I’ll be honest with you. For most of 2023, I was doing what most executives do: watching demos, nodding along in board discussions, forwarding articles to my team with interesting, thoughts? in the subject line.
I was informed about AI. I was not AI-fit.
The shift happened when I stopped treating AI as a thing I observed and started treating it as a tool I personally operated. Not for my team. For me. Every day.
Here’s what actually changed.
My mornings got sharper
I start every day with a conversation — not a search, not a scroll. I feed it the context I’m carrying: a board meeting in three days, a tension between two investors, a strategic question I can’t quite articulate yet. What comes back isn’t an answer. It’s a sparring partner.
The quality of my thinking before 8am improved faster than I expected. Not because AI thinks better than I do. Because it forces me to externalise and structure what’s in my head — and that alone is half the work.
Board prep went from days to hours
Not because AI does the thinking. Because it removes the mechanical friction between the thinking and the page. Structuring the narrative, surfacing inconsistencies, pressure-testing the logic — I still do all of that. AI just stops it from taking three days instead of three hours.
The board gets better material. I get my time back.
I stopped pretending to know things I didn’t
When something was outside my direct expertise, I used to either delegate it or bluff through it. Now I go deep before the meeting. Not with Google — with a conversation that builds genuine understanding rather than just retrieving facts.
I show up differently. The people I work with notice.
Decisions got faster — but I didn’t outsource them
The fastest path to a good decision is having the right information, the right framing, and a clear sense of what you’re optimising for. AI accelerated the first two. The third is still entirely mine.
That distinction matters. I am not less in command of my decisions. I’m more informed going into them.
What didn’t change
My judgment. My relationships. My sense of what actually matters in a room. The irreplaceable parts stayed irreplaceable.
AI didn’t replace the CEO. It made the CEO sharper.
The thing nobody tells you: the hardest part isn’t learning the tools. It’s overcoming the inertia of doing nothing. Most executives I know feel they’ve left it too late. They haven’t. But they do need to make a deliberate decision to start — and then actually follow through with it.
That’s precisely why I built Executive AI Fitness. Because insight isn’t enough. You need reps.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does “Executive AI Fitness” actually mean? Executive AI Fitness is the practice of building genuine, personal AI fluency as a leader — not delegating it, not staying informed through briefings, but personally operating AI as a daily thinking and decision-making tool. The term comes from the idea that capability requires training, not just awareness.
How long does it take for an executive to become AI-fluent? Meaningful fluency — where AI starts changing how you lead and decide — typically comes within 30 days of consistent personal use. The shift isn’t gradual; most executives describe a specific moment around week two or three where the relationship with the tool changes fundamentally.
Is Executive AI Fitness training available in Switzerland? Yes. Cris Grossmann is based in Switzerland and works with executives across Swiss-based organisations, including in finance, pharma, medtech, and enterprise software. Training is available in person and remotely.
What’s the difference between being informed about AI and being AI-fit? Being informed means you can discuss AI trends, understand what your teams are building, and follow industry developments. Being AI-fit means you personally use AI to think, decide, and operate — and that changes your output and judgment in measurable ways. Most executives are informed. Very few are fit.