Our team is arguing about whether we need to create a brand new, dedicated AI Specialist seat on our Accountability Chart, or if we should expect every existing department head to manage their own AI tools. How do we structure this?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Do not create a separate AI Specialist seat on your Accountability Chart just because the technology is new. Adding a dedicated technology seat often creates a bottleneck and lets the rest of your leadership team off the hook.

Every seat on your Accountability Chart must own the tools required to deliver their specific results. Your head of marketing must own marketing AI tools, your head of finance must own accounting automation, and your head of customer service must own support routing. If a leader does not have the GWC to understand and manage the tools used in their department, they are not the right person for that seat.

The only exception is if you are building proprietary technology as a core business product. In that case, you may need a dedicated development seat. But for standard business operations, treating AI as a separate department will slow you down. Make it clear that leveraging technology to improve capacity is a core expectation for every leader in your company. This ensures that AI is integrated naturally into your existing workflows instead of being treated as an isolated IT project.