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"AI needs humans, and executive sponsorship is key."
— CISO from a large energy firm

Helping Organizations Successfully Implement AI

In line with my consulting work to help firms build an innovation culture and implement AI, I'm providing a series of AI implementation articles with an overview as well as real-world AI case studies and practical take-aways. In follow-up, let's book time for a complimentary exploratory session to discuss how I can help you and your organization survive, thrive, and produce ROI with AI.

AI Situation

Part 1 and Part 2 of this series highlighted research showing that AI is seeing a record level of investment. Nearly everyone is using AI at work. AI business usage is accelerating. AI is gaining traction everywhere it has value. So business leaders need to take AI seriously and quickly take action to get gains.

Building an Innovation Culture with an Innovation Process

An organization needs an innovation culture to produce great results. I help companies do just that. One important part is implementing an innovation process. Firms typically follow these steps in their innovation process: insight, idea, innovation, introduction / implementation, and impact. Let's see this in action.

Case Study: Energy Company Uses AI to Improve Cybersecurity

When your firm has thousands of cybersecurity tickets per day, it's nearly impossible to take 2-8 hours per ticket to enrich them all. The Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) of this energy company noted that even with a large off-shore team, only a fraction of the security incident tickets could be enhanced manually to include additional context, threat intelligence integration, and automated classification of known threat techniques.

As a result, the energy company, which is a subsidiary of a global public company, needed a way to improve the situation. The idea was to enrich all tickets in parallel using AI. They innovated to build a prototype with their current cloud vendor's AI add-on.

That software turned out to be more expensive than their live-analyst team, so they iterated using an agile process to negotiate on price while researching other solutions. They ultimately implemented a production module from ServiceNow and Wiz. It worked so well that corporate expanded usage to other subsidiaries. And the firm keeps innovating on other home-grown solutions.

The impact was obvious and significant. It aligned with their goal to be innovators and have world-class security. They saved time, avoided costs, reduced other costs, and had more satisfied employees.

AI Implementation Take-Aways from Energy Company

The energy company CISO emphasized keeping humans in the loop and ensuring strong executive sponsorship of AI programs. Here are roles of the various organizational elements.

	BOARD OF DIRECTORS provides oversight, values, strategic direction, and budget.
	CEO sets the vision to have AI deployed across the company and have all employees using AI.
	CTO establishes an AI department with clear goals and policies.
	EMPLOYEES are required to use approved AI tools. They get rewarded from improved efficiencies and ease of use.

Adoption and Market Trends for AI in Cybersecurity

A 2024 McKinsey survey shows 30% of cybersecurity professionals actively use AI daily, 42% are testing it, and only 10% have no plans to adopt it.

Industries and firms leading adoption are: Industrial enterprises (38%), IT services (36%), professional services (34%), and firms with more than 10,000 employees (37%). Gartner notes that 68% of decision-makers already use AI enabled security tools, and 96% of non-users are open to adoption.

An Arctic Wolf trends report reveals that 29% of security leaders now list AI and Large Language Models as their top concern — surpassing ransomware (21%) — and that 70% of organizations experienced at least one significant cyber attack in 2024.

Practical Implementation Tips

Summary

AI is transforming cybersecurity — from improving detection speed and accuracy to enabling automated incident response and proactive threat hunting. Adoption is accelerating, especially in large enterprises, and the market is rapidly expanding. Firms looking to deploy AI successfully should begin with humans in the loop and rely on executive sponsorship, focused use cases, solid data infrastructure, training of existing teams, and rigorous oversight and continuous improvement.

Selected Events

August 7, 2025. "Growth through Innovation: A Board's Role." Theresa speaks to the Latinos & Latinas Corporate Roundtable Meeting. By invitation only.

August 14, 2025. "Private-Equity Backed Boards." Private Directors Association of Colorado. Lunch and Learn. 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM MT. PDA members only. Join PDA today and participate in this special event moderated by Theresa with guests Nancy Chisholm, board director, and Allisa Walker, Bow River Capital. Learn more.

September 10, 2025. Theresa is a Luminary at the Colorado Technology Association WIT (Women in Technology) Conference in Denver. Look for Theresa in red and let's connect. Register now.

Book Theresa to Coach, Speak, Facilitate, and Consult

See Theresa in action. Theresa's engaging presence, original stories, actionable insights, humor, wide ranging experiences, and practical pointers have earned her top speaker and consultant rankings at many events and with a wide-range of business clients. Let "The Catalyst for Extraordinary Results" help you and your organization thrive. Learn more at TMSworld.com and see a sample of Theresa's speaking programs.

Emily Jarvis at GovLoop said, "Of all the keynoters I've worked with, Theresa is among the best."

Joe Eisner, CEO of BlissAI said, "Theresa is a relentless entrepreneur with persistence, vision, and determination — the human equivalent of a 'heat-seeking missile' when representing her company and passionately advocating its capabilities."

Theresa M. Szczurek, Ph.D.
C-Level Executive, Certified Corporate Director, Certified Management Consultant®, Executive Coach, Speaker, and Colorado CIO of the Year

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