The companies getting ahead with AI aren't the ones with the biggest budgets. They're the ones who see what's possible most clearly. I help leaders get that clarity.
I talk to a lot of business leaders about AI. The conversations are remarkably similar regardless of industry, company size, or how far along they think they are.
Some have taken the “mandate it” approach. Everyone gets a subscription, maybe a course, and the expectation that they’ll figure it out. Some leaders can sense the potential but can’t connect the dots between what AI can do in general and what it should do for their business specifically. Some are bought in themselves but can’t bring their teams along, especially teams that have been burned by the last wave of technology hype.
These look like three different problems. They’re not. They’re the same problem.
None of these companies have a clear picture of what their business looks like on the other side of this change. And without that picture, everything else (the tools, the training, the mandates) is guesswork.
That’s where I start.
How I Work
I help leaders see what’s possible with AI, clearly enough to act on it.
That starts with research. I talk to people inside your organization, the enthusiasts and the skeptics, to understand where the momentum is and where the friction lives. I look at your market, your competitors, and the AI landscape to find relevant examples. Where those don’t exist yet, I find parallels.
Then I help you paint a picture. Not a pitch deck about AI in the abstract. A picture of what your business looks like when this technology is working for you. What changes. What gets easier. What becomes possible that wasn’t before.
From there, I facilitate the conversations that matter. The ones where your team starts connecting the dots for themselves, where skeptics start asking good questions instead of checking out, and where ideas start building on each other.
I keep it light. I keep it honest. In my experience, it’s hard to see possibility when you’re not having fun.
I’m early in this practice, by design. I’m working closely with a small number of companies right now, which means the engagement is deep, the attention is real, and the approach is shaped around what your business actually needs, not a template.
Currently working with
About
I co-founded Unbounce, helped build it into one of Canada’s leading SaaS companies, and stayed with it until it exited in 2022. I sit on the board of CAIN, the Canadian Accelerator and Incubator Network. I’ve spent 20 years building technology companies.
That’s the resume version. Here’s the real one.
I’m a deeply curious person who happens to have built a career in technology. I love music, science, art, the outdoors. My partner Jeannine and I host folk concerts in our basement. We disappear into the backwoods in our orange 4Runner whenever we can. I play music. I read too many things at once. I get genuinely excited about ideas.
I believe AI is the most significant technological shift I’ve seen in my career. Not because of the technology itself, but because of what it makes possible for the people and companies who learn to work with it well. I’ve always been drawn to possibility. To asking “what if?” and then figuring out whether the answer is real. That’s what I’m doing now.
Technologist, optimist, idealist, futurist. In roughly that order, depending on the day.
Carl's Takes
"AI Makes Mistakes"
It does, but people also make mistakes, and we've learned how to create reliable organizations and systems in spite of it.
Read more →"AI Can't Do Creative Work or Novel Discovery"
Most of what we call creativity isn't conjuring something from nothing. And AI is already expanding the knowledge graph on its own.
Read more →"AI Uses Too Much Energy"
I asked Claude to research its own energy footprint. Every claim is sourced. Some sources disagree. That's noted too.
Read more →Let's Talk
The best things I've worked on all started with a conversation. If you're thinking about what AI means for your business, I'd love to hear about it. No pitch, no agenda. Just a good conversation.
carl@schmidtdisturber.ca