Fluent in the Future: Why AI Literacy Is Now a Leadership Skill

Not long ago, the big questions for business leaders were about going digital, building a social presence, or setting up an e-commerce channel. Those shifts defined an era of modernisation. Today, the conversation has shifted again. It’s no longer just about presence or process, it’s about how AI fits into everything, from hiring and operations to strategy and daily communication.

Some teams are already deep in it. They’re using AI tools to plan campaigns, write proposals, answer customer questions, and organise dashboards. And they’re not just experimenting anymore. According to Forbes research, businesses are already applying artificial intelligence in high-impact areas like customer service (56%), cybersecurity and fraud detection (51%), customer relationship management (46%), and digital personal assistants (47%). These aren’t future plans, they’re live systems making work faster, safer, and more efficient today. 

Others are experimenting, trying out AI tools to brainstorm ideas, summarise documents, or generate initial drafts. The leader, meanwhile, is often just trying to keep up, nodding along in meetings, half-comfortable with the terms, quietly Googling acronyms afterwards.

The changing rhythm of leadership

You don’t need to engineer the tools. That said, when the people around you are automating tasks, refining prompts, or discussing AI hallucinations and embeddings, you want to be part of that conversation, and guide it. Leadership in 2025 looks different: it’s not about being the tech genius, but the guide who understands what’s possible and helps others navigate smartly.

Because leadership is shifting. Instead of deciding if AI will be used, the real role is helping the team decide how it should be used, and what matters most in terms of quality, efficiency, and ethics. Whether it’s marketing, operations, or HR, these conversations are happening everywhere.

That starts with a baseline fluency. Enough to ask the right questions. Enough to trust what’s being built, or to challenge it.

Understanding just enough to lead well

Think of it like learning the basics of finance or operations. You don’t do the books or run the supply chain yourself, but you understand enough to:

• Ask smart questions
• Weigh trade-offs
• Spot risks and red flags
• Encourage good decisions
• Follow conversations without needing translation

The same applies to AI. Knowing the difference between a prompt and a model, or a fine-tune and a hallucination, can make a big difference in how you respond to a pitch, approve a project, or allocate resources. And the benefits stack up quickly, because clarity builds momentum.

AI fluency helps leaders:

Make better technology calls

You don’t have to evaluate every tool on the market. But if a supplier says they’re using “fine-tuned language models with real-time embeddings,” you want to at least understand what you’re buying, or avoiding. When you’re confident asking clarifying questions, you also protect your team from shiny tool syndrome.

Spot actual opportunities

In many businesses, AI use starts at the edges, writing emails, summarising meetings, sorting survey responses. Leaders who recognise those patterns can help expand them strategically. When you understand the potential, you can connect the dots across departments that might not see how their efforts align.

Build teams with the right mindset

AI-literate leaders can ask better hiring questions, onboard faster, and ensure team members know when to trust the machine and when to pause. That mindset becomes part of your culture: experiment, evaluate, and evolve.

Guide cross-functional collaboration

AI touches marketing, ops, HR, and IT differently. When leaders understand the basics, they can help different teams align on goals and tools. Conversations stop being siloed and start becoming integrated.

Shape stronger, smarter conversations

Whether it’s strategy meetings or performance reviews, AI is changing the inputs and the language. Leaders who get the context are better positioned to interpret what they hear and say what matters. Instead of defaulting to surface-level questions, they dig into workflows and metrics in ways that move things forward.

A few real scenarios

Picture a customer service lead automating ticket tagging. Or a marketing manager using GPT to generate variations of ad copy. Or a sales rep summarising discovery calls using AI. These are small changes that ripple across workflows. Now picture the executive team trying to make decisions around these changes, without understanding how the tools work, what their risks are, or how the results are being validated.

That gap leads to delays, mismatched expectations, and even risk. It also puts pressure on teams who feel like they have to teach upward, or worse, justify every improvement they’ve made. It erodes trust instead of building it.

Now imagine the same team with a leader who’s not an expert, but curious and competent. Someone who can ask, “How did you review that output?” or “Where’s the data coming from?” or even, “Do you think we should automate this yet?” That kind of presence shifts the dynamic. It creates room for honest conversation and better decisions.

That’s a different kind of leadership. It feels more human, more aligned, and more capable of navigating change.

And it’s not just theory. Forbes research backs up these practical applications. Almost all business owners, 97%, believe tools like ChatGPT will help their business. One in three plans to use it to write website content, and nearly half, 46%, are already using AI to craft internal communications. These tools are changing the way teams work together, communicate, and build momentum across departments.

Less friction. More forward motion.

When leaders are AI-literate, they:

• Speed up approvals because they understand the value and risks
• Encourage the team to explore tools safely and with boundaries
• Set clearer expectations around quality, oversight, and performance
• Create space for continuous improvement and iteration without fear

And maybe more importantly, they reduce the anxiety many teams feel when navigating AI for the first time. Instead of guessing how much to say or simplify, teams can speak clearly and get support. That lowers stress, increases collaboration, and ultimately helps the entire organisation build trust in its own innovation process.

The future of trust and decision-making

AI has implications for privacy, accuracy, and reputation. Teams are using these tools to generate content, surface insights, and even make recommendations that influence business decisions. Leadership means helping everyone ask the right questions:

• Does this reflect our voice and values?
• Who checks this before it goes out?
• What data is being shared, and with whom?
• Are we confident in how this output was produced?

Harvard Business research makes this role even clearer. They describe “AI-First Leadership” as the ability to connect technological potential with strategic outcomes. It’s about fostering a culture that sees AI not as a replacement for human input, but as a powerful tool that enhances creativity, strengthens decision-making, and fuels innovation.

Being part of that conversation builds trust. Not being part of it creates blind spots. And over time, those blind spots become risks, whether legal, reputational, or cultural. Staying engaged is about protecting your people and your business.

The global perspective

It’s not just happening in one country or one industry. AI adoption is taking root everywhere, across borders, across sectors, and across roles. And the speed at which it’s spreading is staggering.

In just two years, the number of global English-language job postings that mention AI has more than doubled. The United States is leading the way, not just in the volume of AI-related roles, but also in how quickly AI skills are filtering into non-technical positions. US companies aren’t just hiring AI talent; they’re building AI into marketing, customer experience, finance, and operations.

But it’s not just an American story. In Europe, the momentum is undeniable. The UK saw a 2.3x increase in job postings that reference AI. In Germany, it jumped by 2.6x. France followed closely at 2.1x. From logistics and law to retail and recruitment, AI is no longer a specialised tool, it’s becoming a core part of how modern organisations function.

Beyond hiring signals, the way we talk about work is changing too. Global conversations about AI on LinkedIn grew by 70% in less than a year. In parallel, hiring for AI technical talent is growing 30% faster than overall hiring, while the supply of such talent is only growing by 16%. That gap tells you everything: demand is outpacing readiness.

And this isn’t a minor adjustment. More than half of LinkedIn members globally, about 55%, are expected to see their jobs change in some way due to generative AI. That means the shift isn’t just affecting coders or data scientists, it’s touching everyone.

The opportunity? LinkedIn estimates that AI could unlock $6.6 trillion in productivity gains across major economies. But to seize even a portion of that, businesses need leaders who understand what’s changing.

Forbes’ 2025 AI 50 List echoes this momentum. More than two years after the launch of ChatGPT, artificial intelligence remains the white-hot centre of venture capital and business innovation. The hype around model releases is evolving. The focus now is on real-world value, startups are shifting from racing to build the next model to creating practical tools that automate tedious work across industries like engineering, healthcare, legal services, and sales.

Because the people you hire, the tools you adopt, and the workflows you build are already being shaped by AI. The question is whether leadership is equipped to guide that evolution, or just catch up to it.

The bigger picture

It’s not about mastering the tech. It’s about being able to lead the people who use it. It’s about listening with more context and giving direction with more clarity. When your team knows you understand the terrain, even just the basics, they can move faster, communicate more openly, and solve problems more confidently.

It also makes them more likely to bring you into the loop earlier, share ideas more openly, and engage with you as a thought partner, not just a decision-maker.

Harvard Business Review research by Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter, authors of ‘More Human,’ reinforces this perspective: “AI has the power to transform leadership for the better, the key is in how leaders use it.” Their focus on “human-centred leadership” aligns perfectly with this message that effective AI leadership feels more human, more aligned, and more capable of navigating change.

And in a world that’s moving this quickly, that kind of leadership matters more than ever.