— OCTOBER 4TH, 2026 —

YOU DECIDE WHERE AI BELONGS

AI is already finding its way into your company, whether you’re ready for it or not.

It may have started with someone using it to clean up an email or draft a response to a customer. Another team member may have found a way it could help them streamline a recurring process. And if you haven’t set any standards for how it’s used yet, your team is forming them on their own, making decisions about where and when AI should be used in your company.

That’s why it’s so important to treat AI adoption as a leadership decision. You don’t need to know exactly where AI is headed, but you do need to decide how it fits into the company you’re building. Start with one part of the business where you already know what a good result looks like. If someone clearly owns the process, the information is dependable, and you already track the outcome, you have a solid place to learn. From there, you can see whether AI helps your team move faster, maintain quality, and free up time for higher-value work.

Read more in How to Lead AI Adoption Throughout Your Company.

When it comes to AI adoption, start small, learn from what happens, and build from there. This week, take some time to pause and ask yourself: Where does AI belong in my company, and where doesn’t it?

PERSPECTIVES

“The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do."

— B. F. Skinner

MARK MY WORDS

No matter how good or dependable AI gets, humans are still responsible for every outcome.

If a customer gets a bad answer, if a leader misses something important, or if a team starts leaning too heavily on a tool, accountability still sits with a person. That doesn’t change just because technology did part of the work.

This is where strong agreements become necessary. Your team should know where AI is welcome, where human review is required in every process, and who owns the final call. Those agreements will continue to change over time because the tools will change, but accountability shouldn’t.

The companies that learn how to use AI well are going to have an advantage, so use it to help your people think better and get smart stuff done. Just don’t confuse assistance with ownership. The tool can contribute, but the human still has to answer for the result.

CONNECT ON SUBSTACK

Some of the things I’m thinking about don’t fit neatly into a company-building framework.

On Substack, I spend more time exploring culture, leadership, rights, responsibility, and some of the bigger questions about where we’re headed. If those are questions you find yourself thinking about, too, come join me there.

ONE MORE FOR THE ROAD

In case you missed it, here’s more from Founder’s Framework:

Why We Need to Protect Understanding in the Age of AI

AI can help us move faster, but polished output isn’t the same as real understanding. In this article, I share why founders still need people who can explain the thinking, defend the recommendation, and own the judgment behind it.

[Read Now]

AI can give us a lot more to work with, but we still have to do the thinking ourselves.