AI Is Already in Your Building. Who's Shaping It?
The people doing the work have already picked up AI on their own, and the gains are landing before leadership has a plan. For a 10-to-75-person shop, the move isn't a six-figure full-time hire or doing nothing. It's fractional senior leadership a few days a month to set direction and put sensible controls around what your team is already doing.
The quietest person on your ops team cleared a month-old backlog in a single afternoon last week, after she started running her vendor paperwork through ChatGPT. Nobody asked her to; she just tried it. That's the pattern showing up in offices across Victoria right now: the people doing the work have picked up these tools on their own, and the gains are landing before anyone above them has a plan for them.
If you lead a 10-to-75-person shop, skip the two easy reflexes: posting a full-time CFO or COO job (six figures, three months to fill), or doing nothing and hoping it sorts itself out. Bring in fractional senior leadership a few days a month instead, someone who has closed real books and sat through real board meetings, to set direction and put sensible controls around what your team is already doing.
Do that and the freed-up hours turn into something: cleaner board reporting, a faster close, decisions made on better numbers. You get a seasoned operator's judgment without the six-figure salary, and your people stay pointed at the work that actually matters. The capability is already in your building. The real question is who is shaping it. How is AI turning up in your finance or ops team right now?