Use, view or refuse AI…each is a stance that is personal before it’s professional

Every person I talk to in cultural organizations -- from an arts center CEO to a volunteer docent -- has some kind of personal stance on AI. We all do.

We either:

• use AI

• view AI — watch AI and read about it (those who struggle to find time for it usually fall here)

• refuse AI — on principle, out of skepticism or in utter disinterest

Each of these is a stance. And an intensely opinionated and personal one, based in who we are as humans first, logic second.

The cultural leaders I interact with are keenly aware that they need to listen to their teams about AI. They all know they cannot bulldoze or command-and-control their way on AI and get anywhere productive.

But leaders I talk with are (again, personally) all over the map.

Some of the leaders I talk with seem scared of AI ("My teams know far more than I do about AI... and that's great! I let them figure it out." -- their voice, shaky).

Some leaders are clear about delegating AI ("I have put Jane in charge of AI for the organization and given her my full backing. We are coming up with a revised set of AI policies now." Voice, sounding confident.)

And some leaders are in full YOLO mode with AI, deeply hands-on ("I built a summarizer in Codex the other day that flags significant events happening across my meeting notes where I need to follow up." Their voice is proud and undaunted.)

As AI and organizational design partner for arts and culture, I have strong opinions about effective leadership stances on AI.

Here's the short version: the stance matters less than if it's chosen and clear. The shaky delegator and the proud builder can both lead well in 2026 AI but what does not work is "default mode" or "this is an IT issue" style hands-off.

AI requires leaders to be well-informed and around for each curve on the track, even if it is from two rows back.

Leaders don't have to be AI-fluent. But they need to be well-informed and clear about their role vs. everyone else on the team's role (and make sure everyone knows their role with AI explicitly). Clarity is everything.

The organizations I see succeeding with AI have this clarity in leadership and in AI job description or are actively working on it.

And, it's at this juncture that my work often begins working with an organization. Getting to that clarity with AI leadership while doing all you are doing to run and grow your cultural organization is not easy.

I am usually hired by the CIO/CTO or CEO (whoever leads the team holding the baton of AI) to help boost their bandwidth around:

1. How does AI fit who we are as an organization?

2. How should we use AI pragmatically?

3. Where does AI not belong in our org?

4. How do we bring our teams along (including ourselves as leaders)?

All four are critically important questions. But in my experience, it's #4 that drives almost everything else.

Take, for instance, a marketing team member who has personally decided not to use AI for creative infringement and environmental reasons. What does it mean when that person's manager announces a departmental objective for the team with AI and it becomes part of his job description? What does that individual employee do? (They face a personal dilemma, that's what! And the team faces silent or overt strain. Personal meets professional.)

If, conversely, another person on a fundraising team is way into AI and spends their weekends in Claude Code building things, what does it mean when that person's experimentation runs way ahead of institutional policies, manager comfort levels, and tool licensing? (A managerial AND personal dilemma! And the team faces questions that maybe run ahead of other teams or the organizational leadership and readiness.)

AI is personal before it's professional.

Personal AI stance intersects with team, role, organizational culture, job requirements and policy. Personal AI stance of the individuals silently drives organizational sentiment more widely. The new version of "culture eats strategy for breakfast."

And now we address the obvious irony in the room.

AI is precisely NOT human. Yet it's human emotion and opinion (the squishiest of all human traits!) that silently and relentlessly drives AI progress across the organization.

This is why I'm so respectful of organizational culture when it comes to technology transformation. And that has never been more evident than it is today with AI transformation.

So, I arrive as AI advisor to your organization with two main lenses:

First, as deeply skilled AI practitioner and 20-year veteran technologist. I've spent decades building tech for our sector and the last five being deeply immersed in how for-profit companies are transforming themselves with AI. My #1 job is being hands-on with AI for a living.

Second, I respect the squish of human emotion about AI. I connect the hardline pragmatism of technology enablement to the human-driven organizations we all are fortunate to belong to. This is the flip side of my resume. As someone who has worked on digital transformation with hundreds of arts organizations over the years, I know first-hand that organizational sentiment drives success or failure of technology every time.

Respect the squish.
Embrace the squish.

And, given the human-vs-machine vibe of AI itself, the squish becomes even more sacred today than in prior tech waves.

Love the squish.