This week, I started a certificate program with Johns Hopkins University on AI Business Strategy. I got here not because it seemed like the career-savvy thing to do, but because I was genuinely exhausted by the swirl around AI. And in my professional life, I hate swirl. I’m actually pretty good at cutting through it — so it was time to turn that on myself.

I’m not an AI denier. I don’t think it’s going the way of the Palm Pilot (I had one, loved it, still not over it). But I’d grown tired of reading things that had nothing to do with my world, or that offered zero practical perspective on what any of it actually meant. My default response had become classic Gen X: show mild interest, withhold enthusiasm, and figure it out on my own terms. Don’t tell me I must do it right now.

I’ll also be honest — the climate impact of AI genuinely makes me uncomfortable, and that tension isn’t something I’ve fully resolved.

What finally pushed me forward was noticing a pattern among colleagues. Most didn’t have much direction on AI — not from their organizations, not from their industries. People were gravitating toward the same two or three tools and calling it a strategy. The people in tech and data felt relatively comfortable. Sales and marketing? Not so much.

And it turns out I wasn’t imagining it. McKinsey’s 2025 State of AI report found that nearly two-thirds of organizations have not yet begun scaling AI across the enterprise, and that progress is far from evenly distributed inside companies. Comforting and concerning at the same time. The report also found that the companies actually seeing results aren’t just adopting AI tools — they’re setting growth and innovation as objectives and redesigning how they work around it entirely. That gap between “we’re using it” and “it’s actually changing how we operate” is exactly what I want to understand — and eventually help close.

Link here to read more or skim.

The JHU program has two goals I find equally compelling: actually understanding AI — the terms, the tradeoffs, the real capabilities — and learning how to lead teams through it strategically. Not just using it, but building a point of view and communicating it clearly up and down an organization.

Less swirl. That’s really all I ever want for a team.