Last week, I joined a strategy offsite for the leadership of a client organization. This is no ordinary company – they have over 200 specialized advisors in EMEA in a tightly regulated niche market. High, high end. “My daily is a Bentley”, you know the type. Trusted, analytical, and with long-term client relationships.
The CIO kicked off the day.
“We need to invest more in infrastructure as code,” he explained. “We want to automate AI deployment, scale faster in the cloud, and build a foundation to experiment with AI.” We most likely need 6 months+ to get that to work.
No one disagreed.
Then the commercial director leaned forward.
“I get that,” she said. “But when will all this start changing the way our advisors work with clients?”
There was a pause. Then she continued, borrowing a phrase I use with all my customers:
“Honestly, what we need… is business as code.”
And just like that, the conversation moved from IT to the heart of the business.
GenAI is not an IT initiative
Too often, GenAI is framed as a digital innovation project. Something for the IT team to explore. Something you pilot on the side.
But GenAI isn’t about prompts or prototypes. It’s about how your organization delivers value – smarter, faster, and at scale. We’ve spent years building infrastructure as code. That was step one. Now we’re entering phase two: business as code.
Business as code: how advisors work with AI agents
This advisory firm doesn’t lack knowledge or ambition. The real bottlenecks?
Capacity. Consistency. Context.
Here’s how GenAI agents change that:
- Pre-meeting insights: AI agents compile tailored briefings, combining market signals, legal updates, and internal notes – personalized to the client.
- Decision support: Agents simulate regulatory or strategic scenarios, flag risks, and offer guidance – turning uncertainty into action.
- Knowledge reuse: Instead of every advisor starting from scratch, AI finds relevant precedent, benchmarks, and insights – instantly. All those reports, gathering dust on the location where information goes to die: Sharepoint
This isn’t “robot consultants.”
This is human expertise, multiplied.
That’s business as code.
The shift: from backend to frontstage
The CIO was right – infrastructure matters. No GenAI strategy works without scalable, secure foundations. But the real value is not in what AI does behind the scenes.
It’s in what clients see: sharper advice, faster service, and more proactive support.
If AI stays in the IT department, it will always be a cost center.
Move it to the core of your business, and it becomes a value driver.