Listen Confident, strategic AI leadership
Allegra Guinan, CTO and co-founder at Lumira, joins Practical AI to tackle one of the most pressing challenges facing executives today: how to lead effectively in the AI era without getting overwhelmed by constant vendor hype and weekly model releases. Rather than chasing every new AI development, Guinan advocates for a leadership-first approach that focuses on building internal confidence, understanding your organization's actual challenges, and establishing clear principles around what you care about—whether that's security, privacy, or transparency.
Her eight-week executive education program emphasizes that most AI project failures stem from human and leadership issues, not technical problems, particularly the lack of trust and communication between leadership and teams. Guinan reveals that three times more employees are using AI than their leaders think, highlighting the critical need for open dialogue and "AI champion culture" rather than top-down mandates.
The conversation covers practical strategies for responsible AI adoption, from starting with your current infrastructure rather than trying to understand every new capability, to building user experiences that help clarify whether you actually need agentic AI or just better automation, with the ultimate vision of making responsible AI simply the standard way of building rather than an afterthought.
Listen in at Practical AI podcast (~47 min)→ | 
