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EP276 Your AI Strategy Is a Hammer. Where's the Nail? - with David Cohen

AI Literacy for Entrepreneurs

Release Date: 08/12/2026

EP276 Your AI Strategy Is a Hammer. Where's the Nail? - with David Cohen show art EP276 Your AI Strategy Is a Hammer. Where's the Nail? - with David Cohen

AI Literacy for Entrepreneurs

"We need AI" is the most common brief in business right now. David Cohen's read on what it means: usually nothing in particular. David is the founder of Superposition, a consultancy for data and AI consultancies - a meta consultancy, as he calls it. He's spent his career inside both big and boutique consulting shops, which makes him refreshingly blunt about what's actually happening in the services world right now. His diagnosis is that we're still in the solution-in-search-of-a-problem stage. Everybody's curious. Everybody's excited. There's enormous movement, enormous hype, and very few real...

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AI Literacy for Entrepreneurs

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In the final episode of the Podcast-to-Book series, host sits down with change leader and AI education lead (Sun Life) for a human-first conversation about what actually makes AI adoption work. They talk productivity vs room-for-life, why one-prompt culture is snake oil, the shift from prompt engineering to context engineering, and the simplest enterprise question that changes everything: “What would make Monday easier for employees?” Episode summary Susan closes out the Podcast-to-Book sprint with a conversation that feels like the point of the whole series: AI isn’t a tool problem....

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Most companies do a few AI trainings, run some pilots, and then stall. In this episode, host argues the only real future-proofing strategy is continuous AI literacy. She breaks down what “continuous literacy” actually includes (skill, judgment, workflow, norms), the predictable failure modes of the AI literacy divide, and a simple flywheel you can run monthly so capability keeps compounding. Episode summary Susan opens with a familiar pattern: a burst of AI excitement, a deck called “AI Strategy 2025” a few clever workflows… and then reality hits. Tools change. Policies shift....

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AI Literacy for Entrepreneurs

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AI Literacy for Entrepreneurs

If you’re measuring AI success by “hours saved” you’re playing the easiest game in the room. In this episode, Host explains why time saved is weak and sometimes harmful, then shares a better “AI ROI stack” with five metrics that map to real business value and help you build dashboards that actually persuade leadership.   Episode summary Time saved is fine. It’s also table stakes. Susan breaks down why “we saved 200 hours” is the least persuasive AI metric, and why it can backfire by punishing your early adopters with more work. She then introduces a smarter approach: a...

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Host sits down with (Hufnagel Consulting), an AI educator and AI readiness consultant who’s trained 4K+ people. They break down what “AI readiness” actually means (spoiler: it’s not buying Copilot), why AI doesn’t fix broken processes or dirty data, and how leaders can build real capability through training programs, communities of practice, and properly resourced AI champions. Episode summary and met in “the most elite way possible”: both were quoted in The Globe and Mail about women and AI. Jennifer shares her background as a business analyst and digital adoption / L&D...

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AI Literacy for Entrepreneurs

If your organization ran an “AI 101” lunch-and-learn… and nothing changed after, this episode is for you. Host explains why one-off workshops create false confidence, how AI literacy is more like learning a language than learning software buttons, and shares a practical roadmap to build sustainable AI capability. Episode summary This episode is for two groups: teams who did a single AI training and still feel behind, and leaders realizing one workshop won’t build organizational capability. The core idea is simple: AI adoption isn’t a “feature learning” problem. It’s a...

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Host is joined by , National Lead for the Scotiabank Women Initiative (Business Banking), for a real-world conversation about how women are approaching AI. They talk about time poverty, fear of asking “dumb” questions, the shame myth of “AI is cheating”, and why the most powerful move right now is women holding the door open for each other - learning in community and sharing what works. Episode summary This episode is a candid, energetic conversation with Chris McMartin - aka “Hype Boss” online and a long-time hype woman for women entrepreneurs. They explore what’s different...

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AI can feel like a creativity cheat code… or like the death of originality. In this short, punchy solo episode, Susan argues the truth is simpler: AI doesn’t create creativity. It creates options. Creativity still belongs to the driver—your taste, courage, and point of view. Episode summary Susan tackles a question she hears constantly: does AI expand creativity or flatten it? Her answer: it depends on how you’re using it. If you use AI like a photocopier—generate a first draft and ship it unchanged—you’re not becoming more creative. You’re becoming more efficient at being...

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More Episodes

"We need AI" is the most common brief in business right now. David Cohen's read on what it means: usually nothing in particular.

David is the founder of Superposition, a consultancy for data and AI consultancies - a meta consultancy, as he calls it. He's spent his career inside both big and boutique consulting shops, which makes him refreshingly blunt about what's actually happening in the services world right now.

His diagnosis is that we're still in the solution-in-search-of-a-problem stage. Everybody's curious. Everybody's excited. There's enormous movement, enormous hype, and very few real outcomes. And most organizations hiring AI help have not identified the problem they're hiring it to solve.

Susan pushes on the bigger question underneath: if we're in the knowledge era and knowledge just got cheap, what happens to everyone who sells expertise for a living? David's answer is that knowledge didn't lose value - access did. What's scarce now is contextualized knowledge. The kind that accounts for internal politics, history, and the things no system can pick up from the outside.

Also in this one: why consulting content is so relentlessly boring, what surprised Susan when she asked clients why they hired her, and the two words that should precede any AI purchase.

About David Cohen

David Cohen is the founder of Superposition, a consultancy built for data and AI consultancies. He's a lifelong consultant with both big-firm and boutique experience, and over a decade of delivering data and AI transformation work at F500 scale. He now advises boutique founders on the existential problems of running a firm - go-to-market, positioning, pricing models, and hiring. He builds his workshops and content to be collaborative and genuinely fun, on the theory that the consulting world has more than enough beige. He's based in Dallas.

What we get into

  • (00:58) Schrödinger's data consultants - where the name Superposition comes from

  • (02:39) Why he serves other consultants, and the personal story behind it

  • (04:31) What clients actually mean when they say "we need AI" (spoiler: FOMO)

  • (06:03) The scale check - the average person does not care about AI tools

  • (07:38) Automation has existed for decades. Generative AI is not the origin story

  • (09:39) The two things every consultant is really selling - expertise and risk mitigation

  • (10:49) Why clients now assume they shouldn't have to pay for intelligence

  • (11:42) The consulting growth model, explained at a fifth-grade level - and why it's breaking

  • (12:26) Is the knowledge era ending? David's answer: knowledge didn't change, access did

  • (13:45) In the age of infinite information, the right information is the value

  • (14:18) Contextualized knowledge - internal politics, feelings, history, and what AI can't pick up

  • (15:22) The hype cycle, honestly assessed. Blockchain, Metaverse, VR, social

  • (16:47) What AI becomes after the hype dies - the Google test

  • (18:14) Asking rather than deploying first

  • (19:58) Why consulting content is bland, boring, and forgettable

  • (23:06) Susan's client research, and the two answers she never expected

  • (24:51) The clarity problem: consultancies that don't know what they're selling

  • (27:06) Ann Handley's joke about world hunger and 500-word LinkedIn posts

  • (27:39) "A hammer in search of nails" - why real outcomes are still rare

  • (28:59) The problem-first test, and when you should not be solving anything

  • (30:04) Where the water's coming in the boat - assessing before building

  • (30:54) Touch grass

Quotes

"I don't think they typically mean anything in particular. They usually say that out of a place of FOMO." - David Cohen, on "we need AI"

"In the age of infinite information, having access to the right information is the actual value." - David Cohen

"It's knowledge that makes sense based on factors that an AI system could never understand or pick up. Internal politics, feelings, context of the greater situation." - David Cohen

"Any consultant worth their salt is going to be focusing on the business outcome and not the tool." - David Cohen

"We are still in the solution in search of a problem stage. The hammer in search of nails stage." - David Cohen

"If you have not identified a real problem, there is nothing to solve there and you should not be trying to solve it." - David Cohen

"I'm not going to add one more drop to the bucket of infinite bad content." - David Cohen

 

Resources

 

If this episode landed, read this next in Swan Dive Backwards: Chapter 5, The Audit - the practical version of David's problem-first test, including the 60-minute starter. And Chapter 13, ROI Beyond Time Saved, for what to do once you've stopped counting hours.

Susan's book, Swan Dive Backwards is available on Amazon

Amazon Canada https://lnkd.in/dixxKJgV

Amazon USA https://lnkd.in/dFH5khHw

Amazon UK https://amzn.eu/d/07y3Gkvl

 

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