The organisations getting ROI from AI aren’t better at technology. They’re better at seeing themselves clearly.

Plus: The C-suite is 17 points more confident about AI progress than the people doing the work

From the aibl team

Rahim Hirji thinks we’re missing something profound in our approach to AI, and we think he’s right.

As the founder of SuperSkills, an advisory practice built around the human capabilities that AI can’t, or shouldn’t replace, Hirji has worked with over 200 organisations in the last three years. In our interview, we explore the thinking behind his new book SuperSkills: The Seven Human Skills for the Age of AI, which is based on his research and experience.

One problem he sees is that we’re focusing on tech first, and the human bit second (if at all). Another way to view it is that when we do think about the people, it’s about helping them get the most from the technology. In our interview, Hirji turns that around and asks what organisations can do to get the most from our uniquely human capabilities in a harmonious relationship with artificial intelligence tools.

Later in the newsletter, we release another finding from our study of over 750 mid-market companies. This week, we’re turning up the heat on the C-suite, who may think they have a better grasp on the realities of their AI implementations than they really do, at least according to the folks closer to the work itself.

workforceLIVE, that’s a wrap.

“We keep talking about AI strategy and people strategy as if they are separate conversations. They are the same conversation.”

Coming up: growthLIVE is next — 10 June, London, same format for sales and marketing leaders.

We ran our first leadership event on Wednesday. workforceLIVE brought 50 HR and people leaders together for four sessions and five roundtables. The moments where the room went quiet were the best ones. We’ll be sharing key takeaways and insights from the day soon. If workforceLIVE resonated and you want the full day, aiblLIVE is in October. Five tracks, 1,000 mid-market leaders. aiblLIVE

The Fourth Dimension with Rahim Hirji

What does an organisation need its people to become to succeed in the new world?

That’s the question that Rahim Hirji thinks businesses should be asking. Hirji is the founder of SuperSkills and the author of SuperSkills: The Seven Human Skills for the Age of AI, and he’s been asking this question in one way or another for the last three years with over 200 organisations.

Every organisation investing in AI right now has a version of the same approach and we’ve written about the pattern before. Usually it looks like a version of setting a strategy, identifying use cases and automating processes, seeking to reduce costs or boost revenue opportunities. These are legitimate goals, and they’re also almost universal. What Hirji argues is that the organisations who treat this as the complete picture are missing the dimension that will ultimately separate the ones who compound their AI investment from the ones who merely spend it.

That dimension is human capability. Not as a soft counterweight to the hard business of AI implementation, but as the operating system that determines whether any of the rest of it works.

As remarkable as AI can be, it’s not a replacement for the human brain and its ability to be creative, build relationships or earn trust.

This is a pattern Hirji sees repeating across industries. A bank automates its research function, cuts a team of ten down to two, saves money, and loses the institutional wisdom to ask the right questions. Not to retrieve answers, but to decide which questions are worth asking in the first place. In many cases, they’re now rebuilding the team, and the cost of the lesson can exceed that of the original headcount.

Watch the full video interview:

From aibl’s survey

The C-suite in the mid-market is justifiably proud of being closer to the work and to clients than they would be in the enterprise. But they’re still focused on strategy and reporting upwards to the board and investors, and can’t be involved in every aspect of the day-to-day. That distance often shows up in studies that identify a gap between how executive leadership believes is true and what the people doing the work believe.

Our research shows the same pattern. There’s a consistent C-suite premium on the findings that averages out at +17 points higher across a variety of questions, and top out at +24 points on the topic of AI compliance.

The further you are from the work, the more the organisation looks like the version of itself that was presented to you in strategy decks and meetings, in the careful language that tends to travel upward through hierarchies. The closer you are to the work, the more you see the workarounds, the handoff failures, the functions pulling in different directions, and the training that didn’t land or got ignored.

Product spotlight of the week

This week we’ve been looking at WhatsApp Business — specifically the API tier that’s relevant for mid-market teams handling real message volumes, not the free app most people already know.

WhatsApp sits on most of your customers’ phones already. The Business Platform lets you route inbound queries to shared agent inboxes, trigger automated responses for order updates or appointment reminders, and connect to your CRM off the shelf. Partners like Wati or Sleekflow handle integration with low-code tooling, so the dev lift is light.

Pricing moved to a per-message model in July 2025. Marketing messages are charged every time; transactional updates like order confirmations and delivery alerts are free if sent within 24 hours of a customer contacting you first — outside that window, they’re billed per message. Worth modelling against your actual volumes before committing.

The free Business App isn’t GDPR-compliant — which is why the API tier matters for UK teams. You’ll need to route through a certified Business Solution Provider with EU data hosting. Budget for it: typically £30–500/month, often with a markup on Meta’s message fees on top.

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