{"id":374968,"date":"2025-09-16T12:01:41","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T16:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chiefexecutive.net\/?p=374968"},"modified":"2025-09-16T12:01:43","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T16:01:43","slug":"the-most-important-ai-question-for-ceos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chiefexecutive.net\/the-most-important-ai-question-for-ceos\/","title":{"rendered":"The Most Important AI Question For CEOs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

While our world is run ragged with the horrible\u2014from political murders to the unending wars in Ukraine and Gaza, to the rickety economy, all to the point where a school shooting in this country hardly gets any attention anymore\u2014it\u2019s understandable that we might not notice something unprecedented is happening all around us. But it\u2019s something CEOs in particular need to pay attention to and cannot afford to be distracted about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That thought first came to me over the summer at our first-annual AI Leadership Summit, hosted in the lower Manhattan offices of law firm Freshfields. There was lots of smart insight, lots of really meaty, engaging conversation. But my biggest takeaway from the event came from Florin Rotar, CTO at Atos and former Chief AI Officer at Avanade, who asked: \u201cWhat will it mean to your business when the cost of cognition goes to zero<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I haven\u2019t been able to shake his question since. Consider this: In 2000, the total amount of digital data in the world was roughly 2 exabytes. By the end of this year, it\u2019ll be north of 180 zettabytes. It’s not slowing down. In fact, the rate of creation is accelerating. The amount of information in the world is growing so fast, and so chaotically, that traditional ways of navigating it\u2014search engines, folders, filters, even teams of analysts\u2014are no longer sufficient. It is very akin to what Ray Kurzweil had in mind with \u201cthe Singularity\u201d (see graphic above).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a moment\u2014just before a black hole\u2014where even light can\u2019t escape. Physicists call it the event horizon. In business today, I think we\u2019re approaching a cognitive event horizon. A point where there\u2019s so much information moving so fast, no unaided human can reasonably keep up. And in this moment AI becomes not a productivity tool, but an interface layer\u2014a translator, a navigator, a thought partner. Without it, we drown. With it, we at least have a shot at staying afloat. AI is not an app. It\u2019s not a piece of software. It\u2019s becoming a new layer of human cognition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think we\u2019re nearing that moment quickly, <\/em>with huge implications for business and society. That could explain\u2014probably explains\u2014why ChatGPT hit 100 million users in two months. For so many of us AI isn\u2019t just about productivity. It\u2019s about survival. To navigate an exponentially more complex world, we need help, and we\u2019re turning to AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But here\u2019s the twist: AI isn\u2019t just helping us navigate this information overload\u2014it\u2019s also accelerating it. Every time an LLM writes a paragraph, it creates new content. Every time we use AI to generate a slide, summarize a meeting, write an email or build a model, we\u2019re adding to the pile\u2014more tokens, more documents, more data trails.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result is a feedback loop. The more we use AI to deal with complexity, the more complexity we create. This isn\u2019t a vicious cycle. It\u2019s something stranger\u2014and more powerful. It\u2019s recursive. Self-reinforcing. I\u2019m not talking about artificial general intelligence. All of this is happening not because machines are becoming conscious, but because they\u2019re becoming essential<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what does this mean for business? Honestly, I have no idea\u2014I\u2019m not sure anyone does. But it does mean a leadership mindset shift is likely in order. Instead of poking about this as a \u201cShould we explore AI?\u201d moment, perhaps we need to shift to \u201cHow do we help our people think with AI?\u201d Some questions for the team:<\/p>\n\n\n\n