A practical, structured roadmap for embedding AI into strategy, operations and business models. Four AI Stacks take a leadership team step by step from isolated experimentation to full integration.
Academic rigor, hands-on frameworks
The AI Strategy Playbook combines academic rigor with hands-on frameworks. It introduces the four AI Stacks that every leader needs, and it moves an organization step by step from isolated experimentation to full integration of AI.
The playbook is practical and tested. It gives leaders the tools, language and confidence to act, and a clear route from experimentation to lasting advantage.
“The paradox is not that AI is failing organisations. It is that organisations are failing to organise themselves around AI.”
Nearly 2 in 3 firms are stuck experimenting with AI, running pilots and isolated proofs of concept.
Source: Accenture, survey of 1,200 firms (2022), cited in The AI Strategy Playbook, p. 12.
Together they take an organization from isolated experimentation to full integration.
01
Prompting, responsible use, tool use, co-intelligence and AI mastery.
02
Tools and tactics to move from experimentation with AI, to acceleration of use cases including agentic AI, to full integration.
03
The Play-to-Win model adapted for the AI era: aspiration, opportunity mapping, the construction of AI moats, the design of an AI business model, and a roadmap that includes data readiness.
04
Governance across five dimensions: operational, ethical, legal, environmental and strategic. Progress is measured through the AI Balanced Scorecard.
Preface · Use of Generative AI Tools · How to Read This Book
Introduction
AI Fundamentals for Decision Makers
Conclusion: Your Journey from Zero to 100, including the 10 Principles
Glossary · References and Further Reading · Index
Six frameworks to use with your leadership team
01 · Introduction
Two dimensions decide who gets value from AI: AI Capabilities, what your organization can actually do, and AI Direction, whether those capabilities are pointed somewhere. That gives four positions. Observers are low in both. Thinkers know what they want and have not operationalised it. Doers deliver use cases without alignment. Leaders are high in both, and on the way to 100.
02 · The Skill Stack
The five elements of any prompt: Context, Role, Action, Format, Tone. The book calls it the foundational grammar of effective prompting.
03 · The Skill Stack
Four directions of responsible use, and one test before anything goes into an unapproved tool: would I email this to a stranger? If the answer is no, stop.
04 · The Transformation Stack
Experimentation, Acceleration, Integration. Each phase has its own culture tactics, technology tactics and metrics, and you cannot skip one.
05 · The Strategy Stack
Map the outside world first, then assess honestly whether you are equipped to compete in it. The confrontation matrix produces four quadrants to act on: Attack, Defend, Enhance and Turn Around.
06 · The Governance and Control Stack
Five dimensions that make AI progress measurable: Strategy, Technology and Data, Organization, Responsibility and Innovation. The book includes a fully worked scorecard for a bank.
Zero is the bottom left of the Zero to 100 Matrix: no capability, no direction. 100 is the top right, where mature AI capabilities meet a direction that turns them into advantage. The book gives the route between them in one line.
(Skills × Transformation) + (Strategy × Governance) = AI Advantage
Capability comes from the first bracket. Direction comes from the second.
01
Leaders accountable for an AI agenda who need a defensible plan.
02
People running a portfolio of AI use cases.
03
Builders who want the strategy language to match the technical work already underway.
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