The book
AI Without the BS.
The CEO's playbook for actually getting AI right. Written for the leader who has heard every pitch, sat through every demo, and still can't get a straight answer about what to do Monday morning. Short chapters, a checklist at the end of every one, and no hype anywhere in it.
What's in it
The silver bullet myth, and what to do instead.
The book came out of hundreds of conversations with CEOs who had bought AI and couldn't say what it was doing for them. It argues that AI pays off when a company treats it as a practice, led by its operating leaders, measured like anything else that costs money, and started small enough to finish.
Every chapter ends with a cheat-sheet checklist you can hand to your leadership team. That was deliberate. CEOs don't need another book to read; they need one they can act on.
Why the tools aren't the problem
Most companies have more AI than they can use. The gap is ownership, method and measurement, and the book spends most of its pages there.
Who should own AI
Why handing it to IT alone sets it up to fail, and how to build a learning function with IT inside it rather than in charge of it.
How to start small enough to finish
Picking the first workflow, the one metric, and the one person. The playbook version of what circles do every month.
How to measure it
The early form of what became ROAI, Return on AI, and the Operational Maturity Scale. The Institute's instruments started as chapters.
Got the book? Now what.
The book was the argument. AiAi is the practice.
A lot of you got a copy at a keynote or from a Vistage chair and never heard from us again. That's on us. The Institute is what the book was pointing at: the rooms, the measurement, and the research. Here's how to pick up where the last chapter left off.
Take the ROAI Assessment →
Ten minutes. Find out where your company sits on the scale the book introduced. Opening early 2027; sign up to be first.
Come to an interest session →
Lunch in your city, December through April. What AI adoption actually takes, what a circle is, and what you'd get. No pitch deck.
Sponsor a leader into a circle →
Chapter by chapter, the book tells you to pick one person and one workflow. The circle is where that person goes to get it done.
For leadership teams
Bulk copies, and a workshop to go with them.
Ten or more copies for a leadership team or a CEO group, signed if you like, and a half-day workshop built around the chapter checklists. Write to speaking@theaiai.net.
Coming December 2026
Who Owns Tomorrow
A no-BS playbook to thrive in the AI era, and the question behind Brett's keynote of the same name. Where the first book was about getting AI right inside your company, this one is about who is still standing in five years. Sign up below and we'll tell you when it ships.
Readers
Get the checklists, and what came after the book.
Every chapter's cheat sheet in one PDF, plus first word on the assessment, the sessions and the next book.