Why the best AI leaders are already working in your spreadsheet department

Most corporate AI strategies fail because leaders view technology as an off-the-shelf solution rather than a process integration challenge. According to Collie, companies should stop treating commercial models as omniscient entities and start treating them like new, highly educated hires who lack institutional context. The true value emerges when businesses build systems that feed internal data and proprietary workflows into these models, effectively using them as modular tools rather than investing in expensive, bespoke training.

To bridge the gap between AI capability and business utility, firms need to pivot their hiring focus toward what Collie calls 'crafters.' These are the employees who naturally build the spreadsheets, scripts, and dashboards that keep operations running—people who have historically lacked the formal coding background to scale their solutions. With AI lowering the barrier to entry for software development, these individuals are now uniquely positioned to build functional internal tools. Instead of prioritizing academic AI expertise, leadership should audit their current staff for the 'Excel gurus' and internal fixers who already possess the deep operational knowledge required to make AI systems work in the real world.