Tell it like it changes everything

That was months ago. Since then, the tone of leadership has shifted from prediction to mandate. A recent Dataiku global CEO report revealed something far more direct:

• 74% of CEOs believe they could lose their job within two years if they fail to deliver measurable AI business gains.
  
  

• 70% expect a peer to be removed before the end of 2025 over either failed AI strategy or AI-induced crisis.
  
  

• 94% believe an AI agent could already provide equal or better strategic counsel than a human board member.
  
  

The gloves are off. And the message is clear:
AI isn’t a trend to ride. It’s a mirror to everything we pretend to be.

Meaning, unlike what we’ve experienced with mobile, social or cloud before it, AI is the force that exposes the gap between what organisations say they are and what they actually are.

McKinsey puts the disruption figure in healthcare alone at US$370 billion.

Goldman Sachs predicts 300 million jobs could be automated globally.

We’re well beyond pilots and prototypes. What was once seen as impossible – machines replacing strategic judgment, insight and creativity – is now not only probable, but in some areas, actively preferred.

And that changes the brief.

• Speed is no longer impressive.

• Accuracy is expected.

• And intelligence? It’s available to anyone with an API.

So, if your enterprise used to differentiate on knowledge, delivery or volume, what happens now?

Despite the urgency, it appears that many organisations are responding with surface-level fixes. The same Dataiku study found that:

• 87% of CEOs admit falling into the “AI commodity trap”, overestimating off-the-shelf tools as enterprise-grade solutions.

• Over one-third of projects have been delayed or cancelled due to regulatory uncertainty.

• 35% suspect AI initiatives are ‘AI washing’, designed more for optics than outcome.

This is not just an implementation problem. It’s a story problem. 
Enterprises are attempting to plug in intelligence without rethinking their intent.

Which brings us to a different kind of question: If your business model is being rewritten, has your narrative kept up?

At Jones and Palmer, we’ve been helping listed businesses and complex organisations sharpen their reputation and brand narratives for years. But, over the past 18 months, one truth has come into sharper focus than any other:

You can’t afford a vague story when AI is saturating every function.

Clients, investors and employees no longer just want more data. They want meaning. They want alignment. They want to know:

• What you stand for beyond efficiency

• What makes you different when everyone has the same tools

• Why they should believe in your future, before it arrives.
  

In this new reality, the most investible enterprises will be the ones that understand not just how to integrate AI, but how to evolve with belief.

Here’s how we’re seeing that play out:

1. Purpose becomes operational, not ornamental
   Vague or static purpose statements will collapse under the weight of transformation. Enterprises must anchor to lived intent, not legacy slogans.

2. Narrative becomes infrastructure
   Your story isn’t a wrapper. It’s a system. When AI rewrites or is integral to your operations, your narrative becomes the thread that holds trust and direction together.

3. People become orchestrators of value
   You no longer hire for output. You hire for judgment, synthesis, emotional insight and the ability to translate ambiguity into action.

4. Speed is table stakes; significance is strategy
   If AI halves your delivery time or streamlines your production, don’t just race to the bottom on cost. Speed is expected, but meaning, utility and impact still command a premium. Customers don’t pay for tasks. They don’t just buy products. They invest in outcomes. They reward transformation. They choose what makes a difference.

5. Governance becomes part of your brand
   With 94% of CEOs concerned about unregulated use of generative AI by staff, internal governance is no longer back-office hygiene. It’s a signal of integrity.

6. Believability is the last defensible asset
   In a world where anyone can produce a quality mid-tier strategy, design a brand or replicate tone through AI, the only thing that sticks is a story that feels real, shaped by clarity, consistency, coherence, and a track record of acting accordingly.

Believability builds investability, because people don’t commit capital, energy or attention to what’s merely efficient.

They invest in what they believe will endure, evolve and deliver value beyond the moment.

We’re not immune to these pressures. But we are clear on how we respond:

• Keeping up to date, advising and responding on shifting regulation is a foundational ‘right to play’ in our space and is an obligation that must be met by all working at enterprise level.

• We work from the belief that a meaningful story discovered through deep insight, built with narrative precision and embedded through systems thinking across the enterprise is your most valuable asset. 

• Not because it sounds good, but because it shifts the approach from linear storytelling to something multi-layered, scalable and structurally embedded. This aligns teams, earns trust and moves stakeholders toward belief and action, consistently, coherently, and at scale.

• We’ve embedded the concept of tell it like it changes everything™ into how we consult, create and coach our clients – not as a catchphrase, but as a challenge.

• We’re continually building frameworks to support this ever-evolving challenge, like our newly developed Believability Matrix to help enterprises assess their narrative truth against their strategic reality.

You can’t just say what you do. You have to prove why it matters and show the impact it creates at every level of the organisation.