On the morning, noon, and nightly news. By the watercooler, virtual or in real life. In boardrooms and school board meetings. At the dinner table or gatherings with friends and family. Artificial intelligence continues to dominate discussions across work, home, school, and social life.
We asked members of the Fast Company Impact Council whether they love talking about AI or would rather never hear about AI again—and why? Below, 31 leaders weigh in on whether they’ve hit “let’s talk about AI” burnout or still on the bandwagon. They also share what conversations around AI matter least and most.
1. CONVERSATIONS ON HOW IT ALLOWS US TO STRETCH
I love the conversation around AI and think it’s incredibly important. For all of history, new technologies have emerged and there have been people who feared them and people who embraced them. Resisting AI, or any new technology for that matter, isn’t going to make it go away . . . but it will cause you to fall behind. To embrace AI means more than just automating tasks. It allows us to stretch beyond what’s in front of us and completely reimagine our work. There was a time people feared the internet. Now, we can’t imagine life without it. I see the same potential for AI and whatever inevitably comes next. That excites me. — Glen Tullman, Transcarent
2. TIRED OF AI, BUT NOT DONE LEARNING
I am tired of talking about AI. But that’s not a good enough reason not to keep talking about it, and more importantly, reading and learning about it. The technology is here to stay. The question is how do we bring humanity to it so we drive it versus it driving us. — Phillip Haid, Public Inc.
3. LOVE DISCUSSION OF DEEPER AI QUESTIONS
I love talking about AI because it exposes a deeper question: Why is work still so hard to navigate? Enterprises are extraordinary achievements of specialization, but that specialization creates a tax on work with more systems, handoffs, and institutional knowledge for employees to decipher. The enterprise needs coherence more than it needs another isolated intelligence. AI’s promise is not more content or another interface. It is less distance between intent and outcome, giving people more time for judgment, creativity, and care. — Bhavin Shah, ServiceNow
4. ENJOY TALKING ABOUT PRACTICAL USE CASES
I enjoy talking about AI, especially when the conversation is focused on practical use cases, not just hype. Our team is always looking for ways to help nonprofits punch above their weight, and AI is a powerful tool to help them do just that. Internally, we’re now using AI to handle about 60% of our routine support tickets and releasing product updates 50% faster, giving our team more time for the work that matters most. At the end of the day, AI is just another tool in our toolbox, and conversations about how we can use this new tool safely, responsibly, and effectively are always welcome in my book. — Max Friedman, Givebutter
5. TIRED OF ABSTRACT HYPE, MORE INTO REAL IMPACT STORIES
I am tired of talking about or hearing about AI in the abstract, from announcements of new “AI chiefs” to press releases on new AI products. What I do want to hear about is real impact and outcomes—customers that have seen transformative impact from this use of this technology. — Scott Brighton, Bonterra
6. NEVER TIRED TALKING ABOUT HOW TO UNLOCK AI
I love it, because the question has changed. It’s no longer, “Should we use AI?” Employees already answered that themselves with their curiosity and newfound efficiencies. The question is, “How do we make AI safe enough to say ‘yes’?” That’s the conversation I have every day. Chief information officers and chief information security officers need visibility and control over every prompt, agent, and AI session across browsers, desktops, and devices. Getting to talk about AI as something we unlock, not fear, is a conversation I’ll never get tired of. — Steve Tchejeyan, Island
7. LOVE DISCUSSING WHAT AI FORCES US TO ANSWER
I love talking about AI, honestly, more than I expected to a few years ago. What keeps me hooked isn’t the technology itself. It’s the question it forces every leader to answer: What do you actually stand for, now that a large language model will amplify it at scale? That’s the most interesting conversation I’ve had in decades of doing this work. The day I’d want to stop talking about AI is the day people stop asking what it means to be human alongside it, and we’re nowhere close to that. — Carol Cone, Carol Cone ON PURPOSE
8. LOVE MARKET CHANGING DISCUSSIONS
I love talking about AI because it is changing something fundamental about marketing: how people discover and understand brands. Increasingly, people will ask AI what an organization is known for before they ever visit its website or see a campaign. You cannot control what AI says about your brand, but you can dramatically improve the evidence from which it forms its answer. So, discoverability, credibility, and accumulated evidence are more important than ever. — R. Ethan Braden, Texas A&M University
9. CONVERSATIONS ABOUT HOW TO OPERATIONALIZE IT
I love talking about AI, and I look forward to the day it sounds as odd as bragging about using electricity. The day nobody in security mentions AI, because it is simply how the work gets done, is the day we succeeded in giving security teams what they need to fight AI-driven attacks. We are past the question of whether AI works in security. The conversations now are about how to operationalize it today. When a transformation is moving this fast, a lot of those conversations are still necessary. But not for long. — Lior Div, 7AI
10. NEVER HEARING ABOUT IT AGAIN ISN’T AN OPTION
We’re still in the early chapters of the AI story, and it’s one of the most transformational, polarizing shifts I’ve seen. We’re in the FAFO stage, so never hearing about it again isn’t an option. I want to hear more about its additive impact: equitable healthcare access, faster drug discovery, fraud detection, and climate modeling that reduces disaster impact. I’m in awe of the next generation and how they use AI to get more out of their day. I won’t pretend I’m not worried about AI’s worst-case version. But I’m encouraged to hear how it’s pushing us back toward human judgment and critical thinking. — Tyler Perry, Mission North
11. IMPORTANT TOPIC ABOUT CHANGE AND HUMAN AMPLIFICATION
I love talking about AI because it’s a force driving change today. It’s a reality, regardless of how you feel about technology. Pandora’s box has been opened. The real story isn’t about replacement. It’s about human amplification. Technology is a tool; it doesn’t replace us. I use AI daily as a thought partner to structure ideas, speed up research, and get tasks done. AI models are becoming a commodity—flooding the internet with homogenized content. Referenceable, human-created content becomes exponentially more valuable. AI is incredible for instant retrieval, but human judgment and real-world context are what build true understanding. — Tony Grimminck, Scribd, Inc.
12. FOCUS DISCUSSIONS ON REAL PROBLEMS AI CAN SOLVE
I enjoy talking about AI when the conversation starts with the problem, not the technology. We’ve used AI at my company since 2016 to solve very human challenges, like matching older adults with the right caregivers and creating more stable jobs for home care workers. My advice to leaders: Don’t start by asking where you can use AI. Start with a real problem worth solving, then determine how AI can be leveraged to solve it. — Seth Sternberg, Honor
13. CONVERSATIONS AROUND PEOPLE-CENTERED USE ARE EXCITING
I’m curious about AI and genuinely interested in where it can take us, particularly when it comes to helping people uncover insights and make better-informed decisions. At the same time, I don’t believe technology can replace human judgment, experience, or relationships. The most exciting conversations, for me, are about how we can use AI thoughtfully while keeping people at the center. — Liz Hershfield, COTTON USA
14. LOVE TALKING ABOUT THE REAL IMPACT OF AI
I love talking about AI, especially when the conversation moves beyond hype and focuses on real impact. It can strengthen communication, make high-quality knowledge more discoverable, streamline creative work, and give individuals and small teams access to powerful capabilities. But I believe it should be used with judgment: not as a replacement for human thinking, experience, or sensitivity, but as a tool that requires context, responsibility, and an authentic voice. AI is most valuable when it helps us ask better questions, make better decisions, and communicate more clearly. — Manuel Freire-Garabal, Gioya Health Education Institution
15. TIME TO DISCUSS WHETHER WE’RE PREPARED TO USE IT
I talk about it constantly, but carefully, in my industry. Most AI discourse in education still centers on the tools. The urgent question is teacher readiness. Adoption is moving faster than training can keep pace with, and educators are being handed AI mandates with no framework for using it responsibly in a classroom. That gap is where students get shortchanged, not from the technology itself. So no, I don’t want to stop talking about AI. I want the conversation to move past the tools and onto whether we’re preparing the adults in the room to use it well. — Kellie Lauth, MindSpark
16. CONVERSATIONS ON AI ACHIEVEMENTS ARE MOST INTERESTING
Honestly, I’d love to hear less about AI in general and more about what it has achieved. Most conversations are still stuck on the hype. The interesting ones focus on how an AI model actually understands the business it is serving. At my company, that means a conversation grounded in retail shelves, reducing waste, preventing stockouts, and improving profitability. — Are Traasdahl, Crisp
17. LOVE WITNESSING REAL-WORLD AI APPLICATIONS
I love that I am witnessing real-world applications to improve operational efficiency and speed time to market. We use AI across the organization. But core to our business, we use it to build software, run our predictable energy management tools, and make commercial charging more reliable, efficient, and predictable. Our energy management system optimizes how available power is allocated based on site capacity, vehicle demand, and operating needs. We also use charger telemetry to identify potential equipment issues before they disrupt a session. We also use AI in legal, financial planning, site build out analysis, and customer support. — Patrick Macdonald-King, Greenlane
18. LOVE DISCUSSING ADVANCEMENTS RELATED TO PEOPLE, SKILLS
I love talking about AI and hearing about the latest advancements, especially when the conversation comes back to people and skills. I don’t believe AI simply “does it for you” or replaces jobs. It raises the bar for what “good” looks like, which makes deep expertise even more important. You still need people who understand the work well enough to direct it. My advice is don’t let AI become an excuse to stop building real skills on your team. — Tigran Sloyan, CodeSignal
19. NEED DISCUSSIONS ON HOW IT’S SHAPING THE WORLD FOR CHILDREN
Plenty of AI conversations are about the technology and the business innovation, and I find those genuinely interesting. But I could talk endlessly about something I think is much bigger: the world AI is shaping for our children. By the time we get to the headline about AI and childhood, the shape will be pretty much set—which is exactly why we need to have the conversations now. — Michele Walsh, UNICEF USA
20. FROM “WHAT CAN WE DO?” TO “WHAT SHOULD WE DO?”
I’ve always been an early adopter of technologies and gadgets, and AI is no exception. When ChatGPT first launched in November of 2022, I spent the holidays experimenting and showing it to everyone in my family who’d listen. In the years since, I’ve tried countless tools, built agents, tried my hand at vibe-coding, and worked it into our operations and workflows in my marketing firm. But as we come up on the fourth anniversary of ChatGPT, I’m feeling the fatigue of constant experimentation. I want to get back to the work of providing real value, not just volume and speed. I’m asking not just “What can we do?” but “What should we do?” — Lisa Larson-Kelley, Quantious
21. LOVE DISCUSSION THE EXPANSION OF HUMAN CAPACITY
I love discussing what AI makes possible, not AI as an end in itself. Its real value isn’t mimicking human creativity. It’s removing friction, surfacing patterns, and accelerating exploration. In design, that translates to rapid spatial analysis, testing more scenarios, and cutting repetitive tasks. The leadership question isn’t “What can AI do?” but “What can our people do better because AI is handling the rest?” It’s about expanding human capacity, not replacing humanity. — Susan Watts, SPACECRAFT
22. EXCITED TO TALK ABOUT HOW AI RESHAPES INDUSTRIES
I love it. I’m excited about AI’s potential to expand what people and organizations can achieve. We’re at a point where leaders have an opportunity to rethink how work gets done, how decisions are made, and even what their businesses could look like if they were being built today. That’s a mindset we’re embracing as we explore what it means to reinvent a 170-year-old company for an AI-native world. I’m equally energized by what I’m seeing beyond our own walls, learning how other leaders are approaching the technology and how AI is reshaping industries in ways we’re only beginning to understand. That’s a conversation I’ll never tire of. — Michael Lefenfeld, Hexion
23. THE AI QUESTION IS A PRACTICAL ONE
I love talking about AI. Our 2026 Estate Planning Report found the share of Americans who trust AI more than a human attorney for estate planning guidance jumped from 20% to 30% in one year, and 46% of Gen Z agree. The objection changed too. In 2025, people asked whether AI should be involved at all. Now they ask practical questions: Will it get my situation right, and is my data secure? That is real progress, because practical questions can be answered. We answer them by pairing AI guidance with attorney oversight, and I think that combination is where every professional service is headed. — Cody Barbo, Trust & Will
24. CRUCIAL TO DISCUSS WHAT IT COSTS TO RUN
AI isn’t going anywhere, so the real question isn’t whether we join the conversation, but rather are we conscious of what it costs to run it. Every large language model depends on a data center that consumes enormous amounts of water and power, often in a very wasteful manner. At my company, we’re utilizing AI internally through platforms like REDSTAR, an AI system for real-time water treatment and monitoring, while building partnerships to bring closed-loop cooling water treatment and reuse to the data centers powering the AI industry in the United States. AI is a huge opportunity for anyone who uses it and done right it also doesn’t have to cost us the planet. — Kevin Gast, VVater
25. FASCINATED BY WHAT AI REVEALS ABOUT OURSELVES
I am fascinated by AI and love talking about it. When we talk about what we want from or fear about AI, we are talking about what we want from and fear about ourselves and our trust of humanity. Do we understand the best human impacts? Do we trust ourselves to not destroy ourselves? Historically these questions have surfaced around other technologies like splitting the atom. Each time, how we navigate the impact and use of new technologies usually says more about ourselves than anything about the technology itself. — Troy Thompson, SmithGroup
26. AI CAN CREATE GOOSEBUMPS, BUT CAN’T FEEL THEM
What excites me about AI isn’t the buzz surrounding it. It’s the barriers it can break down and the possibilities it can open. AI is an extraordinary tool—but the tool is never the idea. And technology will never be more powerful than the humanity guiding it. At its best, AI gives creative people more freedom to imagine, experiment, and bring ideas to life. It can expand what’s possible, but it can never replace the human instinct, emotion, and truth that make creativity matter. It can create an image of goosebumps. But it will never know what it feels like to have them. — David Angelo, David&Goliath
27. LOVE LEARNING HOW PEOPLE ARE USING IT
I love learning what others are doing with AI. I find it fascinating hearing what everyday people are building to improve their lives. Just last week, a friend told me he built an AI agent to help him plan future vacations that are optimized to what he loves, right down to the type of hotel to book, restaurants to explore, etc. — Ed Mitzen, The Business For Good Foundation
28. CHANGES HOW I THINK ABOUT POSSIBILITIES
I choose to be optimistic about AI and I enjoy talking about it. Almost every week, I come across a new development or possibility that changes how I think about what it can enable. Avoiding the conversation right now feels a bit like being against the internet in the 1990s. — Erik Herrström, STUDIO HERRSTRÖM
29. ENJOY LEARNING RATHER THAN TALKING ABOUT IT
I enjoy learning about it more than I enjoy talking about it. I’m a decades-long career technologist who has witnessed remarkable transformations, but none more fast-paced or broad-reaching than AI. It is not a fad. Ignoring it will leave you and your organization behind in a blink. — Brad Weber, InspiringApps
30. LOVE TALKING ABOUT PUTTING POWER IN PEOPLE’S HANDS
I love talking about AI when it’s about putting real power in people’s hands—helping people get faster, personalized, and more affordable healthcare experiences. I’m not interested in AI as just another way to optimize margins or protect incumbents. The only AI that matters is the kind that improves people’s lives and outcomes. — Owen Tripp, Included Health
31. PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS ABOUT WORK AND CONNECTION
I love talking about AI and how it is reshaping recruitment. I am tired of hearing how AI is going to destroy the world, because I think the more productive conversation is about how we can use it responsibly to improve the way people work and connect with opportunities. — Paul Toomey, Geographic Solutions
