RevOpsCharlie is now charliecowan.ai
In this week’s newsletter there’s a change in name, and I’ll walk through how you can get a head start on your competition in your AI roll-out in 2025.
RevOpsCharlie becomes charliecowan.ai
You may notice that today’s email comes from a new domain - charliecowan.ai.
Over the last 12 months I have deeply embedded myself in the world of generative AI.
It started off last December because I felt I needed to understand how AI would transform the world of GTM teams and revenue operations specifically.
But the more I used the tools, the more I learned about the technology and the pace of development, I realised that this coming wave is way, way bigger than the world of revenue generation.
It is transforming the very essence of what it means to be a company, of our relationships with family and friends, of how we learn as children and as adults, and how we carry out basic and complex tasks.
And yet, when speaking with clients, even those you would say are in highly technical industries, there is very little awareness of what is possible, and no corporate-wide strategy to adopt these new ways of working.
“We’re too busy with the day to day”
“We don’t have an AI policy yet”
“We’re going to wait and see”
Yet at the same time, individuals are absolutely using these tools on their personal accounts to help with every aspect of their work!
I read a lovely story of a senior leader who drafted a company-wide email forbidding the use of ChatGPT on company laptops using ChatGPT!
There has never been a bigger opportunity for a company to differentiate itself against its competitors, to leapfrog those bigger competitors, or to jump from being a traditional non-tech company, into a digitally powered manufacturer, retailer, or healthcare provider (add your industry!)
Whilst I’m still involved in some go-to-market related work, the majority of my current client work is now focused on AI enablement and helping the companies that want to capitalise on this opportunity to do so, quickly.
How I can help you win with AI in 2025
Each project I’m working on is different - yet without knowing your scenario, here are five steps that could have you winning with AI by the end of March 2025.
Define or refine your AI policy
Don’t let this be your excuse for not pushing forward. I’ll work with your legal and infosec team to quickly define a pragmatic AI policy that protects your intellectual property while encouraging your teams to experiment safely with new AI tools as they are released.
It’s better to have your teams using your AI tools than for them to do the same thing in their own personal accounts so do this quickly!
Roll-out Claude Teams, ChatGPT Teams/Enterprise or Gemini
We’ll get you a corporate account for one (or more) of the leading frontier models, for a pilot group, or your entire employee base. You’ll be giving safe and governed access to generative AI, authenticated through your single sign on and allowing your employees to share projects and prompts across your company.
Imagine your teams immediately being able to chat with your expenses policy or discounting matrix, or collaborate around a strategic client or new product launch?
White glove workshop for your senior leaders
Change starts at the top - so we’ll run a series of in-person, hands-on workshops for your senior leaders - everyone with a C or a VP in their title.
No-one is too old or not technical enough to be involved. They will build out their own prompts and mini-projects to solve their own personal work use cases - budgeting, analysis, team 121s, reports, hiring.
This creates the lightbulb moment that AI is not a technical project, it is a change enablement project and your leaders will head back to their teams full of ideas.
AI Champions network
Having inspired your senior leaders we’ll then create an AI Champions network of hand-raisers across your company - inspired individuals that want access to the new tools and additional support in exchange for helping evangelise and support their colleagues across the business.
Company-wide change program
We’ll then embark on a broader change program to reach the remainder of your employee base - incorporating face to face and virtual training, coaching via office hours, an online repository of prompt guidance and examples, lunch and learns, prompt hackathons and competitions sponsored by senior leadership.
Our goal here is to embed AI thinking from the ground up - starting with the business process and coming back to the technology, not the other way around. This is how you get AI adoption in place of failed POCs that never gained traction.
These five steps are just the start
With these initial steps we just want to plant the seeds of AI adoption across each team in your company.
With the team inspired, the more challenging work around developing new customer facing products, or integrating AI into your corporate systems can begin - but let that come later once you have the basics in place.
If helpful, here is a one pager that covers the key elements of the AI Adoption Accelerator.
As we move into 2025, this newsletter will continue to focus on AI advancements, highlighting new models, new ways of working and I hope inspiring you to try out these new tools.
There has never been an opportunity like this for a company to reset where it sits against its competitors - I hope you’ll follow me on the journey.
Get Started
Whenever you are ready there are three ways I can be helpful:
YouTube Channel: Subscribe for regular updates on AI developments
AI Adoption Accelerator: 12 week AI adoption program for companies
Kowalah: AI-powered buying platform for technology buying groups