If Cash is King, AI Literacy is the Queen — What Every Business Should Be Doing in the AI Onset Era

Let me be direct: if you're not actively engaging with artificial intelligence right now, you're already behind. I don't care what industry you're in. Telecommunications, manufacturing, retail, professional services. AI is reshaping how businesses operate, compete, and create value. And the pace isn't slowing down. It's accelerating.

But here's where I see too many businesses getting it wrong. They're either paralysed by uncertainty, sitting on the sidelines waiting for the "right time," or they're going all-in, throwing budget at every shiny AI tool that lands on the desk. Both are mistakes. The smart play is somewhere in between, and it starts with three words: fire a bullet.

Bullets Before Cannonballs

Jim Collins nailed it years ago, and it's never been more relevant. Before you load up the cannon and bet the farm on a full-scale AI transformation, fire a few bullets first. Small, low-cost experiments that test the target. Did it hit? Great. Now you know where to aim the cannonball.

This is exactly what I'm doing today. Start with a specific problem. Can AI reduce the time your team spends on manual reporting? Can it improve how you forecast demand? Can it help your customer service team resolve issues faster? Pick one. Invest modestly. Measure the result. Then scale what works.

This isn't about being timid. It's about being smart. The businesses that will dominate the next decade are the ones that build AI literacy across their organisations now, experiment relentlessly, and then invest with conviction when they find what works.

AI Literacy Is the Real Competitive Advantage

Forget the technology for a moment. The single most important thing you can do today is get literate. Understand what AI can and can't do. Understand the difference between a large language model, a machine learning algorithm, and an autonomous agent. You don't need to become an engineer, but you do need to be able to ask the right questions when someone puts an AI proposal in front of you.

I've sat in boardrooms where directors nodded along to AI presentations they didn't understand, approved budgets they couldn't evaluate, and delegated oversight to people who were learning on the job. That's not governance. That's hope dressed up as strategy.

Dip a toe in. Get your hands dirty. Use the tools yourself. The leaders that are literate in AI will make better investment decisions, ask sharper questions, and spot the difference between genuine value and expensive noise.

The Elephant in the Room: Agentic AI and Cyber Risk

Here's something most businesses aren't talking about yet, but should be. The rise of agentic AI, these systems that don't just answer questions but take autonomous actions, introduces a new class of risk that traditional cyber frameworks weren't built for.

When you give an AI agent access to your systems, your data, your customer records, and the authority to act on them, you're extending your attack surface in ways that most IT teams haven't fully mapped. An agent that can send emails, process transactions, or modify records is powerful. It's also a target. And if compromised, the damage can be swift and systemic.

You need to be asking: what guardrails are in place? What can these agents access? Who's monitoring what they do? And critically, what's the kill switch?

This isn't a reason to avoid agentic AI. It's a reason to govern it properly. The opportunity is enormous, but so is the responsibility.

Keep Your Eye on the Cash

Through all of this, the experimentation, the literacy building, the governance, one principle doesn't change: cash is king.

Every AI initiative needs a commercial owner who is in lock step with the person managing the budget. Strategy and finance can't be having separate conversations about AI. The person driving the vision and the person responsible for the dollars need to be sitting side by side, aligned on what success looks like and what it costs to get there.

Because here's the reality: we're in an era of aggressive, rapid change. The technology is young, it's evolving weekly, and what looks like the right investment today might be obsolete in eighteen months. That demands prudent financial oversight. Not to slow things down, but to make sure you can keep going when the landscape shifts again.

My Position

Ignore AI at your peril. Embrace it with discipline. Fire bullets before cannonballs. Get literate, get your people literate, and keep a keen eye on the cash.

The future belongs to the businesses that are brave enough to move and wise enough to watch where they're stepping.