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AI-Forward Insights for the Modern Chief of Staff
THIS WEEK’S BRIEF
Last week's prompt turned a 3-week governance debate into a 40-minute meeting. A few of you replied to say you'd used it.
One asked, "What happens after the meeting?”
You've got alignment. Good. Now comes the harder part: getting budget and actual attention to execute.
Executives want speed. AI tools look cheap from the outside. Governance slows things down before it speeds them up. Making that case without sounding like you're asking to do less is a skill in itself.
Here's how I approach it.
THE USE CASE
The meeting ended with alignment. No timeline. No owner. No budget conversation.
So I opened my preferred AI tool and gave it everything from that room: the 3 tools with the most risk exposure, the 2 incidents that came up, and my rough estimate of how long a foundation would take. I asked it to draft an investment case for a 10-minute conversation, not a deck.
It came back with a 3-paragraph pitch and flagged 2 spots where it needed a number I hadn't provided. One was the cost estimate. One was a risk scenario I'd described but hadn't quantified.
That flag was the useful part. I went and got the actual numbers.
The exec approved the time investment in the next 1:1. Not because the pitch was perfect. Because I walked in ready to answer the cost question.
The prompt below is what I used.
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THE SIGNAL
Organizations with high shadow AI use had $670,000 higher breach costs than those with low or no shadow AI use.
THE RESOURCE
AI Governance Starter Kit for Chiefs of Staff — 12 sections, a 30-day implementation plan, and prompts built in at every step.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Subscribe to The Coul & Gold Briefing.
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Check out the Chief of Staff Roundtable and join an upcoming session.
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Until next week,
Stephanie
The CoS Signal by the AI Empowered CoS
P.S. The ideas, frameworks, and words in this piece are my own. I used AI to assist with design and file production.