Lead The Workforce Or Lose Your AI Transformation

“We were talking about you, not to you” was a common quip growing up, used when someone turned around expectantly after overhearing their name mentioned.

Similarly, the current AI discourse often cites the 3.5 billion workers who are beginning to be disrupted, but so far, it is talking about them, not to them.¹

To date, frontier labs have primarily engaged investors using big existential messages about AGI, human replacement, and an AI utopia. This approach has worked well for them, and on March 31, 2026, OpenAI closed a record-breaking funding round, with $122 billion in committed capital at a post-money valuation of $852 billion.

There has also been considerable “thought leadership” directed at executives and shareholders from the broader AI ecosystem,² pitching dramatic productivity gains and an AI-first redesign – now with an agentic slant.