Culture Re-Wired: Unleash Your Inner AI CEO

• AI is a cultural movement, so people’s mindsets need to change in order to have a successful AI implementation in your workplace.
• In 2026, it’s time to move past general AI exploration and into technology deployment, like agents.
• To identify all of the shortcomings in an organization, executives should utilize middle managers’ and frontliners’ perceptions.

On March 26, the Detroit Regional Chamber hosted Automation Workz’s Ida Byrd-Hill and IBM watsonx’s Veronica Moyer to discuss AI as a culture that all business leaders in the Detroit Region need to become more familiar with. They also conducted roundtable discussions with IBM experts, who gave brief consultations to attendees on improving AI usage in their specific industries and situations.

Leveraging Byrd-Hill’s book “Culture Re-Wired: Unleash Your Inner AI CEO,” Moyer’s expertise, and conversation with the attendees, here are three things you should be doing to improve your AI competency.

A large part of what is keeping companies in the Detroit Region from growing in this new era of technology is misunderstanding, according to Byrd-Hill. Misunderstanding often leads to a negative connotation, and in the case of AI, there is an overflow of misinformation amongst business leaders that’s causing a mindset that doesn’t feature growth.

“I’ve been saying that AI is a cultural movement,” Byrd-Hill said. “You have to move the mindset of the people first.”

But Byrd-Hill implored the audience to begin dismantling misunderstandings now, as AI implementation could be a missing piece to improving the regional workforce. Drawing from the 2026 State of the Region report and event, Byrd-Hill said she believes that Michigan’s “house is on fire because we don’t have an AI-ready workforce.”

Moyer told attendees that 2025 was a year of exploration of AI, but in 2026, it’s time to dive deep into its efficient usage, including building and implementing AI agents.

“This year, it’s a bit less about conveying the importance or the potential of what this technology can do,” Moyer said. “Now it’s more … the how, the what, the why, and the when of how to deploy this technology.”

With time comes change, especially in industries that are constantly changing and adapting to advanced technology. Byrd-Hill and Moyer said Gen Z provides a unique perspective through their experience with newer platforms and approaches to reaching audiences. To identify the areas in which an organization may be falling short, an exchange of productive communication between frontliners, middle managers, and executives is pertinent.

“We try to give them instructions with our dinosaurs, and we call them rebellious. They’re not rebellious, they’re just trying to tell you, ‘you’re outdated,’” Byrd-Hill said. “They can use AI and tell you everything wrong with your business and how to solve the problem.”

With the growth of AI comes the fear of jobs being taken by bots that can do tasks more quickly than a human. Training agents to create more fluidity in completing everyday assignments allows a better workflow, but AI agents are not humans.

“Giving AI transactional work frees up opportunity for you to do the things only humans,” Byrd-Hill said.

In adopting AI agents and using them in the industry lies much opportunity, so don’t wait until you have the resources available to use at work. As Byrd-Hill said in closing, “AI isn’t going to take your job, but someone who knows how to use AI might.”