Episode Details

Tracy Lee sits down with seasoned CIO and AI executive Trude Van Horn, SVP & CIO at Cien.ai to unpack what it really takes for organizations to navigate the shift into AI-driven work.Drawing from decades of experience across industries, Trude shares why business leaders can’t afford to sit on the sidelines and how getting hands-on with AI is now a leadership responsibility, not just a technical one. The conversation explores practical ways to start, from creating safe environments for experimentation to empowering “citizen developers” across the organization.They also get into the realities most teams are facing: stalled AI projects, shifting bottlenecks across workflows, rising pressure on mid-level managers, and the growing need for trust, transparency, and guardrails. Along the way, they highlight what actually works, starting small, focusing on measurable outcomes, and bringing the entire organization along for the journey.What you will learn:- Leaders need to actively use and experiment with AI themselves instead of relying only on technical teams- Starting with small, measurable projects helps build confidence and momentum for broader adoption- Faster engineering output shifts bottlenecks to other parts of the organization like product, QA, and leadership- Enabling non-technical team members to participate drives better ideas and more impactful outcomes- Change management, trust, and realistic expectations are critical to successfully adopting AI across teamsTracy Lee on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracyslee/Trude Van Horn on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gertrudevanhorn/This Dot Labs Twitter: https://x.com/ThisDotLabsThis Dot Media Twitter: https://x.com/ThisDotMediaThis Dot Labs Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisdotlabs/This Dot Labs Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thisdot/Sponsored by This Dot: https://ai.thisdot.co/