thing, and I need to be bringing everybody else along for that ride so that they've got the pedal to the metal on this thing, because otherwise we're gonna fall behind.
[00:26:32] Mark Redgrave: I picked out the same statistic, Mike. there's a sub statistic that I thought was super interesting as well. So the headline is 72% of CEOs say they are now the decision maker on ai, right? Headline stat. That's up. Two x from 25. Right. Like that, which is like, that's interesting, right?
So, and this is so close to my belief system because as we talked a little bit about, um, uh, uh, on the last podcast, it's like, so there's, there's, there's a top down, which you've just articulated brilliantly, which is like, if you're a CEO guys, this is, this is like not optional. Right, but I, but there's another line to this, which is like, if you are trying to get AI going in your company, you must involve the CEO.
And we talked a little bit last week about like mandate, right? I've seen too many AI initiatives and programs, which are, um, started with good intent at lower levels of the organization. without a CEO mandate, they won't go anywhere. I don't care how good it is, what it did like, so, so somewhere in this conversation is like, you know, like, like it is so essential that your CEO is a material leader in these programs.
And I don't care whether you are 1 million, 5 million, 50, 500, it's the same in my mind. The boss has to run this, right? Like there's, there's, there's no other option.
[00:28:04] Mike Richardson: The way I've been saying that recently is, you know, I talk about collective intelligence equals artificial intelligence plus human intelligence. The bottleneck here is human intelligence. That's the bottleneck, uh, starting from Yeah, of course, of course. Bottom up, of course, right. We need, we need expert people doing expert stuff, uh, but also top down, and it, it's the alignment of that human intelligence top down and bottom up.
That's the bottleneck here. That's, that's what gets us out of this mode of just sort of shotgunning. You know, spend all over the place without any real return on investment. That's what gets us into the groove of creating an ROI from artificial intelligence because we tighten up the human intelligence way in which we're going about it.
[00:28:58] Tom Adams: Yeah.
[00:28:58] Mark Redgrave: Yeah. Tom, when you mentioned before about conviction, did you see that like, um, and, and we're still on the BCG report here, if anyone, when you get the reports and you have a look at them, but like, um, did you see that the CEO conviction is double. Yeah, like other C level, like, like that was again, I thought.
Yeah, Right?
[00:29:20] Tom Adams: fa. Yeah.
[00:29:21] Mark Redgrave: It's like. Because a rising tide like lifts all boats. So, so like, somewhere in there, if you're a CEO listening, it's like, like clearly what we're saying is guys like get like, not just get on board, you gotta lead this thing. Right? It's like, that's essential, but it's like you got, like, you gotta pull your people up.
Yeah. Like conviction. Like if, if, if you, you know, like yes, you are a visionary, you're a leader, that's why you're the CEO, but bring your people up with you, you know, because it's like, it's gonna be such an important, um, like success criteria, right.
[00:29:51] Tom Adams: The other thing that came out of that, and it's, it's a different point in the, uh, report, but they talked about these three, uh, these three kind of, um, uh, characters or approaches. They called them the trailblazer, the pragmatist in the follower, and the data suggested in the, uh, the BCG report that only 15% of CEOs qualify as trailblazers, which I thought was.
Kind of interesting. Um, but what I took from that, which, uh, was help helpful to me is the gap right now isn't technology, it's leadership posture. Right. It's, it's not about that technology. And to me, most CEOs, given that Trailblazer Blazer concept that came out is. Um, most of the CEOs aren't losing because they choose the wrong tool.
They lose because they choose the wrong posture. Like it's what you're saying, mark. It's like you've, you've gotta bring people along for this. And, the market isn't separating winners by access to ai. Everybody's got it. It's separating them by their decisiveness, their belief. They follow through. Um, and, and really a trailblazer is a leadership identity choice.
Now, if you're gonna be a, if you're gonna be a trailblazer, that's a decision you're making versus I'm gonna just be a pragmatist. Or if you're just gonna go, uh, I'll wait and see what happens. Uh, that's an identity you're choosing. So to me, 2026 won't reward curiosity. It will reward commitment. It's not that you can't be curious, but like now we're going into commitment stage you, you gotta commit now.
[00:31:23] Mike Richardson: Yeah, and we're back to that, that whole concept of the chasm and the bell curve, right? We're just labeling the bell curve differently this time. You've got your trailblazers, you've got your pragmatists, and you've got your followers, and somewhere in there, maybe, maybe at the. Tail end of that, there's a chasm after which comes the laggards, right?
Who are sort of coming along begrudgingly, you know? Um, and that chasm, as you said at the start of this mark, that chasm is just gonna get wider and wider and wider, and eventually it's gonna fracture and, uh, and you're just completely and utterly left behind
[00:32:00] Mark Redgrave: Yeah, you're gonna be left stood somewhere. Right?
[00:32:02] Mike Richardson: Yep. Yep.
[00:32:03] Mark Redgrave: I think, um, on, on the, on the wing report, a couple of bits of data that reinforce this, um, like, uh. Seven, I, I can't remember what the question was, but like 72% of all respondents Yeah. Landed in this continuum of like, is this hype or is this real? They landed bang in the middle of like, like it moving towards real, like it's not hype.
So I thought that was a really good little data point around like, so these CEOs and executives are saying, guys, this isn't hype. So it's like so good. We're moving like people like, because everything we've talked about and everything we do talk about, I hope is impressing on people listening. Like it's not hype, you know that, but it's like, I thought that was a good little, a good little indicator of where, how people are shifting.
And there was a thing as well about, um, you know, enterprises fif, like there's a median of 50% of everyone responding expects of fif of, sorry, of the respondents 50%.
[00:33:03] Mike Richardson: Mark? Do you need help with the math? Do you need a calculator? Do you need a calculator or
[00:33:07] Mark Redgrave: it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like it's difficult for me.
[00:33:11] Mike Richardson: How did you do math at school? Mark? Did you do okay?
[00:33:14] Mark Redgrave: actually I did okay. But you know, like, um, it took me a couple of go arounds.
Um, so. Of the people responding. Yeah. They expect 50% of their pilots to make production in 26. Right. That's the key point. So delete all the other stuff that came before. So, so that's, that feels step changey to me. Yeah. Not like, 'cause remember MIT at the end of last year told us that 95% of everything we're doing sucks.
[00:33:38] Tom Adams: Oh, don't bring that up. Because Ryan, if he were here, he would like his, his, his head would blow up.
He, that, that report drives him absolutely bat
crazy. Um, because that he just, he anyways.
[00:33:52] Mark Redgrave: So, so, yeah. So, so, so 50% of pilots are expected to make production in 26.
[00:34:02] Mike Richardson: I mean that, a good number one, one and two. Every other one, a 50% hit rate for a, you know, a technology deployment that's, that's now, that's getting, that's getting back to reality of, yeah, this is the standard that we would always set. And, and, and yeah, this is, this is okay.
We've gotta get serious now about making that happen.
[00:34:31] Tom Adams: Yeah. related to that, um, and this wasn't in the report, but it's, it's some data that I went searching for, um, like Klarna right now, which does financial payment options. You often see it in when you're buying stuff. Um, you can buy it with Klarna, but their customer service agents now handle roughly two thirds of all the customer and service inquiries that come across the.
Across the, the fence, um, doing the work of 700 to 850 full-time support staff. Cutting. But, but on top of that, they're cutting resolution time from 11 minutes to around two minutes and reducing repeat issues by roughly 25%. Like, like once you start seeing those kind of things layer in
[00:35:16] Mark Redgrave: outstanding numbers.
[00:35:17] Tom Adams: and we gotta come back to it because we've been talking about the CEO, the CEO credits, AI with a enabling a workforce reduction of about 40% over two years, plus savings in marketing, legal communications, and still handling more tasks to the bots while hiring humans for higher level, more empathetic work.
And the, the point being, um, that CEO, and I can't remember his name, I wrote it down and now I don't have it in my notes, but, um, where, where I wrote it, I don't know. It's probably on Piece of paper. I know if I spoken into the mirror, it'd be there. Um, but like that, that to me, is somebody a CEO who said, this is where we're going.
This is what we're doing. But like, that's a commitment to hire those people because the, the world is saying, you know, we're, we're laying off people. Yes, we are. And I, I think we, we've said, um, that it's not gonna happen. It's just you're gonna hire somebody who knows how to do. Ai, but now I think we're, we're actually seeing the effects and the impact of that very clearly.
[00:36:15] Mike Richardson: I want go. I want to go back. What did you say earlier? You said something like, McKinsey has 25,000 agents. Is that what you said?
[00:36:21] Mark Redgrave: No, I mean. Um, I don't wanna misquote,
but, but
[00:36:26] Mike Richardson: don't, I didn't mean to put you on the spot. Sorry
[00:36:28] Mark Redgrave: no, they, they are dealing with, they, you know, we have some clients, you know, that are dealing with many, many thousand active ag agentic agents,
[00:36:38] Mike Richardson: do you mean different kinds of agents, or do you mean 2,500 people have all deployed Fyxer.
[00:36:44] Mark Redgrave: No, like, like proper agent workflow. So agents that are end to delivering, end-to-end workflows.
Yeah.
[00:36:53] Tom Adams: It's
[00:36:53] Mike Richardson: mean, that is just off the charts. Amazing.
[00:36:56] Mark Redgrave: and there are agents managing
[00:36:59] Tom Adams: Yep.
[00:37:00] Mark Redgrave: right? So, so think about that for a second. So you've got 500 agents in an ag agentic setup, like delivering an end-to-end workflow that is being governed and managed by Ag agent.
[00:37:15] Mike Richardson: You see there, there's, there's really a parallel universe here. I mean, when I think about my members and I think about how they aren't even remotely scratching the surface yet of. Anything AgTech apart from one or two who are demoing, et cetera. I mean, some of them are, are getting deeper into, you know, using chat GPT and all that kind of stuff and creating images and all of that.
So they're deep into the, the content creativity stuff. But they're not, most of them are not even scratching the surface of anything ag agentic. And yet these examples are, we've gone deep into AG agentic massively. It's unbelievable.
[00:38:00] Mark Redgrave: Yeah. Yeah. And it's, as in some of these reports, there was some, some things in there about, but it's creating like governance. We have to review governance and we have to, it's like, yes, we do. You know, but, but you know what, as, as you and I know Mike, having worked with large enterprises across big transformations for 20 years, it's like, or more, it's like you have to review that stuff anyway.
It's, it's like governance is not set and forget. Right? Like, governance is an evolving beast. Like learn to work better, like, you know, like, like ways of working. It's just now we have this incredible technology accelerator that's gone into our, like how do we, how do we improve ways of working, right?
That's what's happening right in front of our eyes.
[00:38:38] Tom Adams: Yep.
[00:38:39] Mark Redgrave: I love the, the statistic in BCG, that was like 94% of the people surveyed say they will continue to invest in ' 27, even if it does not pay off in '26. I love that. Right? Because it says right long game. Like it is. It's a long game, but it's a long game being played really fast.
You know, it's like, but I thought that was really encouraging because like, we're not gonna get this right. And you know, whether, you know, like if you are a leader, a CEO, like you're not gonna get a one in two hit. Right. Guarantee that. Right. But you are not gonna get that. Like the big enterprises.
Sophisticated enterprises will, but it's like. this is a road that you must be on, and the destination and direction of travel is clear. Right? Like, like invest, stick with it, right? Like it's, it's, it's kind of like, it's very, it. I think that's powerful message.
[00:39:37] Mike Richardson: Yeah, we've always talked about short-termism and long-termism, haven't we? And, and this is just sort of amplifying that and short-termism, you know, if I can't get a payback within, you know, this current fiscal year, I'm not doing it. Uh, because it'll be dilutive to this year, even though it'll be accretive to future years.
Um, that short-termism, long-termism chasm as we've been calling it, is just gonna get found out and revealed and exposed bigger, faster, sooner than than ever before.
[00:40:09] Tom Adams: Yeah. Well, it goes back to that line that I, I, I said earlier, which is, um, uh, this year won't reward curiosity. It'll reward commitment. And commitment is often a longer term play, uh, like, which is, if we're committed to something, we're making investments, we're gonna continue to make investments, curiosity.
While we all believe it's a critical piece of the puzzle here, um, doesn't always get you the results. 'cause curiosity often leads to going, oh, that's cool, that's interesting and pull away. But commitment goes, we're we're in this, we have to be in this. We choose, choose to be in this to get a result.
[00:40:47] Mike Richardson: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:40:47] Mark Redgrave: I love that though, Tom, because like that choice, right? It's like, 'cause this is one of those moments where it's like, is it happening to me or am I, you know, and it's like, okay, like you must choose yeah. To be like on this road.
[00:41:01] Tom Adams: Yep.
[00:41:02] Mark Redgrave: In charge of it. Do not let it happen to you
[00:41:06] Tom Adams: Right
[00:41:07] Mark Redgrave: the wrong disposition rights, the wrong way to think.
[00:41:09] Mike Richardson: Yeah, and you know, I spend most of my time, you know, coaching CEOs. Look, if you wanna, if you wanna be master of your own destiny with your culture or your leadership equation in your company or your agility, you are going to have to find creative ways to facilitate
that. It's not gonna be just, well, I'll, I'll call meetings and run agendas and, 'cause that's gonna get very stale very quickly.
So, you know, you, you gotta figure out creative ways to sort of catalyze it to, to light a fire, to keep pouring fuel on that fire and to make it. Real to to everybody and to send them a loud and clear message that this is not going away. We need to get our heads and our arms around this and we need to get after it.
And so, you know, great leaders have always been great coaches and they've always been great facilitators and, and, and you're gonna have to have to figure out, how am I going to facilitate this at a hundred miles an hour?
that's where the action's gonna be
at.
[00:42:20] Mark Redgrave: Yeah, and get, get like a, get a thought partner. Like, like I've seen this work so well with CEOs where they're like, Hey, so if you are listening and people are going, you know what, I get it. the reluctance has gone, I know I've gotta be in, but like, I need a wing person.
Yeah. Thought partners, like, it's good. Do that stuff. Don't hesitate. Right. Like if you need someone alongside you, because people don't look at leaders that have thought partners and see them as weak. They look at leaders with thought partners and see them as like, as like, um, uh, uh, um, what's the
[00:42:56] Mike Richardson: Real, Real, human, grounded, right?
[00:43:00] Mark Redgrave: Yeah.
[00:43:01] Mike Richardson: not, not in denial.
[00:43:02] Mark Redgrave: Exactly. Yeah. So, hum. All those things. Love Because I feel like this is one of those occasions you, we don't know this stuff. We know, you know, we are all learning. So like, surround yourself with people who can help you and your business will look at you and go, that's wicked man.
The CEO's like, got some really good people around to help us. Yeah, it's good.
[00:43:24] Tom Adams: Yeah. Fab. Fabulous. Yeah. Yep. Well, I think, I think this is this, and we're not just trying to keep doing the 2026, but coming out of those two reports, the, the message that sort of came out of it for me was, um, this is, I believe the year CEOs large and small, uh, are gonna stop asking what can AI do? Which has always been the thing, what can it do?
And now. they're gonna start being judged on what did you decide? Like what decisions did you make? What commitments did uh, create? And that to me is a, a really interesting distinction. 'cause I think for a lot of us, curiosity has been going, oh, what can it do? And I, I'm like, deep in the rabbit hole of what it can do.
Um, but what's, what? To me, most appealing and most interesting about those reports. It's like there seems to be in there a very clear distinction between, uh, people who are making decisions and commitments and following through on those to create results for their, their companies, their enterprises, their businesses, and ultimately their longevity.
[00:44:30] Mike Richardson: I love Tom, and, and you know, I've always said that if you boil a business down, any company, any business, any enterprise down, it really is a transaction flow of decisions you are transacting with your future.
How you link and accumulate a flow of decisions. those decisions have to be surrounded by, they have to be followed by great actions to implement and execute.
And they have to be surrounded by great questions and great thinking, right? But ultimately. The, the, the, the traction happens when you make a decision and you sort of move through that gate, as it were, out onto a new landscape of possibility. decided to do this, we've now gotta execute the heck out of it.
But we, but we've, we've, we've, we've made a shift as Mark would would talk, talk about it, and we're, we're beginning a transformation journey that we've now gotta execute well. So I, I think that's absolutely right. It'll be measured by how decisive were we.
[00:45:27] Tom Adams: Yeah.
[00:45:29] Mike Richardson: Did we get out of analysis paralysis? We didn't just start shooting from the hip all over the place 'cause that's not a good flow of decisions.
But if we can kind of find that middle ground of, of, uh, a great flow of decisions that will make the difference between a a a a good year, uh, and a great year in 2026 as it comes to ai.
[00:45:50] Tom Adams: Yep.
[00:45:50] Mark Redgrave: Yeah. Yeah. Mike, you remind me of, uh, one of my favorite sayings, which is like, if you don't like where you are, take a step forward and look again. You know, and it's like, and it's like, which is exactly what you're saying, right? We just gotta just start moving. But look, let's, um, uh, great. Really appreciate the conversation guys.
What, let's leave the, let's leave people listening, watching, uh, with something they can do. Something useful based off the conversation today or otherwise? Like what, what, what, what piece of advice could we leave people with? Mike, you go first, mate.
[00:46:19] Mike Richardson: Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm back to in particular thinking about if you like the, the, the, the CEOs who are sort of behind me in this podcast. Um, in terms of, you know, the people I serve, the mid-market. CEOs in particular. Um, and I wanna go back to that point about how are you gonna be a catalyst? How are you gonna facilitate?
I'm a huge fan of doing creative things to. Get the point across that we are serious about this. Um, I'm a maniac about that kind of stuff because it sends such a loud message. So, you know, having daily scrums every single day, right, of my top executive team, um, you know, uh, things like that. Um, you know, in the way I run my groups, uh, having a second sign in sheet where people have to now stare down a sign in sheet about artificial intelligence and score themselves out of 10 every month that they come.
you doing with AI for yourself, for your team, and for your business? Score yourself outta. And so I want the CEOs listening to this. To be thinking about what kind of creative approaches can you take, some of which are so simple. They're almost embarrassingly so, which is why most people don't do them. I want you to get over that and start thinking about simple, simple, simple things that can begin to facilitate your team to get into traction on that trajectory of decision making that Tom was just talking about. Uh, that's where my energy goes them up.
[00:48:02] Mark Redgrave: Yeah. Great, great. Brilliant, Tom.
[00:48:04] Tom Adams: Uh, my, my point coming out of this came out of one of the major things in this year, uh, is I believe CEOs should have one ag agentic solution that they are. Testing personally, right? Because a lot of this stuff, because it's that way, and then Mike explained one that he purchased off the shelf. Um, and, and those kind of things.
And an agentic thing is not chat, chat it. Although now OpenAI and Claude and some of these now have. Have some kind of those mechanisms built in, but create a way to see for yourself how agentic changes your life and your world and your stuff. And agentic means I'm not intersecting with it. I'm watching it.
I'm aware of it, I'm responding to it, but I'm not in it. It does its thing. And when you start seeing that, then you, then you can take that and go, oh, if it that does this, oh, what could it do over here? And you start seeing your organization as a place to in embed a gen. Agents. and so that, that would be my layering in on what Mike said.
[00:49:08] Mark Redgrave: Great. Love it. Um, I think to just bring it back to the reports we've been discussing, my thing for this week would be, you know what we like share these reports and things with your team. Why not? It's interesting, right? And, and it gives a, if you're a CEO, like discussing this with your team, distributing it to them does a couple of important things.
Number one, it shows you are listening, you are watching, you are reading, you are learning. Really important. And also like, like if it triggers a conversation, it's great 'cause you're starting to engage. Right? And we, and we talked a few minutes ago about the importance of the CEO leading and the importance to bring your team with you.
So that's my tip. Simple. But like, this is interesting stuff and I think you could share it. So
[00:49:53] Mike Richardson: Yeah.
[00:49:54] Tom Adams: Beautiful.
[00:49:55] Mark Redgrave: Alright guys. Pleasure as always. Thanks for your time. Thanks everyone for listening, for watching. Um, and, uh, we will catch you next time when we, um, try and put the world to rights, but we'll
[00:50:06] Mike Richardson: have Ryan Leman back from his Davos, Dallas, whatever was, secret mission.
[00:50:12] Mark Redgrave: You know, there's, apparently there's a, there's like a, there, there's a desk somewhere in Austria at the airport for people who thought they were going to Australia. It's, like, it's like, like, I'm not shitting you like, anyway, Dallas Davos. Easy mistake to make.
[00:50:30] Tom Adams: Easy. Over and
[00:50:33] Mark Redgrave: Great, great to Laters.
