You Need to Hear This to Be AI-Ready. Advice From a Former Top Tech Executive | Ep 14

This Is How to Get AI Ready According to Ex Tech Executive Digitally Curious Leadership: Andrew Grill on AI, First Principles, and Actionable Futurism Bain & Company partner Sumner Macon interviews Andrew Grill, former IBM Global Managing Partner and author of “Digitally Curious,” about how leaders can adopt a curious mindset to engage with AI. Grill traces his curiosity back to childhood electronics experiments and explains “digitally curious” leadership as hands-on experimentation with tools like generative and agentic AI. He shares examples, including AI-assisted judging, analysis of a 17,000-cell SWOT spreadsheet, and use of AirTags for luggage tracking. He argues that AI is about task displacement, not job loss, and calls for stronger human judgment and empathy. He also introduces the idea of “invisible intelligence” in customer experiences. Grill discusses leadership readiness, investment discipline, starting small and scaling fast, and his “actionable futurist” approach with practical next steps. He also shares tools he uses regularly, including Perplexity, Otter, and Raindrop.io. 00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro 00:33 Curiosity Origin Story 02:28 What Digital Curiosity Means 04:41 Tech That Improves Life 06:36 Agentic AI Wow Moment 08:38 First-Principles Thinking 11:55 Winning Sceptics with Demos 14:36 Jobs, Tasks, and Better Humans 18:36 Invisible Intelligence Explained 19:39 Leadership for the AI Era 22:52 Investing Beyond the Hype 25:46 Actionable Futurist Framework 28:20 Tailored Workshops That Stick 32:09 Where’s Wally? Signal in the Noise 35:08 Productivity Tools Stack 37:23 Preparing Kids for AI 38:38 Staying Curious and Closing Hope you enjoy Connect with Andrew Grill here - https://actionablefuturist.com/ Connect with Sumner Makin on LinkedIn here -   / sumnermakin