The Reason Your AI Rollout Isn't Working with Charlene Li

Most organizations are treating AI like a software upgrade. Buy the licenses, hand it to IT, measure adoption rates, call it a transformation. It isn't.

Charlene Li has spent the last several years inside organizations actually leading AI transformation — not just talking about it — and her diagnosis is blunt: the problem isn't the technology. It's that leaders keep handing off a leadership challenge to the wrong person. When the CEO outsources AI to the CIO, the whole organization stays stuck in adoption mode. Tools get installed. Behavior doesn't change. Value doesn't follow.

In this conversation, Charlene and I dig into what leading AI transformation actually requires — why it has to start at the strategic level, how to move past the fear and stigma that keeps most employees treating AI like a cheat code, and what governance looks like when it accelerates instead of stalls progress. We also get into the jagged frontier debate, what AI fluency actually means for next-generation leaders, and why the most dangerous question you can ask your team isn't "are you using AI?" — it's "what are you using it for?"

If you're a senior leader sitting on a pile of licenses and not much to show for it, this conversation is for you.

// NEWSLETTER

Want to build your best team ever? Join 25,000+ leaders who receive these insights in my free newsletter: https://davidburkus.com/podcast

// SPEAKING

Like what you heard? Learn more or find out how to bring me to your company or event: https://davidburkus.com/keynote-speaker/

// ABOUT DAVID

One of the world’s leading business thinkers, David’s forward-thinking ideas and bestselling books are changing how companies approach leadership, teamwork, and collaboration.

A skilled researcher and inspiring communicator, Dr. David Burkus is the bestselling author of five books about business and leadership. His books have won multiple awards and have been translated into dozens of languages. Since 2017, David has been ranked multiple times as one of the world’s top business thought leaders. His insights on leadership and teamwork have been featured in the Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, CNN, the BBC, NPR, and CBS Mornings.

A former business school professor, David now works with leaders from organizations across all industries, including PepsiCo, Fidelity, Adobe, and NASA. David’s keynotes aren’t just entertaining and enlightening—they’re evidence-based and immensely practical, offering leaders at all levels a set of actionable takeaways they can implement immediately.

//CONNECT

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidburkus/

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/davidburkus

Facebook: http://www.FB.com/DrDavidBurkus

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/DavidBurkus