A structured AI advisory session for CXOs and senior leaders. Built to help your leadership team identify AI priorities, align ownership, and define the first 90-day move.
Part of AI for Leaders, inside our AI adoption programmes.
In most industries, the gap between organisations that have made AI central to how they operate and those still in pilot mode is already showing up in cost structures, speed, and customer experience.
Most leadership teams no longer need to be convinced that AI matters. They need alignment on where AI should move first.
2017 – 2021
Rule-based AI, RPA, narrow ML models. Focused on cost reduction. Most organisations dabbled. Results were patchy.
2022 – 2024
Foundation models and generative AI. Copilots, code assistants, content generation. Most organisations are somewhere in this wave today.
2024 onwards
AI embedded into core workflows. Agents that act, not just advise. The organisations winning here started Wave 2 work in 2022.
This is where the gap is forming.
Built around your business, your industry, your operations, and your peer landscape. Every leader walks out with a shared view of where AI should matter first, what should wait, who should own the first bets, and what the next 90 days should look like.
Ascend is not a one-day implementation blueprint. It is a leadership alignment session that turns AI interest into a prioritized action sequence.
Before the session, we combine public-signal research with a focused discovery call to understand your business priorities, current AI activity, constraints, and leadership expectations.
We show what AI-advanced companies in your sector are doing across relevant functions: the use cases, capabilities, operating models, and outcomes worth learning from.
Working AI systems demonstrated live by the team that built them. Your leaders can interact, push on edge cases, and understand what it takes to move from pilot to production.
Your team identifies AI opportunities, prioritizes them by value, feasibility, risk, and ownership, and defines the first move. The result is a working brief that can become a formal AI program.
Ascend is shaped before your leadership team enters the room. We combine outside-in research with inside-out discovery.
We study annual reports, investor presentations, public AI and digital announcements, peer activity, hiring signals, product/customer journey signals where available, and public customer feedback themes. Public customer feedback is treated as directional, not definitive.
We speak with the sponsor team to understand current AI activity, functions asking for AI support, existing pilots or tools, leadership expectations, priority cohorts, and constraints around governance, risk, data, and adoption.
We use the research and discovery to tailor peer profiles, function-specific use cases, live demos, leadership discussion questions, the priority-map template, and the 90-day action brief.
Ascend is not a generic AI workshop. The session is designed around your business before it begins.
Every Ascend engagement produces tangible outputs that help leadership move from AI interest to an agreed first move.
A pre-session read of your organization using public disclosures, peer activity, hiring signals, product/customer signals, and industry movement.
Profiles of relevant companies in your sector showing where AI is being applied, what capabilities are being built, and what your leaders can learn from them.
A leadership-aligned view of AI opportunities across selected functions, sequenced by value, feasibility, risk, and ownership.
A scoped first move for the priority area selected by the leadership team. This can become a pilot, implementation project, or deeper discovery.
Each section builds on the previous one, creating a narrative arc that ends with your leadership team aligned on the first AI bets, owners, constraints, and 90-day next steps.
Context-setting on AI as a structural shift, what has changed, why the timing matters, and why starting well is harder than it looks. Includes a facilitated discussion on where your organisation sits on the adoption curve.
A framework for what AI transformation actually looks like across an organisation: functions, sequencing, and what works at each stage. Grounded in how real organisations have progressed, not abstract models.
A curated look at what AI-advanced companies in your sector are doing across key functions. Presented as a peer mirror, specific outcomes, timelines, and what they would do differently. Includes two live AI system demonstrations.
A collaborative prioritization workshop focused on choosing the first AI bets, owners, constraints, and 90-day next steps. Your team defines the priorities. Gyde helps sequence, scope, and align the first move.
Choose the format that fits your leadership team's availability and where you are in your AI journey.
3.5 hours
Best for leadership teams beginning to align on AI. Includes context-setting, one peer profile, and a quick-win priority map.
6 to 7 hours
Best for organizations ready to choose first AI bets. Includes all four sections, two to three peer profiles, functional opportunity mapping, and a 90-day action sequence.
3 hours
Best for distributed leadership teams. Includes pre-read material, one peer profile, and a focused priority discussion for one function, business unit, or leadership cohort.
Most leadership AI sessions end up either too abstract to act on, or too technical to absorb. Ascend is built to sit in the middle.
The priority map is built with your team in the room, not handed to you. Your leaders decide the first bets. Gyde helps sequence, scope, and pressure-test them.
The peer benchmarking, use cases, and discussion questions are shaped around your situation before we walk in. Not a template, a working session built for your business.
Ascend is designed as the entry point to your AI transformation. It helps decide what deserves serious execution before detailed implementation planning begins.
We identify what leaders, managers, and frontline teams need to do differently for AI to work in the real organization.
Ascend works best when the room has decision-makers and functional leaders who need to align on where AI should move first, what should wait, and who should own the first bets.
Set the AI agenda and decide where the organization should place its first serious AI bets.
Own transformation within their functions and need clarity on which AI opportunities are worth prioritizing.
Responsible for execution, adoption, and outcomes, and need practical AI opportunities they can act on.
Drive cross-functional AI initiatives and need a structured way to align leadership around a common direction.
Build role-based AI capability and prepare leaders, managers, and frontline teams for AI-led changes in work.
Ascend helps decide what deserves serious execution. It is the starting point, not the entire transformation program.
What Ascend is, what it produces, and how it fits into your broader AI journey.
No. Ascend creates leadership alignment, an AI priority map, and a 90-day starting sequence. A detailed implementation roadmap follows once the first priority area is chosen.
No. Ascend includes context-setting, but the goal is decision-making and prioritization, not generic AI training.
CXOs, functional heads, transformation leaders, HR and learning leaders, digital leaders, risk/compliance leaders, and business owners.
Yes. For large organizations, Ascend is often strongest when focused on one function, business line, or leadership cohort.
Gyde prepares through public-signal research and a focused discovery call with the sponsor team. This shapes the peer benchmarking, use cases, demos, and discussion questions.
Start with one leadership session. Leave with the first AI bets, owners, and 90-day move.