About At the Intersection: Insights for Thriving at the Crossroads of Change
At the Intersection is a podcast for CEOs and leaders navigating one of the most important shifts in modern business: the rise of Human + AI organizations.
Hosted by Craig Francisco, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Telios Partners Technology, the show explores the crossroads of leadership, strategy, and artificial intelligence — where executive decision-making, organizational alignment, and emerging technology meet.
Through short solo insights and candid conversations with experienced operators, Craig focuses on the questions leaders are asking right now:
• Where should we actually start with AI?
• How do we align our leadership team around strategy?
• Where can AI create meaningful leverage in our organization?
• What does a realistic path to becoming an AI-enabled company look like?
This podcast is designed for leaders who want clarity before launching AI initiatives — not hype, tools, or scattered experimentation.
If you're a CEO or senior leader trying to make sense of AI inside your organization — where to start, what to prioritize, and how to actually create momentum — I offer a focused 1:1 advisory session where we work through this together.
You can learn more here:
https://stan.store/craigfrancisco/p/ai-strategy-session-for-business-leaders-ifb4xrz8
AI is everywhere right now, and so is the pressure to act. After weeks of talking with leaders across different industries, we keep hearing the same undercurrent: skepticism. Not cynicism, not refusal, just a real hesitation that comes from watching massive money pour into artificial intelligence while the risks feel personal and immediate. If you’re responsible for enterprise AI adoption, you’ve probably felt that squeeze too: pressure to invest, pressure to move fast, and pressure to not cr...
17 Sept 2026
Who Is Accountable When AI Moves Faster Than You
AI feels like it is accelerating in every direction at once and the pressure to keep up is real. I talk through what I am seeing on the ground while speaking with CPAs, financial advisors, lawyers, and business owners, and why the “slow down” message from AI leaders is worth taking seriously. When hundreds of billions in venture capital floods the AI industry, those companies have to find customers fast, and that turns into a constant stream of tools, pitches, and urgency landing on your team...
25 Aug 2026
What If AI Makes Leaders Forget How To Think
If your competitor can buy the same AI models you can, what’s left that actually sets you apart? We start with that uncomfortable question and land on a simple truth: the edge has never been the tool, it’s the people using it. Customer service, responsiveness, delivery, logistics, sales execution, and the way your team shows up day after day still matter, even with powerful generative AI on every laptop. We go deeper into the real differentiator most leaders are at risk of giving away: judgm...
7 Aug 2026
Who Owns Your AI When The Vendor Leaves
AI pressure is everywhere right now and the easiest mistake is letting that pressure push you straight into tools, demos, and expensive pilots that never stick. We share why we launched Teleos Technology Partners and what we’ve learned after hearing hundreds of real AI journeys: the teams that win are not the ones chasing the newest model, they’re the ones that get aligned, collaborate deeply, and build with their people instead of around them. We walk through a practical three-part recipe f...
28 Jul 2026
Picking AI Partners You Can Trust
The AI tool you’re excited about today could be acquired, reshuffled, or gone six months from now and that possibility can make any business owner hesitate. I unpack a question I hear constantly from leaders investing in AI for workflow automation and team support: what happens if the company we partner with gets bought by private equity, purchased by a strategic, or simply doesn’t make it? We zoom out from the logo and talk about what you’re actually buying when you “buy AI.” The real value...
23 Jul 2026
Reclaim Your Judgment
AI is getting so smooth that it can feel like “help” even when it’s quietly replacing your instincts. After a Vistage workshop with executives and business owners, we walk through a simple idea that keeps showing up in real organizations: reclaim your judgment before you scale anything with AI. We talk about what we’re watching leaders do day to day with ChatGPT and other frontier models, how a few quick prompts can send you down a totally different path, and why that’s dangerous when you’re...
14 Jul 2026
Own The AI Roadmap
AI has a weird way of failing: not with a loud crash, but with quiet drift. You start with a promising idea, then weeks go by as everyone keeps “making it better” without a clear finish line, a real workflow target, or a definition of success. We’re talking about the pattern we’re seeing across companies that actually get results from AI and what the best leaders do differently from day one. We share a hands-on story from a small business with 20 years of history, loads of data, steady inbou...
18 Jun 2026
How Family Businesses Can Win With AI
Everyone can get AI now, so “we’re using AI” isn’t a strategy anymore. After a talk with HR leaders at the University of Toledo Family Business Center, we’re stuck on a bigger question: what actually makes a family business or privately owned company win when the same tools are available to your competitor down the street? We dig into the human reality behind AI adoption inside organizations. The CEO or president feels the urgency to drive strategy. The people doing the work feel the risk, a...
12 Jun 2026
Why AI Adoption Will Shift From Tech To People
AI is getting cooler by the week, but I think the next big shift has nothing to do with the newest model or the slickest demo. After spending time at a packed AI event in downtown Cleveland where 500 people chose between four different workshops, I walked away with a clear takeaway about what leaders want today and what they’ll desperately need tomorrow. Right now, most attention goes to the technology. People gravitate toward sessions with “Gen AI” energy because it’s thrilling, tangible, a...
3 Jun 2026
Why The AI Boom Forced A Five Month Reset
AI is moving so fast that even seasoned leaders are admitting something they rarely say out loud: this is hard to get your arms around. I’m recording from my car for this quick return, and I want to be candid about why the show went quiet for five months. The acceleration in AI tools, products, and company claims wasn’t just “a lot to track” it was genuinely unsettling, and I needed time to process what it means for real businesses making real bets. What I keep hearing from CEOs and operator...
7 Nov 2025
Rise Of The Potential Era
The room buzzed with possibility at the Great Lakes AI Conference, held on the beautiful campus of Bowling Green State University and that energy sparked a message leaders need right now: the fastest way to harness AI is to slow down, listen, and design it around your people. We, at AI23, call this shift the Potential Era—a move from rigid processes to adaptive systems where humans and AI partner to amplify judgment, creativity, and speed. I share the story of AI23 that chose research and le...
18 Oct 2025
Designing Adaptive Organizations for the Human–AI Era
If you’ve felt the ground shifting under your feet, you’re not imagining it—the rules of building and leading organizations are changing in real time. In this episode, we sit down with strategist and organizational architect Erica Ishida and human performance coach Ellen Palmer to explore what it takes to design truly adaptive organizations—where humans and AI collaborate to unlock dormant potential. We trade top-down hierarchy for living networks, and the obsession with efficiency for effica...
11 Oct 2025
Curious, Not Scared
A single rushed request turned into a turning point. Jessica Smith—Deputy Chief of Business Development at The Connection—shares how a quick AI-assisted draft became a signed training contract and reshaped her team’s approach to creativity, analytics, and everyday operations. We walk through the human-first playbook she’s built inside a large nonprofit serving reentry, housing, behavioral health, and shelter programs—where ethics and guardrails matter as much as speed. We dig into what “huma...
8 Oct 2025
The Fastest Way to Win with AI is Slower: Fix Culture First
The race to adopt AI is on—but the real advantage isn’t in the tools, it’s in the trust. In this solo episode, Craig Francisco, host of At the Intersection, shares insights from a recent conversation with the leadership team of a Fortune 500 client—where the takeaway was clear: culture decides who wins with AI. When people can challenge ideas without ego, when curiosity beats fear, and when cross-functional partners collaborate by default, new technology plugs into a living system that’s read...
2 Oct 2025
How Word Pairing Sparked the AI Revolution
In this first episode of At the Intersection, host Craig Francisco sits down with Mike Rojas, a seasoned AI strategist and technology leader who has spent decades helping organizations understand and apply emerging technologies. Mike has been at the forefront of artificial intelligence adoption, guiding executives and teams through the shift from traditional analytics to the new Human + AI era. Together, Craig and Mike unpack the fascinating journey of artificial intelligence — from Alan Turi...
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
1 ratings
Contact At the Intersection: Insights for Thriving at the Crossroads of Change
Guest appearances
Books guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Host of At the Intersection: Insights for Thriving at the Crossroads of Change?
Claim your podcast to manage its listing and keep your show details accurate.
Pod Engine is an independent podcast discovery and analytics service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by this podcast. Artwork and show content belong to their owners. Full legal notice.
Explore this show Podcast research with Pod Engine
