Why CEOs Sound Silent on AI (Even When They're Talking)

The big mistake CEOs make with AI is trying to sound confident.

I see this constantly. A CEO knows they need to say something about AI. There's pressure to have a clear position. A message. A plan.

But nobody actually knows how this is going to turn out. Not the tech companies building it. Not the consultants selling advice about it. Not you.

So leaders compensate by sounding confident. And it usually goes one of two ways.

The corporate hedge

"We are monitoring developments closely." "We are evaluating potential use cases." "We are being thoughtful and deliberate."

This is the safe route. It sounds responsible. It commits to nothing.

The problem is that it also says nothing. Your employees hear these phrases and translate them to: "We have no idea what we're doing, but we don't want to admit it."

The dismissal

"The impact on our industry will be minimal." "This doesn't really affect what we do." "It's mostly hype."

This one feels more decisive. It has the shape of a position.

But it's also obviously wrong—or at least obviously unprovable. Everyone can see AI changing things. When leadership says it won't matter, people don't feel reassured. They feel like leadership isn't paying attention.

Both approaches feel like silence

Here's the thing that surprises most executives: hedging and dismissing create the same problem.

Neither one tells employees what leadership is actually doing. Neither shows that anyone at the top is spending real time trying to understand this.

And silence makes people nervous much faster than honest bad news.

When employees don't see visible effort from leadership, they fill the gap with their own assumptions. Usually the worst ones. "They're ignoring this." "They don't get it." "We're going to fall behind."

Some of those assumptions might even be right.

What employees actually want

It's not certainty. They know certainty isn't available right now.

What they want is effort. Visible effort.

They want to see that leadership is actively trying to learn. That someone is spending time on this. That the executive team is thinking out loud, even when the thinking is unfinished.

"We're running three experiments right now. Two of them probably won't work. I'll tell you what we learn."

"I spent last week talking to five companies who've tried this. Here's what I heard."

"I don't know what this means for us yet. But I'm treating it as the most important question I need to answer this year."

These statements are uncertain. They're also honest. And they show effort.

That combination builds trust in ways that polished messaging doesn't.

Saying "I don't know" isn't weak

There's a fear that admitting uncertainty will make you look incompetent. That employees need their leaders to have answers.

In stable times, maybe. But right now, everyone knows that nobody has answers. Your employees aren't stupid. They read the same news you do. They've tried ChatGPT. They know this is a moving target.

Pretending you know more than you do doesn't create confidence. It creates distance. People stop believing what you tell them about other things too.

Saying "I don't know yet" is different. It's honest, and it leaves room for what comes next: "Here's what I'm doing to figure it out."

What this looks like in practice

A few concrete things that work better than polished messaging:

Share what you're learning, not just what you've decided. Send a short note after you try a new AI tool. Mention what surprised you. Be specific.

Name the questions you're trying to answer. "Can this help us with X?" is more useful than "We're exploring opportunities." It shows you're actually thinking about your specific situation.

Admit what's confusing. Some of this stuff is genuinely hard to parse. If you're struggling to understand which AI applications are real versus hype, say so. Your employees are probably struggling with the same thing.

Update people regularly, even when nothing has changed. "We tried X, it didn't work, here's why" is more valuable than silence followed by a big announcement.

The bar is lower than you think

Most companies are still saying nothing useful about AI. The bar for standing out is surprisingly low.

You don't need a five-year strategy. You don't need a transformation roadmap. You don't need to sound like you've figured it out.

You just need to show that you're trying to figure it out. Visibly. Honestly.

Right now, that's enough.