Brian Evergreen is Corporate America’s AI coach. His message: ‘AI doesn’t have vision. Leaders do.’ Are you ready to hear it?

Brian Evergreen—AI executive coach, chess prodigy, and former choirboy—wants me to articulate a vision for my future. As the waiter replaces our appetizers with entrées, I dodge by peppering him with question after question about AI. Has generative AI actually delivered meaningful results for his clients? Not as much as other forms of artificial intelligence. There are 27 different types of AI, according to Gartner. Machine learning and reinforcement learning have delivered ROI, such as allowing manufacturing engineers to test process improvements digitally without physical waste. Will AI actually kill us? Doubtful. Pay attention to who’s saying this and their incentives. How effective are vibe-coded apps? Have you seen the meme that says I code manually: $500. You vibe code, I review: $8,000? The conversation stretches from one hour to four. Evergreen isn’t ending this conversation until I start thinking about the future. Even though he’s not my AI coach, he can’t help himself. Evergreen is the former global head of autonomous AI co-innovation at Microsoft Research and author of Autonomous Transformation: Creating a More Human Future in the Era of Artificial Intelligence. He work…