CEOs and the Magic Mitten of Hallucinations

Martyn Rhisiart Jones

Oza-Cesuras, 4/12/2025

CEOs are panicking. Again. They’re not worried about a recession. It’s not a hostile takeover. It’s not even the GDPR lurking in their inbox like a passive-aggressive ghost. They’re panicking because of AI. Yes, apparently there’s a talent gap. A yawning, gaping chasm of human inadequacy between what exists and what robots can do. Only the CEOs are brave. Some may even be desperate. They are the only ones who stare into it without blinking or vomiting on the nearest whiteboard.

Tech professionals are vital, of course, but impossible to find. Meanwhile, AI is being “integrated” into workflows. It resembles a sad IKEA bookshelf bolted to a wall. The wall is already buckling under ten years of legacy chaos. Predictably, 5% of companies get actual value from AI. The rest? Comfortably failing in quarterly reports that have been pre-signed by Excel macros.

Employees feel it too, mostly as existential dread. Three in four use AI. Thirty-six percent are satisfied with training. One-third understand what AI even is. So yes, humans panic. Machines panic too. CEOs are paid to panic professionally. They enjoy bespoke coffee that costs more than most employees’ rent.

This is supposedly the moment for CEOs to “reset” people strategy. To ask deep, philosophical questions: Where does human judgment still matter? What skills are critical? How do we deliver outcomes? You can feel the visioning happening in real time. It usually involves a PowerPoint slide with a pie chart labeled Trust. There might also be a GIF of a cat typing furiously.

But don’t roll out more tools. Tools solve nothing. You need trust, learning, and redesigned workflows. Additionally, you need a “firmwide agenda”… translation: make everyone do what I say, but with optimism, bullet points, and emoji.

Rethinking Skills: Critical Thinking as a Survival Game

AI is gobbling coding, analysis, and routine work faster than anyone can pronounce “machine learning.” The new baseline skills? Critical thinking, creativity, self-driven learning. Not “soft skills”—the corporate version of saying “bring a towel” before you get thrown into the Hunger Games. Everyone now oversees AI outputs, checks for bias, and prays they don’t end up a footnote in an IDC report.

Workforce DNA Is Mutating

By 2026, 90% of companies will be short on tech talent. By 2030, 4.3 million roles will sit empty, like IKEA boxes in a hoarder’s garage labeled Unknown Essentials. Routine work is gone. Judgment, coaching, integration are in. A tiny elite of experts will run the show from ergonomic chairs. Middle managers try to decode “digital experience rotations.” These rotations may or may not involve actual experience.

How CEOs Should Pretend They’re in Control

1. Top-team alliances. CHROs, CIOs, legal—huddle like a covert ops team plotting the company soul.
2. Upskilling everywhere. Frontline, ops, baristas – everyone gets “digital experience.” Share talent because hoarding it is so 2022.
3. Learning ecosystems. Governments, coalitions, and universities-… bribe gently to teach humans how to think like AI.
4. Transparency and vision. Explain that AI is coming. Reassure everyone they’re not being replaced, just evaluated constantly by something that doesn’t even blink.

CEOs who survive won’t just staff for today. They’ll redefine business. They will remap roles and widen skill sets. They will create a culture where humans experiment, adapt, and grow. This happens alongside machines quietly watching them fail faster than anyone ever.

The rest? They’ll sign another PowerPoint slide. They’ll sip another overpriced latte. They hope the AI doesn’t notice they’ve been doing it wrong the entire time.

Many thanks for reading.