Walk into the meeting with a position, not a summary.
ChatGPT will summarise the research. Your team will forward you newsletters. None of it tells you what to say when the CFO asks whether the pricing model still holds, or what to do about the competitor that just shipped something you can't match. A briefing does.
01
The Urgency of AI Disruption
Most boards know AI is changing their sector. Almost none of them know which decision is the one they'll regret in eighteen months.
The damage doesn't happen in the moment of disruption. It happens in the twelve months before it, when the signals are already there and the leadership team is still reading newsletters and forwarding LinkedIn posts.
By the time it's obvious enough to act on, the competitor with a sharper read has already moved. The work is closing that gap — between the thing you sense is coming and the specific decision you should make about it on Monday.
About Louis
Louis Halpern has spent twenty-five years in technology and business, and the last ten inside the AI conversation — working with corporate boards, executive teams, and policy groups on what to do about a technology moving faster than their planning cycles.
The long arc matters. He's watched two full technology shifts get called wrong by people who only arrived at the end. He doesn't sell frameworks. He sells a point of view, sourced and defensible, on the specific question keeping you up.
Clients have included Capita, Wickes, RSPCA, Liverpool FC, Southern Water, Army Recruitment, and Emirates Holidays. The thinking in his book, You Are All Fired by an Algorithm, has been the reference point for his board and policy work over the last five years. He has given evidence on AI to the All Party Parliamentary Group on AI.
How to start
Most clients start with a briefing.
A short, decision-grade report — one question, answered in 48 hours, written for the person who has to act on it. Sharp, opinionated, sourced.
The briefing is where the value starts. If you want to go further afterwards — a sprint, a retainer, a board session — we'll talk about it then.
[See how briefings work →] (button links to the AI Analyst page)
Or email louis@halpern.co with the question you'd want a briefing to answer. Initial conversations are confidential.
The book your CEO will pretend they have not read.
You Are All Fired by an Algorithm is the long version of the argument that runs through every briefing: most of the work you recognise as a job is going, the question is which jobs and in what order, and the leadership response so far has been mostly theatre.
It's not a comfortable read. That's the point.