The part with no tooling: you have to care about people, and AI scales whatever it is
September 9, 2026
2:45
The hardest part of leading AI at a company has no tooling behind it at all.
My co-host Erin Wiggers named it as posture and mindset. I said the quiet part: you have to care about people, and that's often not a business muscle at all.
The industry has a title for this instead — forward deployed engineer. Erin had the line for it.
"That's the first interpersonal skills like engineer."
We closed by agreeing to make this a standing monthly conversation. That's the part I want to keep doing out loud.
Where this came from
Fractional AI Orchestrator: The Role Your Org Chart Doesn't HaveWatch the full conversation this clip was pulled from.
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