Your Gen Z AI-Native Hire Won’t Save Your Business

I am betting on experience, not youth.

There are a lot of established businesses being hammered by the news.

The news that AI is eating the world.

The news that they are behind if they don't get AI-native now.

The news that young people are the only ones who can help them and capture the magic lightning of AI in a company-shaped bottle.

I call bullshit on the lot of it.

Yes, a 26 year old likely can "do AI" better than some 42 year old executive but that's not enough. AI is not all of business especially if your business has nothing to do with AI.

Knowing "How to AI" is not enough to create change and fundamentally shift the direction of a business successfully.

Youth brings an appetite for risk and a hunger to learn new things quickly but that's not reserved only for the young.

Youth can't bring political experience.

Youth can't magically bring interpersonal skills.

Youth can't deftly enact change throughout an organisation "because they use agents" or whatever other newfandangled tool they adopt.

Young, AI-native people are the next wave, but there is a gap that needs to be bridged before this wave sweeps through an organisation successfully.

I don't think that a shit-hot AI-native 20-something is going to be able to successfully change c-level thinking.

I don't think that a young, junior AI-obsessed new hire is going to be able to shift workflows, team structure, tools and get budgets approved to move fast, scale and adapt fast enough.

Hiring a young, inexperienced AI-native (what does that even mean people?!) person and expecting them to implement a new core technology (bots, agents, AI) while also expecting them to manage the corporate politics, resistance to change, training, onboarding, context-gathering and context-shifting is a mistake.

So what the hell do you do?

Take a breath. Stop rushing. More speed less haste is the order of the day.

Figure out which tools can help your business. Claude isn't a solution for everyone.

Figure out which departments you can optimise first and focus.

Not everyone needs AI enablement right now. They need it soon, but not right now.

Start thinking in days, not months. AI solutions can (and should) be implemented in days and weeks not weeks and months. If it's taken weeks or months then you aren't planning sufficiently and you are changing too much too soon.

If you are the leader in your organisation it's time to dive in and upskill yourself. Nobody else is going to do it for you.

The best way to figure out what you need is to build something so start building with your teams.

The dramatic and structural shift that I am seeing in organisations of all sizes and shapes shouldn't be understated. Shit is real and businesses are suffering across the board.

The only thing keeping some alive is their willingness to admit that's what existed 6-12 months ago no longer exists in the same way and they aren't fighting it.

Triggered? Ask yourself why and then let's debate - hit reply and tell me why!