As I look around the rapidly expanding AI landscape, I see more and more people calling themselves “AI experts.” Some teach prompting, others demonstrate clever tool usage, and many speak confidently about AI without hands-on experience in real enterprise environments. Although I am personally very enthusiastic about prompting and regularly use the advanced capabilities of public GenAI tools — and can, of course, train others in them — this situation inspired me to reflect on what truly defines AI expertise beyond surface-level skills or tool familiarity. To bring clarity into this crowded field, I have summarized the ten capabilities and perspectives that, in my view, distinguish a real AI professional from those who merely use AI tools.
1. Builds AI-Enabled and AI-First Organizations
A true expert understands how AI reshapes entire organizations, not just individuals. They know how to embed AI into decision-making, collaboration, and innovation.
They help companies evolve into AI-enabled — and increasingly AI-first — enterprises.
2. Strengthens Organizational Capability, Not Just Tool Usage
They recognize that prompting skills alone do not scale unless embedded into team-level structures and collaboration. Their focus is on elevating collective performance.
They create sustainable capability rather than isolated efficiency gains.
3. Prioritizes Value-Based Use Cases Over Hype
By working together with the client, they select AI initiatives based on measurable business impact, strategic relevance, and scalability rather than novelty.
They help organizations invest in AI initiatives that actually deliver tangible impact.
4. Integrates AI Into Existing Collaboration Patterns
They introduce AI into the workflows teams already use — or help shape new, AI-enabled ways of working where appropriate — ensuring adoption feels natural and unobtrusive.
They support AI adoption that fits smoothly into daily work rather than disrupting it.
5. Emphasizes Safety, Reliability, and Consistency
They know enterprise AI must be predictable, trustworthy, and responsibly governed, especially since experience shows that many firms are careless about the risks and consequences of improper AI use — something the expert must help them clearly understand.
They ensure AI becomes a stable, controlled, and dependable part of operations.
6. Educates and Advises Top Management on Strategic AI Application
They work directly with senior leadership to build AI-aware decision‑making, ensuring executives understand opportunities, risks, and strategic implications. Their focus is on helping leaders integrate AI into business strategy, operating models, and long-term planning.
They elevate executive competence so leadership can steer the organization confidently and responsibly in an AI-driven world.
7. Brings Technical, Business, and Strategic Fluency
They combine technical insight with commercial judgment, enabling them to translate complex concepts into executive-level decisions — a capability many high‑level commentators lack when their guidance remains generic and detached from real-world technology options, systems integration realities, or cloud vs. on‑premise considerations.
They bridge the gap between business ambition and technical implementation.
8. Provides Cross-Industry Pattern Recognition
Through broad experience, they recognize recurring patterns and pitfalls across sectors.
They help clients accelerate AI adoption by leveraging lessons learned across industries.
9. Understands Emerging AI Technologies Beyond “Everyday AI” Tools
They stay informed about developments such as agentic systems, world models, specialised AI solutions for R&D efforts as well as simulation. While not all businesses require such advanced approaches, when a firm’s maturity enables — and its business situation demands — the AI expert must be knowledgeable enough to design or guide these solutions.
They prepare organizations not only for “everyday AI”, but for tomorrow’s AI ecosystem.
10. Recognizes When Off-the-Shelf AI Is Not Enough
They understand when an organization needs classical ML, custom-built Generative AI, or integrated AI systems.
They guide companies toward the right AI approach — not just the most common one.
Conclusion
A true AI expert is not only defined by tool proficiency or clever prompting tricks. Real expertise lies in understanding how AI transforms organizations, workflows, and strategic decision-making — and in guiding companies responsibly through that transformation. Drawing on deep technical insight, practical implementation experience, and strategic foresight, such an expert helps leaders — and enterprise teams — unlock durable, scalable value from AI. This is the level of capability organizations should expect when seeking meaningful AI guidance.
