Artificial intelligence has moved from experimentation to implementation.

For business leaders, the question is now practical: How can companies use AI to solve real business problems and create measurable results?

Experts in artificial intelligence on the Harry Walker Agency roster are tracking that shift from experimentation to execution, from workplace adoption and automation to cybersecurity, economics, and responsible AI.

The answer starts with focus: identify where AI can improve work, decide what should remain human, build safeguards early, and measure whether the technology is actually improving business outcomes.

As AI becomes widely available, competitive advantage may depend less on access to the technology than on how well organizations implement it.

Where Should Companies Use AI?

Making Decisions When There Isn't a Perfect Answer

AI creates business value when investment translates into measurable outcomes such as higher productivity, more efficient workflows, stronger customer experiences, or new capabilities that improve performance.

Few executives have a closer view of enterprise technology than BILL MCDERMOTT. As Chairman and CEO of ServiceNow and former CEO of SAP, McDermott has spent decades helping organizations use technology to transform how work gets done.

Former IBM Chairman, President, and CEO GINNI ROMETTY and current IBM Vice Chairman GARY COHN bring another view from the center of enterprise transformation. Rometty led IBM through major investments in AI and cloud, while Cohn examines AI at the intersection of technology, productivity, and the economy.

The common thread is execution: connecting AI capabilities to specific business outcomes rather than treating adoption itself as the goal.

Building a Culture That Performs Under Pressure

Companies can put AI to work by embedding it into specific workflows where it can improve how people create, analyze, decide, or execute.

AI entrepreneur MATT SHUMER, former CEO of OthersideAI and creator of HyperWrite, has built AI tools designed to change how people write, code, and work. Tech entrepreneur and Evernote co-founder PHIL LIBIN similarly focuses on how organizations can use AI and automation to improve productivity and business performance.

Together, their work points to the next stage of AI adoption: moving AI out of the demo and into how work actually gets done.

How Can Companies Get Employees to Adopt AI?

Companies can improve workplace AI adoption by making the technology useful, understandable, and relevant to employees' actual work.

Decision-making expert SHEENA IYENGAR has spent her career studying how people make choices and respond to new possibilities. ROHINI KOSOGLU, a Policy Fellow at Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, brings that conversation into the future of work, examining how organizations can prepare people for a workplace shaped by AI.

Simply giving employees access to new tools does not guarantee effective adoption. Leaders need to show where AI is genuinely useful, give employees a clear reason to use it, and define how their work should change.

What Should Companies Automate With AI?

Companies should automate repetitive, data-heavy, or routine work while preserving human judgment where accountability, relationships, and trust matter most.

Former PayPal CEO DAN SCHULMAN has spent his career at the intersection of technology, business transformation, and customer trust. His perspective underscores the distinction between what technology can automate and where people remain essential.

The strongest AI strategies draw that line deliberately rather than automating simply because the technology makes it possible.

How Can Companies Implement AI Responsibly?

Responsible AI implementation requires companies to think about the consequences of deployment alongside the capabilities of the technology.

AI pioneer DE KAI and AI expert, filmmaker, and technology leader ABIGAIL WEN approach questions of accountability, bias, privacy, intellectual property, and representation from different angles. Harvard philosopher MICHAEL SANDEL pushes the conversation further, asking what AI means for human judgment, values, and the choices organizations should not hand over to technology.

Together, these perspectives make responsible AI a practical leadership question: not only what can the technology do, but what should organizations ask it to do, and under what guardrails?

What Are the Economics of AI?

The economics of AI will depend on whether enormous investment in the technology produces sustained gains in productivity, growth, and business performance.

Economist MOHAMED EL-ERIAN examines how AI investment fits into a changing global economy and financial landscape. MICHAEL R. STRAIN brings a labor-market and macroeconomic lens, including what AI could mean for productivity, wages, jobs, and long-term growth. Former SEC Chair and MIT professor GARY GENSLER focuses on AI, finance, financial technology, and the implications of the investment boom for markets.

For business leaders, the economic question is becoming as important as the technical one: where will AI create durable value, and how quickly will that value show up in productivity, markets, and growth?

How Is AI Changing Business Competition?

AI is changing business competition by lowering access to powerful capabilities while increasing the importance of speed, execution, data, and knowing where the technology can create an advantage.

Media and technology journalist DYLAN BYERS tracks the executives, companies, and power shifts shaping the modern information economy. Internet pioneers JIMMY WALES and SIR TIM BERNERS-LEE widen the lens to the information and data systems on which AI depends, from the reliability of online knowledge to questions of data ownership and control.

For organizations making significant AI investments, understanding those competitive shifts can be as important as understanding the technology itself.

What Does Successful AI Implementation Look Like?

Successful AI implementation is measured by outcomes, not by whether a company can say it 'uses AI.'

The real test is what happens after adoption. Did AI improve productivity? Did workflows become more efficient? Did employees make better decisions? Did customer experiences improve? Did the company create something that was not previously possible?

Those outcomes will increasingly define successful AI implementation. AI adoption is only the beginning. The advantage comes from what organizations build around it.

Continue the Conversation

The Harry Walker Agency's AI implementation speakers help organizations move from experimentation to execution. From AI strategy and workplace adoption to automation, cybersecurity, economics, and responsible AI, these experts in artificial intelligence offer practical insights into putting the technology to work.

Explore Harry Walker Agency technology and AI speakers >>>