Beyond The Prompt - How to use AI in your company

Are You Qualified to Challenge Your Team on AI? - with Geoff Woods, Author of The AI-Driven Leader

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Jul 8, 2026

Geoff Woods, author of The AI-Driven Leader and consultant who helps executives adopt AI strategically. He discusses using AI as a thought partner while humans keep judgment. Topics include why leaders must use AI themselves, putting strategy before tech, redesigning strategy sessions with AI, and focusing AI on the highest-value 20% of work.

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INSIGHT

Leaders Are Qualified When They Use AI

Leaders must personally use AI to be qualified to set strategy and lead from practice.
Geoff Woods says using AI daily lets leaders cast vision, define strategy, and lead by example rather than delegating AI to IT.

ANECDOTE

Bjarke Ingels Questioned AI Authorship

Henrik Werdelin recounts Bjarke Ingels asking if Henrik wrote a manifesto himself, questioning whether AI-written work merits reading.
The exchange exposed a new credibility problem: long AI-assisted docs risk being dismissed as one-shot "AI slop".

ADVICE

Stamp AI Output Before Sharing

Always put your human "stamp of approval" on AI outputs before sending them to others.
Geoff Woods reviews AI drafts with his team and expects members to stand by wording and thinking or face coaching.

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Geoff Woods returns to Beyond the Prompt to discuss the updated edition of The AI-Driven Leader and what has changed over the past 18 months. Rather than focusing on the latest AI models, Geoff argues that leaders need to use AI themselves before asking others to, using it to think more clearly, shape strategy, and make better decisions.

The conversation explores why many organizations confuse access with adoption, why strategy should come before use cases, and how AI can change the way leaders approach everything from business strategy to organizational design. Along the way, Henrik and Jeremy challenge Geoff's ideas on authorship, judgment, and whether understanding AI changes what leaders believe is possible.

Key Takeaways:

Leaders need to use AI themselves
Using AI personally is what qualifies leaders to shape strategy and lead others from practice rather than theory.
Use AI to improve your thinking
The biggest opportunity isn't automating work. It's using AI to think better, solve better problems, and imagine new possibilities.
Start with problems, not use cases
Begin with the biggest challenges facing the business, then use AI to rethink how to solve them.
AI still needs human judgment
AI can generate ideas, but people are still responsible for reviewing the output and standing behind it.
Focus AI on your highest-value work
Use AI to amplify the small set of activities where your human strengths create the greatest impact.

The AI-Driven Leader: aileadership.com
Geoff's LinkedIn: linkedin/geoff-woods

00:00 Are You Qualified to Lead on AI?
00:35 Meet Geoff Woods
00:54 The AI Slop Dilemma
05:48 Putting Your Stamp of Approval
09:19 What Changed in 18 Months
12:13 Access Isn't Adoption
15:50 Why Leaders Can't Delegate AI
20:09 Strategy Before Use Cases
22:02 BarkBox's AI Strategy
26:23 Reinventing Strategy with AI
33:11 Compressing Months into Hours
37:22 Human Skills as Superpowers
42:46 The Debrief

📜 Read the transcript for this episode: are-you-qualified-to-challenge-your-team-on-ai-with-geoff-woods-author-of-the-ai-driven-leader/transcript

For more prompts, tips, and AI tools. Check out our website: https://www.beyondtheprompt.ai/ or follow Jeremy or Henrik on Linkedin:

Henrik: https://www.linkedin.com/in/werdelin
Jeremy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremyutley

Show edited by Emma Cecilie Jensen.