AI is making traditional CEO credentials less convincing

By the time Bryan Buck starts talking about “agility,” it is tempting to file the word away with familiar corporate abstractions like innovation and transformation. But listen closely to how the managing partner at executive search firm ON Partners uses it, and it becomes clear he is describing something far more concrete and disruptive to the traditional CEO ladder.

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Agility, Buck argues, is the new operating system for leadership. In the AI era, boards are beginning to hire for it with urgency as the signals that once defined executive readiness start to weaken and the cost of a bad leadership bet rises.

The result is a shifting reality in C-suite selection. Leaders are being rewarded for speed, experimentation, and AI fluency while being penalized for hype, overreach, and the executive equivalent of hallucination, he says.

While the traditional CEO model built on tenure, institutional knowledge, and linear career progression still exists, Buck says, it is no longer the primary filter. Directors are asking a different question: Who can learn, adapt, and pressure-test decisions quickly as the rules of business continue to change?

Boards are focusing less on years served and more on what actually happened during a leader’s tenure. Did they scale something meaningful? Did they navigate a structural shift? Did they demonstrate judgment under pressure?

AI enters the conversation not as a technical requirement, but as a force that compresses the time over which past experience remains useful. When the rules of an industry change mid-game, says Buck, the person who has played the old version the longest is not necessarily the best player.

Still, although companies want leaders who move decisively on AI, they are increasingly wary of those who move recklessly. Buck says the strongest executives are not just talking about AI in broad terms; they are actively experimenting with it and using it to inform decisions. Tools such as Claude, Gemini, and ChatGPT are becoming strategic sounding boards that compress iteration cycles. Questions that once required a multi-day offsite can now be explored in minutes. In Buck’s framing, agility shows up as learning velocity, adaptability, and the willingness to test ideas quickly.

The same acceleration exposes a second leadership trait: discernment. Buck points to a familiar archetype of the executive who announces that a 2,000-person IT organization will shrink to 20 employees because automation will handle everything. That kind of claim may grab attention, but it often collapses when operational reality sets in. Strong leaders roll out AI in stages, building momentum without overpromising results.

This is where the demand for “AI-fluent” executives becomes more practical than technical. Most future CEOs will not write code. For Buck, AI fluency means experimenting early, building intuition, and turning that learning into business results. The focus should be on credible gains in areas such as finance automation, forecasting, earnings preparation, and customer support, not the illusion that AI will replace entire functions overnight.

Because nearly every executive now claims to use AI, Buck admits that interview signals are getting noisy. As a result, boards and executive recruiters are approaching the topic indirectly by asking candidates about moments when they took unconventional risks, what failed, and what they learned. Leaders who talk candidly about their losses often reveal stronger judgment and resilience, he says. Those qualities translate well to the AI era, even when the story itself has nothing to do with AI.

Ruth Umoh
ruth.umoh@fortune.com

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