A 2023 study found that 49% of CEOs believe a lack of AI proficiency will make them unprepared for the future of work. Frankly, that number should be a lot closer to 100%. AI isn’t just changing how companies operate, AI is changing the role of CEO. Leaders who treat AI as anything other than revolutionary risk falling behind quickly.2023 年的一项研究发现，49% 的 CEO 认为缺乏 AI 技能将使他们无法应对未来的工作挑战。坦率地说，这个比例应该接近 100%。AI 不仅仅在改变公司的运营方式，它更在改变 CEO 的角色。如果领导者将 AI 视为普通技术而非变革性力量，那么他们很快就会落后。
In my experience as CEO of a technology consulting company navigating rapid AI transformation, AI has been equal parts challenging and energizing. It has forced me to rethink and relearn a lot of what I thought I knew about leading a company.作为一家正在经历快速 AI 转型的技术咨询公司的 CEO，我的亲身体验是：AI 既充满挑战，又令人振奋。它迫使我重新思考并学习许多我自以为掌握的领导之道。
Many leaders already use AI in basic ways: summarizing information, researching competitors, generating briefings and searching enterprise knowledge. In that way, AI is like a second brain for CEOs.许多领导者已经开始以基础方式使用 AI：总结信息、调研竞争对手、生成简报以及搜索企业知识库。从这个角度来看，AI 就像是 CEO 的“第二大脑”。
But the bigger shift goes beyond productivity. AI is reshaping the CEO role itself. The job is becoming more cognitive, more demanding and ultimately more impactful.但更深层的转变远不止于生产力提升。AI 正在重塑 CEO 的角色本身。这份工作正变得更具认知挑战性、要求更高，且最终更具影响力。
In my experience, the AI era is changing the CEO role in several big ways: leaders must continuously unlearn old assumptions, personally own AI strategy, rethink business models, lead workforce reinvention, make decisions in partnership with AI and foster a rapid innovation mindset in the organization.根据我的经验，AI 时代正从几个重要方面改变 CEO 的角色：领导者必须不断摒弃旧观念、亲自把控 AI 战略、重构商业模式、引领员工队伍转型、与 AI 协作决策，并在组织内培养快速创新的思维模式。
For CEOs, the hardest part of AI isn’t learning what’s new. It’s unlearning what used to be true.对于 CEO 而言，AI 最难的部分不在于学习新事物，而在于摒弃那些曾经被视为真理的旧观念。
Traditional sources of knowledge struggle to keep up. Books can be outdated by the time they’re published. Staying current requires constant learning through podcasts, essays and hands-on experimentation. I spend hours each week listening to credible sources like Andreessen Horowitz’s podcasts and trying new things with AI tools. CEOs must understand not only how AI affects their own operations, but also how it’s reshaping their customers’ industries.传统的知识来源往往跟不上时代。书籍出版时可能就已经过时了。要保持与时俱进，就需要通过播客、文章和亲手实践来不断学习。我每周会花数小时收听像 Andreessen Horowitz 播客这样权威的内容，并尝试各种新的 AI 工具。CEO 不仅要了解 AI 如何影响自身业务，还要了解它如何重塑客户所在的行业。
For long-tenured CEOs especially, the biggest risk isn’t ignorance but rather outdated mental models. Highlights Education CEO Kent Johnson told me in an interview: “The biggest threat to us is the things I know I know—and needing to unlearn them as fast as I’m learning new ones.”对于资深 CEO 来说，最大的风险不是无知，而是过时的思维模式。Highlights Education 的 CEO Kent Johnson 在采访中告诉我：“我们面临的最大威胁是我自以为掌握的知识——我需要像学习新知识一样快速地摒弃它们。”
Johnson also emphasized the importance of experimentation. “With AI, you’ve got to get your hands dirty,” he said. “I’m constantly reminding myself to try things with AI. Sometimes it fails miserably, but I’m learning.”Johnson 还强调了实验的重要性。他说：“面对 AI，你必须亲自动手。我时刻提醒自己尝试使用 AI。有时会遭遇彻底的失败，但我从中汲取了经验。”
AI is becoming a defining factor in how companies compete, how value is created, how work gets done and how companies differentiate themselves from competitors. In other words, while it’s tempting to treat AI as a technology initiative and hand it off to a CTO or chief AI officer, AI cannot be delegated.AI 正成为决定公司竞争力、价值创造方式、工作流程以及差异化优势的关键因素。换句话说，虽然将 AI 视为一项技术举措并将其交给首席技术官 (CTO) 或首席 AI 官去处理很诱人，但 AI 战略是无法下放的。
The scale of investment reflects the urgency CEOs should feel around AI and strategy. According to a KPMG survey, 68% of executives plan to invest between $50 million and $250 million in generative AI within the next year.投资规模反映了 CEO 对 AI 战略的紧迫感。根据毕马威 (KPMG) 的一项调查，68% 的高管计划在未来一年内向生成式 AI 投资 5000 万至 2.5 亿美元。
At my company, Centric Consulting, AI reports directly to me, because it’s inseparable from business strategy. That means I’m responsible not only for the strategy but also for mobilizing the organization around it: ensuring our people are trained, driving adoption internally and embedding AI into the services we deliver to clients.在我的公司 Centric Consulting，AI 部门直接向我汇报，因为它与业务战略密不可分。这意味着我不仅要负责战略，还要负责动员全公司：确保员工接受培训、推动内部应用，并将 AI 融入我们为客户提供的服务中。
AI’s productivity gains are so significant that they will break traditional revenue models. In consulting, for example, the time-and-materials model becomes harder to sustain when AI dramatically accelerates delivery. Outcomes-based pricing becomes a better fit when outcomes instead of hours define the delivery.AI 带来的生产力提升非常显著，足以打破传统的收入模式。以咨询业为例，当 AI 大幅加快交付速度时，按工时计费的模式将难以维持。当交付成果而非工时成为衡量标准时，基于成果的定价模式会更合适。
For example, two years ago, my company took a chance and invested in building an agentic platform designed to accelerate app modernization initiatives by 10-20x. It took courage to continue investing, because at the time we couldn’t quite guarantee that it was going to pay off. But now it’s been a boon for our business—and has forced us to begin rethinking our fee structure.例如，两年前，我们公司大胆投资构建了一个智能体平台，旨在将应用现代化项目的效率提升 10-20 倍。当时我们无法保证这一定能带来回报，继续投资需要勇气。但现在，它已成为我们业务的助推器，并迫使我们开始重新思考收费结构。
In other words, AI will cannibalize part of your business whether you like it or not. The only real choice is whether you build the next model yourself or passively wait for the market to do it for you. That requires courage from CEOs. Leaders must be willing to disrupt today’s status quo in order to create tomorrow’s success.换句话说，无论你是否愿意，AI 都会蚕食你部分业务。你唯一真正的选择是：要么亲自构建下一个商业模式，要么被动等待市场来颠覆你。这需要 CEO 的勇气。领导者必须愿意打破现状，才能创造未来的成功。
Leading through a disruptive force like AI requires CEOs to guide employees through uncertainty. AI naturally raises questions about the future of work, but in my experience, when people get ahead of AI, their careers become more secure.在 AI 这种颠覆性力量面前，CEO 必须引导员工应对不确定性。AI 自然会引发对未来工作的担忧，但根据我的经验，当人们走在 AI 前面时，他们的职业生涯反而会更加稳固。
Research from IBM estimates that 31% of employees will need reskilling within the next three years as organizations adopt AI.IBM 的研究估计，随着组织采用 AI，31% 的员工需要在未来三年内进行技能重塑。
The CEO’s role is to set the tone and help people feel hopeful, not fearful: learning matters, experimentation is expected and failure is part of progress. Cultures that punish mistakes will stall. Cultures that reward curiosity will adapt.CEO 的职责是定下基调，帮助员工感到充满希望而非恐惧：学习很重要，实验是必然的，而失败是进步的一部分。惩罚错误的企业文化会停滞不前，奖励好奇心的企业文化则会不断进化。
Johnson sees the same dynamic in publishing and education, where AI enables entirely new forms of accessibility and personalization that were previously cost-prohibitive.Johnson 在出版和教育领域也看到了同样的趋势，AI 实现了以前因成本高昂而无法企及的全新无障碍体验和个性化服务。
“The most interesting question isn’t how we do what we already do faster. It’s what we can now do that we couldn’t do before,” he said. “We’re in the business of helping caring adults build relationships with kids and help them learn. AI isn’t going to change the biology of how kids learn or bond with adults. While our end goal can’t be disrupted, everything about the process that we use to support our end goals can be disrupted.”他说：“最有趣的问题不是我们如何更快地完成既定工作，而是我们现在能做什么以前做不到的事情。我们的事业是帮助充满爱心的成年人与孩子建立联系并帮助他们学习。AI 不会改变孩子学习或与成人建立情感纽带的生物学规律。虽然我们的最终目标不会被颠覆，但支持实现这些目标的过程中的一切，都可以被颠覆。”
The pace of AI innovation means capabilities, risks and competitive dynamics shift constantly. This means that strategy planning can’t happen annually anymore.AI 创新的步伐意味着能力、风险和竞争态势在不断变化。这意味着战略规划再也不能只是一年一次了。
At Centric Consulting, the leadership team revisits strategy almost monthly and spends far more time on scenario planning than in the past. What happens if software development becomes largely automated? What happens if predictions about a “SaaSpocalypse” reshape the software ecosystem? These are the kinds of future realities we try to anticipate and plan for.在 Centric Consulting，领导团队几乎每月都会重新审视战略，并比过去花费更多时间进行情景规划。如果软件开发变得高度自动化会怎样？如果关于“SaaS 灾难”的预测重塑了软件生态系统会怎样？这些都是我们试图预见并规划的未来现实。
AI allows CEOs to extend their thinking by drawing on vast amounts of information and analysis before boardroom decisions even begin.AI 允许 CEO 在董事会决策前，通过调用海量信息和分析来扩展思维深度。
For example, when you train models on your organization’s knowledge, including strategy documents, lessons learned retrospectives, leadership discussions and more, you create a tool that can deliver deep institutional knowledge in moments. As a result, you can start strategic conversations further downstream. You arrive at board and governance discussions and meetings with external experts better prepared.例如，当你利用组织内部知识（包括战略文档、经验教训回顾、领导层讨论等）训练模型时，你就创造了一个能瞬间提供深厚机构知识的工具。因此，你可以更深入地开展战略对话，在参加董事会、治理讨论以及与外部专家会面时准备得更加充分。
As Johnson told me: “Because I’ve put in the right content and asked AI in the right way, I can take that output and bring it to a governance discussion and say, ‘here’s where we should start.’ The tools get us farther into the conversation faster.”正如 Johnson 所言：“因为我输入了正确的内容并以正确的方式向 AI 提问，我可以将输出结果带到治理讨论中，并说：‘这是我们应该开始的地方。’这些工具让我们更快地深入到对话的核心。”
AI doesn’t replace boards, advisors, or teams, but rather helps thoseAI 不会取代董事会、顾问或团队，而是帮助这些
groups arrive at higher-quality decisions, guided by a massive amount of data.群体在海量数据的指引下，做出更高质量的决策。
Research reinforces this shift. A 2025 study from Cornell University found that 93% of firms use AI for forecasting, customer insights, and decision support, with measurable improvements in organizational agility.研究印证了这一转变。康奈尔大学 2025 年的一项研究发现，93% 的企业使用 AI 进行预测、客户洞察和决策支持，并显著提升了组织灵活性。
AI may be the first technology that forces CEOs to evolve as quickly as the technology itself. It’s reshaping the expectations placed on CEOs—how fast they learn, how they make decisions and how they reshape their organizations. For leaders willing to adapt, this is exciting. But it also demands curiosity and the courage to reinvent parts of the business before the market forces you to.AI 可能是第一种迫使 CEO 必须与技术本身进化速度保持一致的技术。它正在重塑对 CEO 的期望——包括学习速度、决策方式以及组织重构能力。对于愿意适应的领导者来说，这令人兴奋。但这同时也需要好奇心，以及在市场迫使你转型之前主动重塑业务部分的勇气。
The CEOs who thrive in the AI era won’t just adopt the technology. They’ll reinvent their organizations around it.在 AI 时代，那些能够脱颖而出的 CEO 不会仅仅是采用这项技术，他们会围绕 AI 重构整个组织。
This article was originally published on Forbes.com.本文最初发表于 Forbes.com。
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