January 17, 2026
Why CEOs Need to Lead AI Strategy
The AI Daily Brief: Artificial Intelligence News and AnalysisAbout this episode
Today on the AI Daily Brief, why AI leadership is shifting decisively to the CEO—and why that shift is happening now as AI moves from experimentation to core enterprise strategy. Drawing on new survey data, the episode explores what happens when AI becomes recession-proof, ROI timelines pull forward, and agentic systems start reshaping organizations at scale. Before that, in the headlines: Replit pushes vibe coding all the way to mobile app stores, Higgsfield rockets to unicorn status on explosive growth, Thinking Machines Labs faces a wave of high-profile departures, and DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis warns that Chinese AI models are now only months behind the frontier. Brought to you by: KPMG – Discover how AI is transforming possibility into reality. Tune into the new KPMG 'You Can with AI' podcast and unlock insights that will inform smarter decisions inside your enterprise. Listen now and start shaping your future with every episode. https://www.kpmg.us/AIpodcasts Zencoder - From vibe coding to AI-first engineering - http://zencoder.ai/zenflow Optimizely Opal - The agent orchestration platform build for marketers - https://www.optimizely.com/theaidailybrief AssemblyAI - The best way to build Voice AI apps - https://www.assemblyai.com/brief LandfallIP - AI to Navigate the Patent Process - https://landfallip.com/ Robots & Pencils - Cloud-native AI solutions that power results https://robotsandpencils.com/ The Agent Readiness Audit from Superintelligent - Go to https://besuper.ai/ to request your company's agent readiness score. The AI Daily Brief helps you understand the most important news and discussions in AI. Subscribe to the podcast version of The AI Daily Brief wherever you listen: https://pod.link/1680633614 Interested in sponsoring the show? sponsors@aidailybrief.ai