By Meredith Rosenberg, Samantha German, and Tara Ryan
In conversations with edtech CEOs and C-suite teams, we often hear about AI cost-savings. With district and university budgets flat, and pandemic-era relief funding gone, many leaders are looking at AI as an opportunity to shrink headcount, cut costs, and protect margins.
There’s certainly a place for that approach. But we think it’s the wrong conversation to be having right now.
Yes, AI can enable your team to do more with less. But it’s time to think bigger. How can AI efficiency free your team to build higher-quality, more creative products and iterate on them faster? Can your team ship at a pace that lets you go after new markets and win customers from your competitors? Can you be more ambitious and innovative about your product roadmap?
This dynamic is showing up across the edtech market, and we see it with our clients and in the executive searches we’re leading. That’s because integrating AI into operations lets companies expand into adjacent categories ahead of competitors that stick with the old way of doing things. Category lines that felt fixed a year ago (who competes with whom, who owns which piece of the market) are blurring. Does your growth plan assume today’s competitive map still holds in eighteen months? It’s time to rethink that assumption.
AI-enabled operations can mean faster iteration, lower costs, or sharper insight into customers. As you’re finalizing plans for the coming year, start asking yourself tough questions:
- What does your product roadmap need to become to capture these advantages? Is there room for more innovation and testing?
- Who are the competitors you need to be watching, given that adjacent players can move more easily into your category?
- And lastly, what types of leaders do you need to hire to turn AI efficiency into better products and faster iteration?
For that last question… you need to hire for that answer. In a market where product cycles are shortening but buying cycles aren’t, look for the right leadership DNA, regardless of function. The four marks of an AI-enabled leader:
- Insatiable curiosity. Leaders who ask questions when they don’t know something. And they don’t pretend to know something they don’t.
- Learning velocity. They take in new information quickly and can synthesize it just as fast.
- Ruthless execution. They translate what they learn into action right away, not waiting for permission or the perfect conditions.
- No fear. Once they know enough to act, they do it boldly and fearlessly.
Hire for this DNA now, or compete against the companies that already did.
NU Advisory Partners is an AI-native executive search and advisory firm specializing in senior executive, operating, and board roles, with deep expertise in private capital-backed environments. If you’re interested in learning more, get in touch here.
