Two Directors of AI compare notes (and what no one talks about)
Dalibor Jovic 
You might be the only person at your company who gets AI.
Nobody above you understands it. Nobody beside you can check your work. Every call you make, you make alone.
And there's no rule book for this job. It doesn't exist yet.
I know, because I have this job and for a long time I assumed I was doing it wrong. I had no one to compare notes with, so every decision felt like guessing in public.
Then I met Courtney.
She has the exact title I do, Director of AI, at a company about 30 times the size of mine, in an industry so regulated that one wrong move is a real problem.
We got on a call and just talked for an hour, the way you can only talk with someone who does the same strange job you do.
The relief was almost funny. It's the same everywhere.
The same loneliness. The same quiet fear that you're getting it wrong. The same two camps of people: the ones who think AI is a magic wand, and the ones who are sure it's useless. Your whole job is to stand between them and stay calm.
Here's the part nobody puts on LinkedIn:
The hard part was never the technology. It's the people. And it's doing all of it with no one to tell you you're on the right track.
So we said the things out loud that you only say to someone who gets it:
- the AI your team is already using that you can't see, and why it should scare you
- why she says no to tools people beg her for
- why "approved" never means "safe forever"
- and the upside nobody mentions: this role lets you basically invent your own job
If you're thinking about becoming the AI person at your company, this is the conversation I wish someone had handed me three years ago.
And if you already are that person, and it feels lonely: you're not doing it wrong.
There's just no map yet.
So we're drawing one, out loud.
Watch the full conversation with Courtney, and consider joining the community of "AI leaders" in the video.
Bye!
Categories: : AI
