AI For the C Suite with Chad Harvey™

Chad Harvey

AI For the C Suite with Chad Harvey™ interviews industry expert guests to keep you informed and entertained in the world of AI for Business. If you’re a C Suite member looking to learn more about how AI will impact your business, you’ve found the right podcast. Generative AI is the most disruptive General Purpose Technology we have seen in the last 45 years. It holds tremendous promise when leveraged properly and tremendous peril for those that disregard its existence. AI for the C-Suite with Chad Harvey™ is a continuous learning and application experience which exists to unite, elevate and equip CEO’s, Presidents, Owners and C-suite leaders to navigate the Exponential Age.

  1. 10M AGO

    You Don't Need an AI Strategy — You Need This Instead | AI For The C-Suite EP 64

    What if everything you've been told about getting started with AI is wrong? In this episode, Chad sits down with Charlene Li — New York Times bestselling author, founder of Altimeter Group, and one of the most respected voices in business transformation — to challenge some of the most common assumptions leaders hold about AI adoption. Her new book, Winning with AI: The 90-Day Blueprint for Success (co-authored with Dr. Katja Walsh), cuts through the noise with a deceptively simple premise: you don't need an AI strategy. You need AI in service of the strategy you already have. Chad and Charlene cover a lot of ground in this one — and it moves fast. In this episode: Why leading with an AI strategy is the wrong move — and what to do instead The real reason organizations are drowning in pilots and not seeing results Why readiness assessments and feasibility studies are just expensive procrastination What "Goldilocks governance" looks like — and how mid-market companies can build it without dedicated headcount The difference between responsible AI and ethical AI (and why it matters more than most leaders realize) How to use AI to figure out how to use AI Why speed is the new moat — and what that means for organizations that are still on the sidelines The generational divide around AI adoption, and what the data from Stanford and the OECD tells us about what's really going on What AI fluency actually looks like in practice — and how leaders can model it for their teams Charlene also shares the moment that made her throw out the readiness assessment she'd already built for the book, why shadow AI is more dangerous than adoption, and what the 20% is that AI still can't replicate. If you're a senior leader who knows AI matters but isn't sure where to start — this episode is the answer.   Get the book: WinningWithAIbook.com Connect with Charlene: linkedin.com/in/charleneli | charleneli.com

    1h 3m

  2. MAY 11

    The Harness: Why the Model Is No Longer the Competitive Advantage | AI For The C-Suite EP 63

    In your next vendor meeting, someone is going to say the word "agent" three or four times. You'll nod. Notes will get taken. And the word will do almost no actual work in the room. That's the problem this episode is built to solve. Chad's Jargon Watch covers 15 terms that have crystallized in the last 90 days (including "harness") and is organized around three layers every C-suite leader needs to understand: architecture, failure modes, and money and trust. The architecture terms (harness, context engineering, MCP, A2A) explain what actually surrounds the model and why that wrapper is the new competitive moat. One analysis from earlier this year attributed approximately 65% of enterprise AI failures to harness defects - not model deficits. The failure mode terms (context rot, the reasoning trap, memory poisoning, sycophancy 2.0, shadow AI agents) describe what goes wrong and why traditional monitoring often doesn't catch it. The money and trust terms (agent washing, AWU, the inference cost paradox, KYA, sovereign AI) carry direct procurement and governance implications — including why any per-seat contract signed in 2024 or 2025 may already be worth renegotiating. The broader point underneath all 15 terms: AI vocabulary in 2026 has stopped describing what the model does. It's started describing who's responsible when it does something wrong. That shift has real consequences for how you evaluate vendors, structure contracts, and govern the agents already running inside your organization. This episode gives you a working vocabulary and a set of practical moves you can use in your next vendor meeting, board conversation, or contract review... starting this week. AI For the C Suite™ podcast keeps C-Suite leaders informed and engaged in the world of AI for business. If you're a CEO, President, Owner, or C-suite leader looking to understand how AI will impact your organization, you've found the right podcast. AI for the C-Suite™ is a continuous learning and application experience that exists to unite, elevate, and equip leaders to navigate the Exponential Age. Join the AI for the C Suite community today: https://aiforthecsuite.com/ #chadharvey #aiforthecsuite #aic

    23 min

  3. MAY 4

    The Four Modes of Working With AI | AI For The C-Suite EP 62

    Most organizations have rolled out AI tools and called it a strategy. They've issued logins, run compliance training, and watched adoption numbers tick up — while the actual quality of the work stayed flat. The problem isn't the tool. It's the mental model. If your people are treating AI like a search bar, they're only accessing a fraction of what's possible. Geoff Gibbins has spent close to 20 years helping organizations figure out what actually works at the intersection of strategy, technology, and human behavior. In this episode, he makes a sharp and practical case for shifting from AI as a tool to AI as a collaborator — and walks through a four-mode framework that gives leaders and their teams a real working vocabulary for that shift. You'll hear why a study of 450 people found that managers consistently scored lower than individual contributors on AI collaboration quality — and what that means for how you're modeling behavior on your own team. You'll also hear why workers in their fifties outperformed workers in their twenties, and what that data suggests about the habits we need to build deliberately. Geoff also introduces a three-part measurement system — Results, Relationship, and Resilience — that gives mid-market leaders a practical way to assess whether their AI investment is actually paying off beyond license counts and time-saved metrics. Geoff Gibbins is the founder of Human Machines and the author of Critical Intelligence, a book on strengthening human thinking in the age of AI. He previously served as a partner at Accenture and has worked with organizations including Walmart, Nestlé, Coca-Cola, and Vanguard. This episode gives you a concrete framework for evaluating and improving how your organization actually collaborates with AI — and three specific moves you can make starting Monday. AI For the C Suite™ podcast keeps C-Suite leaders informed and engaged in the world of AI for business. If you're a CEO, President, Owner, or C-suite leader looking to understand how AI will impact your organization, you've found the right podcast. Generative AI is the most disruptive General Purpose Technology we have seen in the last 45 years. It holds tremendous promise when leveraged properly and tremendous peril for those who disregard its existence. AI for the C-Suite™ is a continuous learning and application experience that exists to unite, elevate, and equip leaders to navigate the Exponential Age. Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/qeQ-ImaG-dI Join the AI for the C Suite community today: https://aiforthecsuite.com/ #chadharvey #aiforthecsuite #aic

    1h 6m

  4. APR 27

    The Extended Cognition Layer: Why Your AI Posture Matters More Than Your Prompts | AI For The C-Suite EP 61

    Most executives using AI today have a posture problem. They treat the tool like an Oracle, a search engine, or a writing assistant. All three postures have you standing outside the tool, trading instructions over a wall. None of them are getting the job done. In this episode, Chad unpacks the two commitments that define a working philosophy for using AI well. The first: AI is an extended cognition layer - an external component of your own thinking apparatus, not a source of answers but an instrument for better thinking. The second: you retain judgment. Every substantive decision still sits with you, regardless of how confident the model sounds. Together, these commitments form a pairing. Extended cognition without retained judgment becomes abdication. Retained judgment without extended cognition means you're leaving most of the value on the table. Most executives violate one of the two. Chad also names a third element that determines whether the pairing works at all: humility at entry. The "just do it, give me what I want" posture leaks quality from every prompt you write. Chad shows you what to do instead, including one specific move you can practice tomorrow that inverts the default and sharpens your thinking before the AI touches any actual work. If you've been frustrated by generic AI outputs, or if you've noticed your team starting to co-pilot its way through strategic work without enough critical examination, this episode gives you a framework for getting both the speed and the rigor. The tools aren't the problem. The posture is. AI For the C Suite™ keeps C-Suite leaders informed and engaged in the world of AI for business. If you're a CEO, President, Owner, or C-suite leader looking to understand how AI will impact your organization, you've found the right podcast.  Join the AI for the C Suite community today: https://aiforthecsuite.com/ #chadharvey #aiforthecsuite #aic

    12 min

  5. APR 20

    Ondar Tarlow | AI Strategy Isn’t About Tools It’s About Workflow | AI For The C Suite EP 60

    Most organizations in regulated industries aren't slow on AI because of compliance. They're slow because no one has decided to be brave enough to move. In this episode, Chad sits down with Ondar Tarlow — a marketing executive who led AI adoption inside financial services organizations before most CMOs were willing to have the conversation. Ondar's team deployed propensity modeling and machine learning to identify the next best product for existing customers, drove a 5x improvement in campaign performance, and cut production time by 75% using generative AI tools layered into their creative workflow. The conversation goes well beyond marketing tactics. Ondar makes the case that AI should never be compartmentalized inside IT — or any single department — and walks through a practical framework for how middle market leaders can get started: map the workflow first, identify high-leverage use cases, and treat AI as an assistant that helps your team do more in less time, not a replacement for the people already doing the work. You'll also hear Ondar and Chad dig into what it actually looks like to navigate the tension between moving fast and managing compliance risk in a regulated environment — and why the leaders who manage that tension best are the ones willing to align marketing, legal, and risk teams around a shared strategy before they start testing. Ondar Tarlow is a CMO and consultant with more than 20 years of experience in financial services, motorsports, and lifestyle brands. His hands-on experience with AI adoption in highly regulated environments makes his perspective directly applicable for middle market leaders who are ready to move past the conversation and into action. Walk away from this episode with a clearer starting point for mapping AI into your existing workflows — and a sharper sense of what's actually holding your organization back. Watch the full episode: youtu.be/VOyAn_BX3Qw Connect with Ondar: ondartarlow.org

    1h 1m

  6. APR 13

    Strategic Slowness: The Competitive Advantage Coming After Speed | AI For The C-Suite EP 59

    Speed is the operating obsession right now, and for good reason. Across industries and company sizes, the leaders moving fastest with AI are opening a real gap on everyone else. If your competitor is qualifying a customer inquiry in four minutes and you're still taking two days, that is a structural disadvantage. Speed compounds, and right now, pressing it is the right move. But speed is on a curve. It starts as an edge, becomes a race, and eventually becomes table stakes. Electricity went through this curve. Cloud computing went through it. AI-powered speed is early on that same arc, which means the leaders who are only building for speed are building for a moment, not a position. In this episode, Chad introduces the concept of strategic slowness: the capacity to hold position under pressure, defer irreversible decisions, and deploy judgment when the whole market is screaming at you to act. It is not a philosophy of moving slowly. Think of it as a reserve, held in tension with speed, the way a disciplined investor holds cash. Chad walks through three practical moves for building this capacity into your organization: a decision cadence that separates reversible from irreversible calls, calendar discipline that protects thinking time as a capital expenditure, and a tenure audit that identifies the pattern memory people your organization is likely undervaluing right now. That last one carries a reframe worth sitting with: in a world where institutional facts are queryable but institutional judgment is not, your long-tenured people are carrying an asset that didn't exist five years ago. This episode gives you a framework for thinking past the current era of speed, and a concrete starting point for building the reserve that will matter when speed alone stops winning. AI For the C Suite™ podcast keeps C-Suite leaders informed and engaged in the world of AI for business. If you're a CEO, President, Owner, or C-suite leader looking to understand how AI will impact your organization, you've found the right podcast. AI for the C-Suite™ is a continuous learning and application experience that exists to unite, elevate, and equip leaders to navigate the Exponential Age. Join the AI for the C Suite community today: https://aiforthecsuite.com/ #chadharvey #aiforthecsuite #aic

    16 min

  7. APR 6

    Chris Happ | Why 98% of CEOs Know AI Matters but Only 7% Have a Strategy | AI For The C-Suite EP 58

    AI isn’t the question anymore. Execution is. In this episode of AI for the C Suite, Chad Harvey sits down with Chris Happ, CEO of Virtuous AI, to break down why most companies are stuck between knowing AI matters and actually making it work. 98% of CEOs say AI matters. Only 7% have a strategy. So what’s going wrong? This conversation goes beyond tools and hype. It focuses on what’s actually happening inside organizations and why so many AI efforts stall before they ever scale. We cover: • Why most AI pilots fail • The gap between strategy and execution • Why buying AI tools doesn’t create an advantage • The role of trust in AI adoption • How companies should rethink workflows instead of optimizing broken ones • A real example of freeing up millions in cash through better decision making If you’re a CEO or business leader trying to figure out how to move from experimentation to real impact with AI, this is a practical place to start. Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/sUcoylSLSzE Learn more about Virtuous AI: https://www.virtuousai.com/

    1h 2m

  8. MAR 30

    Nobody's Coming: Why Mid-Market Leaders Must Lead Their Own AI Transformation | AI For The C-Suite EP 57

    Three articles dropped within a single week. A viral blog post viewed over 85 million times, a major Atlantic Monthly feature, and a forward-looking research piece written from the vantage point of 2028. All three pointed in the same direction: AI is reshaping organizations faster than most leaders realize, and nobody is coming to help you figure it out.   In this episode, recorded live at the Technology Council of Central Pennsylvania, Chad lays out five premises every leader needs to internalize about AI as a general purpose technology, unpacks what those three articles reveal about this particular moment, and delivers a practical readiness playbook built on systems, people, and processes. He also addresses the failure patterns that sink most AI initiatives (pilot purgatory, strategy theater, IT silos, and tool obsession) and walks through a five-step activation sequence you can start this week: audit your friction points, focus on three initiatives instead of thirty, build a cross-functional team, set guardrails, and establish a cadence that matches the pace of change.   Chad makes the case that reskilling the C-suite matters more than reskilling the operational layer and maps out how each executive role needs to evolve. The CEO becomes the chief storyteller. The CFO shifts from historical reporting to contingency modeling. The COO moves from running processes to reinventing them. And every leader needs to expand from holding one to three scenarios over five years to holding three to five scenarios over one to three years, preserving optionality at every turn. If your organization is still dabbling, still posturing, or still waiting for someone else to lead the way, this is where you start building the leadership capacity to match an exponentially advancing technology.   AI For the C Suite™ podcast keeps C-Suite leaders informed and engaged in the world of AI for business. If you're a CEO, President, Owner, or C-suite leader looking to understand how AI will impact your organization, you've found the right podcast. AI for the C-Suite™ is a continuous learning and application experience that exists to unite, elevate, and equip leaders to navigate an era of unprecedented change.   Join the AI for the C Suite community today: https://aiforthecsuite.com/

    39 min
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AI For the C Suite with Chad Harvey™ interviews industry expert guests to keep you informed and entertained in the world of AI for Business. If you’re a C Suite member looking to learn more about how AI will impact your business, you’ve found the right podcast. Generative AI is the most disruptive General Purpose Technology we have seen in the last 45 years. It holds tremendous promise when leveraged properly and tremendous peril for those that disregard its existence. AI for the C-Suite with Chad Harvey™ is a continuous learning and application experience which exists to unite, elevate and equip CEO’s, Presidents, Owners and C-suite leaders to navigate the Exponential Age.

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