Hey, it's Martin.
Most companies between $5M and $20M in revenue are about to realize they're missing someone critical.
They don't know what to call the role yet. AI Strategist. Chief AI Officer. AI Operations. The title doesn't matter.
What matters: this person works across the entire org to find leverage opportunities, implement workflows, test tools, and upskill teams on AI.
Not from a Powerpoint.
From the trenches.
The tricky part is you need three things most people don't have in combination: —
business strategy chops
change management skills
enough technical ability to actually ship things.
You can't be the strategist who produces beautiful decks that go nowhere.
You can't be the engineer who builds tech for tech's sake.
You need to work with people. Build from a business-value-first lens. Show ROI fast enough that leadership keeps giving you runway.
The right person in this role, with actual autonomy, can reshape how a company operates in six months.
Right now most companies don't see it yet.
They're still in the "we should probably do something with AI" phase. Talking about it in quarterly meetings. Assigning it to someone who already has a full-time job.
That's changing fast.
Once one competitor hires someone like this and starts pulling ahead, everyone else will scramble. They'll all be fishing in the same small pool of people who actually know how to do this work.
So here's the play if you want to position yourself for this:
Start building now. Real projects. Not tutorials. Find a messy operational problem and automate it. Document what worked and what broke. Do it again.
Experiment constantly. Test new tools. Break things. Figure out what actually creates leverage versus what's just shiny.
Compound your knowledge. If you're naturally strategic, learn to code basic automations. If you're technical, study how businesses actually make decisions and allocate resources.
This isn't a weekend project. It's nights and mornings. Books, podcasts, hands-on work. The gap between knowing about AI and knowing how to implement it profitably is massive.
But you're early. Most people are still waiting for someone to tell them what to do.
Build your portfolio of wins now. When companies start hiring for this role at scale, you'll have proof while everyone else has a resume that says "familiar with ChatGPT."
PS: I've been mapping out a bootcamp-style course that walks through exactly these skills—how to identify high-impact opportunities, build proof-of-concept workflows, and position yourself as the AI strategist companies will be desperate to hire. If that's something you'd want early access to, hit reply and let me know.
Until next week,
Martin
PS: feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn and say hi! It’s always fun to chat with new readers.
PS2: want to accelerate AI adoption in your business? Book a free 30-min disovery call here.