You Don't Have to Understand AI. You Just Have to Start.

Every week I talk to at least one CEO who says some version of the same thing.

"I know I need to get up to speed on AI. I just haven't had the time."

They say it with a slight wince. As if they're confessing something. Like they already know the clock is running.

They're right. And the problem is that no one has shown them where to start, and everything they've read makes it sound more complicated than it needs to be.

So here's what I am telling them. You don't need to understand how AI works. You need to understand what it can do for you in the next 30 minutes.

The CEO's AI Problem Is Not a Technology Problem

Most of the CEOs I work with are not technologists. That's not a criticism. They built their careers on operational excellence, relationships, judgment under pressure, and the ability to move organizations through change. Those skills got them to the seat they're in.

AI feels like someone else's domain. An IT conversation. A project for a future quarter when things slow down.

Things don't slow down. You already know that.

What's actually happening in the background is more uncomfortable. Your team is already using AI tools, with or without a policy in place. Your competitors' leadership teams are already compressing hours of work into minutes. And the PE firms watching your performance are starting to ask questions about operational efficiency that AI answers directly.

Here's the part most CEOs don't want to sit with: this isn't just a personal productivity question. The companies that win the next five years will be materially faster, leaner, and more strategically agile than those that don't embed AI into how they operate. Revenue cycle performance, clinical documentation, prior auth, workforce management, competitive intelligence — AI is already reshaping all of it. Your job as CEO is to lead that adoption, not wait for someone else to bring it to you.

That starts with you. Not your IT team. Not a future initiative. You.

The gap between leaders who are using this and leaders who are watching from the sideline is widening fast. And it is much easier to close than most CEOs think.

Below are three specific starting points - any one of them will work. Pick the one that fits the problem on your desk right now.

Before You Start: One Practical Note

Whichever AI tool you choose — Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok — pay for the full version. It's $20 a month. The free tiers are watered-down previews. The paid versions are where the real capability lives: longer context, better reasoning, access to the features that actually change how you work. You wouldn't drive a Ferrari in first gear. Don't run AI on the free plan and wonder why you're not impressed.

Starting Point 1: Enhanced Board Deck Prep

Your next board meeting is coming. You've built the deck. You've reviewed it. You feel reasonably prepared.

Now upload it to Gemini and type this: "Act as a skeptical board member with a financial background. What questions would you ask? What would concern you? What looks incomplete or inconsistent?"

What comes back will make you uncomfortable in the best possible way.

I've had CEOs tell me this single exercise changed how they walked into a board meeting. Not because AI told them anything they didn't know, but because it forced every soft assumption in the deck to the surface before the board did.

You've spent days building the narrative. You've been too close to it to see the gaps. An outside lens, even an artificial one, catches what familiarity hides.

Run that prompt. Then run a follow-up: "What three questions is this board most likely to ask that I haven't addressed?"

That's thirty minutes. That's preparation that used to take a coach, a trusted advisor, or a weekend.

Starting Point 2: Interrogate Your Own Financials

You have a CFO. You have financial reports. You still spend half your board prep trying to reconcile a number on slide 14 with something you saw in a spreadsheet three weeks ago, and you're not entirely sure you're reading it correctly.

Claude in Excel changes this.

Install the Excel plugin, or load the financial file into Claude and ask plain questions in plain English: "Where are my biggest margin variances by service line?" "Which cost categories have grown faster than revenue over the last three quarters?" "What's driving the difference between my plan and my actuals in Q2?"

You get answers in seconds. Not a summary from your CFO filtered through their agenda. Direct answers to your exact questions, in language you can use in a meeting.

This is not about replacing your finance team. It's about showing up to every financial conversation with your own read, your own questions, and your own command of the numbers.

That's a different posture in the board room. PE investors notice.

Starting Point 3: Email Streamlining

Your inbox is a tax on your best thinking. Most CEOs are spending 90 minutes a day on email that could be triaged, summarized, and responded to in a fraction of the time.

Copy a thread you've been avoiding into ChatGPT. Tell it: "Summarize this thread, identify what's being asked of me, and draft a response that is direct and professional."

The draft won't be perfect. It will be 80% of the way there, and editing something that's 80% complete is five times faster than starting from a blank cursor.

Do that for three emails. You'll have your hour back before lunch.

This is not glamorous AI work. It is not the AI that optimizes your revenue cycle or builds a clinical decision support tool. But it's the AI that creates enough space in your day to think strategically, which is what you're actually paid to do.

The Only Rule

Pick one of these three and do it before the end of the week.

Not all three. One.

The biggest mistake I see executives make with AI is trying to build a strategy before they've built a habit. You don't need a strategy. You need a first experience that makes you think, "I'm going to do that again."

Once you have that moment, everything that comes next — the operational applications, the competitive intelligence, the team-wide workflows — gets easier to see.

The CEOs I watch moving fastest right now didn't start with a grand plan. They started with one problem that needed solving, used an AI tool to solve it, and couldn't stop from there.

Your company needs you to figure this out. Not eventually. Now.

That's the whole gateway. One problem, one tool, one week.

The clock is running. But you're not as far behind as you think.

Ready to think through where AI fits in your organization and your leadership? This is one of the conversations I'm having with PE-backed healthcare CEOs every week. Reach out at empowerup.coach.