The Conference Board in Brussels: who owns the work

Last week I spent two days in Brussels with The Conference Board at Future: People & AI 2026. Two formats, and the same thought kept coming back.

At the conference I joined the panel "AI Transformation: Strategy, Structure, and Workforce Sustainability". The day before, I gave a session to the CHRO Council.

Most AI conversations still start from the tool: which model, which licence, how many seats, who gets access. Fair questions, and they rarely move anything. What moves things is the work itself - how a task gets done today, who decides it can be done differently, and who owns the result once it is.

In The Conference Board's own survey, 32% of leaders say nobody clearly holds responsibility for AI in their company.

My answer is a split: the platform needs a clear owner, and the work stays with the function that does it. Finance redesigns finance work, Supply Chain its own, HR its own. AI is not a product. Our Work is the product, and we need to learn how to do it in a new way.

Big thanks to The Conference Board for the invitation, and to the team for two very well-run days.

Who moves AI forward in your company?