How AI Should Change the Way We Create Strategy

AI is everywhere. We use it to draft emails, summarize notes, and translate documents. But according to Christian Stadler, a professor of Strategic Management at Warwick Business School, we’re missing the point if we treat it as just a faster search engine or a smarter spellcheck. In his keynote at NBF’s & Thinkers50’s Executive Summer Summit, Christian made a compelling case: AI isn’t just a tool. It’s a co-thinker—one that can challenge assumptions, disrupt routines, and transform how strategy gets made.

“The part that is the least done yet and the part that I want to talk about the most today is to really use ChatGPT as a strategic co-thinker.”

Christian is known for his work on Open Strategy, a concept built on the idea that strategy should not be created in a closed room by the C-suite alone. Instead, unusual voices—from frontline employees to customers to algorithms—should have a seat at the table.

“The core idea of Open Strategy is that you need to have more unusual voices in the strategy process—and an AI can in fact be one of those unusual voices.”

Beyond the Hype: What’s Actually Happening with AI

Christian opened by polling the audience: who here uses AI daily? Most hands went up. But when asked if anyone uses AI to support strategic decision-making, the room was more silent.

That gap—the difference between everyday use and deep strategic integration—is where the real opportunity lies.

Christian cited research and his own experiments showing that while 70% of professionals use AI tools like ChatGPT every day, very few go beyond surface-level tasks. Most use it for quick research, idea generation, or basic message drafting. But few are using it to think with AI about the big, long-term questions.

Case Study: Disrupting Groupthink with Generative AI

One of the most powerful moments in Christian’s talk came when he shared a year-long experiment with an Austrian footwear company, Gieswein. He and his collaborator Martin Reeves from BCG joined board meetings and integrated generative AI at multiple stages—before, during, and after.

During one pivotal meeting, Christian handed out five pages of ChatGPT-generated strategic suggestions in the middle of a heated discussion.

“I had five pages from ChatGPT and read them, and afterwards they were telling me this was actually the coolest thing that the tool could have done.”

It wasn’t about the quality of the ideas—some were mediocre or even off-base. The impact came from disruption. The AI broke the board’s rhythm, pulled them out of autopilot, and forced them to think differently.

“What mattered is that the AI-generated suggestions stopped them going down the usual track. That was the helpful part of it.”

This, Christian said, is one of AI’s least appreciated strengths: it’s not always right, but it’s rarely boring.

The Three Pitfalls of Strategy—and How AI Can Help

Christian highlighted three common breakdowns in the strategy process that AI can help address:

1. Groupthink

Christian invited the audience to imagine being an executive at Comcast 15 years ago, just as Netflix began to take off.

“Put yourselves back about 15 years ago into the shoes of the people leading Comcast when Netflix started to get traction. What would you do?”

Comcast’s answer was to raise prices and increase ad load—a short-term fix that ignored the long-term threat. AI, Christian argues, could have introduced alternative viewpoints or patterns from outside the industry bubble, disrupting the echo chamber before it was too late.

2. Silo Thinking

Christian then pointed to Sony, where three separate divisions developed competing digital music players—without coordination. The result: missed opportunity and internal confusion. With AI-powered internal tools, companies can connect dots across teams faster and surface duplicate efforts before they go to market.

3. Execution Failure

Even the smartest strategies often collapse in execution. Why? Lack of buy-in. People don’t understand the strategy or don’t believe in it.

“Execution is the biggest problem of strategy. Between 60% and 90% of the strategy initiatives that fail, fail because things go wrong in the execution.”

Christian showed how AI can enable broader involvement. Not just from the top down, but from the bottom up. Tools that can summarize, synthesize, and translate strategy into plain language—or even invite feedback—create space for inclusion.

From Boardroom to 27,000 Employees: The Barclays Example

In 2012, Barclays Retail UK faced a transformation moment. Rather than hand down a plan, the new CEO opened up the strategy process to all 27,000 employees via a three-day AI-powered online discussion.

The results were profound. Not only did employees help shape the plan, but they saw themselves in it. Christian shared the story of a mortgage employee who compared their opaque customer communication process to Domino’s pizza tracker. If a pizza can be tracked from oven to doorstep, why can’t a mortgage?

The insight led to new digital service improvements and the launch of a mobile banking app that drew one million users almost overnight.

What AI Can’t Do (and Why That’s Also the Point)

Christian was quick to point out that AI doesn’t replace human judgment. Instead, it expands the space for exploration and challenges overconfidence. And sometimes, even its clumsiness is an asset.

“In the interaction space, we found the biggest advantage was the disruptive nature of this technology.”

What it lacks in polish, it makes up for in unpredictability. It can introduce options no one in the room was considering. It doesn’t care about hierarchy, internal politics, or legacy thinking. And that, Christian suggested, can be exactly what strategy needs.

Crucially, AI can’t make decisions. It can generate options, suggest patterns, or even provoke doubt. But choosing what to act on still rests with the humans in the room. Leaders still need judgment, courage, and accountability. But now they also have a tool that can widen the frame of thinking—especially when the usual ways of working become too narrow.

Key Points:

• Use AI as a co-thinker, not just a tool. AI’s real value comes when it’s used to explore strategy, not just automate tasks.
• Open Strategy thrives with many voices. Generative AI can help leaders include more people in the process to scale insight and buy-in.
• Break groupthink with deliberate disruption. Sometimes the best thing AI does is interrupt business as usual.
• Execution depends on engagement. If your people weren’t involved in the strategy, they won’t help deliver it.
• Don’t outsource thinking—expand it. AI can surface weak signals, fresh ideas, and unusual angles. But you still have to choose what matters.

Questions for Leaders:

• Are you using AI to challenge your assumptions or just to save time?
• How could you invite broader participation in your next strategy cycle?
• Where might a little disruption open up new thinking?
• Is your strategy understandable and executable by the people meant to deliver it?