Michael Kilty · Head of AI
I work as Head of AI — the executive seat between the business and the technology. I apply AI across your operations, sales, finance, and compliance, own the governance, and stay accountable for the number it has to move. Fractional, interim, or full-time.
from fragmented pharmacy operations to a live, regulated AI platform — in the Head of AI seat at an Athens compounding pharmacy.
BCG’s 2026 AI Radar found 73% of CEOs feel stress about their AI strategy, and half believe their own job depends on getting it right. These are the sentences I hear in first calls.
“We’re paying for eleven AI tools. I couldn’t tell the board what a single one of them returns.”
My jobI connect every tool to a P&L line — and cancel the ones that don’t earn their seat.
“Everyone on my leadership team has an AI pilot. Nobody has a number.”
My jobPilots become production systems with owners, budgets, and a metric — or they stop.
“My engineers say it works. My lawyers ask who approved it. I don’t have an answer.”
My jobI build the approval and audit trail into delivery, so the answer is always a document, not a shrug.
“The board asks about our AI strategy every quarter. I change the subject every quarter.”
My jobYou get a strategy you can defend in one slide — because every line on it is already moving.
“Our competitors announce AI agents. I don’t even know what we’d let one touch.”
My jobI draw the autonomy lines: what agents may do alone, what needs a human, what never ships.
“I know AI matters. I just don’t have anyone who can hold both the tech and the business end of it.”
My jobThat is the entire job description. Both rooms, one person, accountable.
The pattern in the 2026 research is consistent: spending is high, pilots are everywhere, and ownership is missing. The companies pulling ahead made AI a named executive’s job — someone who connects the technology to the operating model and answers for the result.
That is the job I do.
IBM’s 2026 CEO Study found 76% of organisations now have a Chief AI Officer — up from 26% in 2025. Companies with one report roughly 10% higher ROI on AI spend.
IBM Institute for Business Value, 2026 CEO StudyIn WRITER’s 2026 enterprise survey, 75% of executives said their company’s AI strategy is more for show than real guidance — and only 29% see significant ROI from generative AI.
WRITER / Workplace Intelligence, 2026Grant Thornton’s 2026 AI Impact Survey found 78% of leaders lack strong confidence they could pass an independent AI governance audit within 90 days. Under half have formal AI risk frameworks.
Grant Thornton, 2026 AI Impact SurveyIBM’s 2026 CEO Study found CEOs who actively redesign cross-functional work are more than twice as likely to deliver their AI business case. The winners treat AI as organisational change, not tooling.
IBM Institute for Business Value, 2026 CEO StudyMost companies split this role in two — a strategist who can’t build, or an engineer who can’t hold the board conversation. The gap between them is where AI programmes die. I hold both ends.
Not a vision deck. A ranked portfolio of AI bets across the business — each with an owner, a cost, and a number it has to move. Grant Thornton found strategy is the biggest ROI driver, yet only 22% of operations leaders have one fully implemented.
AI applied to sales, operations, finance, compliance, and support — by redesigning the workflow around it, not bolting a chatbot onto the old one. This is where the 2× delivery difference comes from.
Risk ownership out of the IT basement and into the business. Approval models, human-review boundaries, documentation, and EU AI Act readiness designed into delivery — not patched on after.
72% of organisations are deploying AI agents; only 20% have a tested incident response plan. Deciding what agents may do alone, what needs a human, and what happens when one goes wrong is a leadership call.
The architecture and vendor decisions that quietly burn six months when they go wrong. I’ve made them with my own hands on the keyboard, so sales demos don’t get past me.
IBM found 83% of CEOs say AI success depends more on people’s adoption than on the technology. Training, incentives, and a working rhythm that makes the new way the easy way.
Most engagements start fractional and grow with the results. Some companies want the sprint first; some want the seat filled from day one.
A short, blunt engagement to find where AI genuinely moves a number in your business, what to leave alone, and what has to be true before anything ships.
I take the seat. Embedded with the leadership team, owning AI across the business — strategy, process redesign, governance, vendors, and delivery. Start fractional; scale the commitment as the work proves itself.
Hands-on work to move the workflow that matters most into production, with the controls and documentation your team needs to run it without me.
Gallagher’s 2026 benchmark says companies wait an average of 28 months for AI ROI. The cadence below is built to beat that by an order of magnitude.
Sit with every function. Map where money leaks, where AI is already paying, where it never will. Rank the bets.
Pick the first workflow that moves a number. Make the build-vs-buy call. Start shipping — with governance designed in, not bolted on.
The first system live, measured, and audit-ready. A leadership rhythm installed. The next two bets already scoped.
The proof is a compounding pharmacy in Athens. As Head of AI, I took it from spreadsheets and phone calls to a live platform — five user roles, 1,000+ medication variants, payments, and AI-assisted treatment workflows — under GDPR and pharmacy regulation. In 87 days.
Budgets are up. Models are better. But adoption keeps stalling on the same thing: nobody sorted the data governance layer underneath.
The prototype is cheap. The change control, documentation, and review cycles that follow are where months disappear.
Fifteen minutes: where AI should be paying off in your business, what is in the way, and whether this role — fractional or full — is the right shape for your stage.