By Guest commentary Friday, October 3rd, 2025

By Starr Hall

Artificial intelligence may run on software and large language models, but Adam Brotman reminds us it’s far more than lines of code. For him, AI’s real story begins with people and culture. 

I had the pleasure of hearing him share this perspective at a recent Coastal Intelligence Fireside Chat in Santa Barbara, and I was captivated.

The former chief digital officer who led Starbucks’ successful push into mobile ordering and loyalty technology, and later served as president of J. Crew, has now shifted his focus to an even larger transformation: helping leaders integrate AI into the core of their organizations. 

As co-author of AI First with Andy Sack, he’s become a sought-after guide for C-suites grappling with a question that’s more cultural than technical: how do we build an AI-first company?

His answer begins with a single, electrifying insight he calls the holy shoot moment. Brotman argues that the most important inflection point in any AI journey isn’t a new algorithm; it’s the instant when a leader feels AI’s potential by using it.

“It’s not about algorithms or technology. It’s about emotions and humans,” he told the audience. Until a CEO personally experiments, prompting a model to draft, design, or reason in unexpected ways…and experiences that “aha,” or what he vividly calls the “holy shoot moment,” meaningful adoption rarely sticks.

That moment can’t be mandated from the bottom up. Brotman likens it to a cultural ignition point:

• The CEO must first get curious, experiment hands-on, and discover AI’s impact on their own work.
• Only then can they become a champion who empowers functional leaders, removes compliance roadblocks, and mandates AI as a strategic priority.

Without that spark, AI stays siloed in pilots and “shadow uses,” never reshaping the business. 

Brotman believes we are living through the fastest technology adoption in history, ten times faster than the rise of social media or the web. The difference, he says, is profound: “social media and the World Wide Web changed the game board, but we humans were still the players. AI changes the player itself.”

It’s a shift that catches both individuals and companies off guard. Employees wonder if AI will replace them. The answer isn’t simple- entry-level customer service roles, copywriters, and researchers who don’t integrate AI will likely be displaced. But for those who can manage AI systems and become curators rather than just creators, new, richer job descriptions emerge.

“If you can’t use AI to make your job better,” Brotman cautions, “Then yes, AI will eventually take your job. It’s going to change the nature of your job.” 

Much of today’s AI-like, familiar chat-based tools predict and respond but don’t reason. But a newer class of reasoning models, which can “think about their own thoughts,” is advancing quickly and could catch society unprepared. This complexity makes traditional pilot projects tricky. 

Brotman points to an MIT study showing that the everyday, informal use of tools like ChatGPT by employees, often on personal accounts, has delivered more immediate impact than many formal pilots in companies that haven’t yet provided secure, organization-wide AI tools. But he stresses this isn’t an endorsement of “shadow experimentation.” 

Rather, he urges companies to create secure, company-approved AI environments so that this kind of continuous, everyday problem-solving can happen “out of the shadows” and the learnings can be shared widely across the organization. 

For Brotman, the real competitive edge isn’t a particular platform or model; it’s curiosity. “If you aren’t curious, you’re screwed,” he says bluntly. Companies need change agents who combine human empathy with technical know-how. They must invite departments to experiment, reward learning, and give employees the psychological safety to explore.

AI First goes further, encouraging companies to create AI councils, formalize governance, and appoint a chief AI officer to ensure experiments turn into enterprise-wide capability. That mindset is as important in schools as it is in boardrooms. 

Brotman warns that while AI will increasingly write papers and generate presentations, humans still need to learn how to think and write. “If you don’t know how to write, you don’t know how to think,” he reminds us. 

So how does a company move from an executive’s personal “aha” to enterprise-wide impact? 

Brotman’s answer is practical: he now runs four-week bootcamps that take leadership teams from initial spark to a full AI roadmap, often culminating in the appointment of a chief AI officer, a role he believes every forward-looking organization will soon need. 

And while the technology accelerates, his message is profoundly human. AI is not merely a tool on the sidelines of strategy; it’s an alien agent reshaping the very nature of work and creativity. It demands leadership that is bold enough to experiment, humble enough to learn, and curious enough to act.

As I reflected on Brotman’s talk in Santa Barbara and the entrepreneurial spirit that drives much of Santa Barbara County’s innovation economy, the takeaway was unmistakable:

AI isn’t just changing the rules of the game — it’s changing the player. 

The holy shoot moment he describes is that surge of realization that comes only after you put AI to work yourself, asking it questions, testing ideas, watching it draft, design, or reason in ways that suddenly expand what you thought was possible. 

The sooner a CEO, or anyone else, embraces that experience, the sooner a company or a local startup can turn revelation into lasting growth.

Starr Hall has over 25 years in PR, branding and marketing, working for/with Fortune 100 companies. She is the founder of Starr Hall Media in Santa Barbara.