026 AI for Operators

Abhishek Vora of Asana, AI Lead jobs, 7 links

Author

Tom Guthrie
December 03, 2025

Hi there, 

Welcome back to AI for Operators. Here’s what we’ve got for you this week:

  • The Operator: A re-run of our early episode with Abhishek Vora, current Chief of Staff to the CEO at Asana, former CoS at LaunchDarkly (listen here)

  • The Essay: AI Lead Jobs

  • The Links: 7 links, including why major insurers are excluding AI risk from policies, multi-agent systems, and the rise of “context engineering”

The Operator

Abhishek is the Chief of Staff to the CEO at Asana. Previously, he was Chief of Staff to the CEO at LaunchDarkly and VP of Customer Success at Mosaic.tech.

Though this episode was recorded a couple of months ago, the lessons and use cases are still valuable. Abhishek uses AI extensively in his role for several mission-critical and strategic workflows. We cover topics including:

  • How he chains multiple prompts across ChatGPT Gemini Deep Research to keep track of competitors, work that would take an intern days

  • Drafting CEO updates, all-hands scripts, and memos in ChatGPT, which lets him focus on the narrative

  • M&A: he uses ChatGPT to keep tabs on potential acquisition targets

  • Gemini flagged a new feature as half-baked, which set the team off on a hunt to discover the underlying issues - and solve them

  • The ascendance of operators: how AI empowers generalist operators to tackle contracts, real-estate leases, and product positioning without calling in specialists

The Essay: AI Lead Jobs

AI Implementation Lead (aka AI Transformation Lead, AI Strategy Lead, AI Solutions Lead, etc.) may be the hottest new job of 2025/2026.

While we here at AI For Operators think that Chiefs of Staff and Business Operations people can take on these important initiatives as part of their jobs, many companies (especially larger ones) feel the need to define a new function to do this work.

This week, we’re highlighting some of the interesting jobs and trends that we’re seeing in these types of roles as a window into how companies large and small are thinking through the challenge and opportunity of AI transformation.

The Engineering-Inflected Transformation Lead

Often found at old-school technology companies, this flavor of AI Lead typically sits within the engineering or product organization. Typically, they’ll need to be hands-on with more complex, technical systems versus working primarily with tools like Zapier or N8N, but there’s still going to be a heavy people component to these roles. Two examples:

Gen AI Platform Lead - Wellington Management

The Old School Company Transformer

Often found in a Fortune 1000 financial, industrial, or healthcare company that’s currently adopting AI at a glacial pace. Indexes heavily on project management and deployment of enterprise-grade systems like Microsoft Copilot or Gemini. Some examples:

The “Forward-Deployed AI Lead” 

aka Solutions Engineer aka Consultant, they help clients adopt AI systems. Examples:

Transformation Lead - AI Edge Program - Apollo Global Management

AI Enablement Lead - Accordion

The Internal Enabler

Focused on driving adoption and (to a lesser extent, usually) building systems.

AI Implementation Lead - McFarland Johnson

AI Solutions Lead - K&L Gates

Senior AI Strategist / AI Operations Lead - Building and Land Technology

The Links

Practical

Perspectives

News

Thanks for reading,

Tom Guthrie

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