7 Things Every B2B CEO Needs to Know About BYOAI Use Inside Their Company (Before It Costs Them Deals)

Everyone’s talking about AI like it’s the main event. It’s not.

It’s a tool. Definitely a powerful one if you know how to use it. If you don’t, it’s just another source of chaos, risk, and inefficiency inside your company.

Here’s the reality: your employees are already using AI today, whether you’ve approved it or not. Some of it’s helping them work more efficiently. Some of it is helping them move faster. Some of it is creating more silos with each team or team member using their own favorite tool. Some of it’s opening you up to massive risks you don’t even know about yet. And if a client’s data or your trade secrets are accidentally leaked? It won’t matter if it was an “unauthorized tool.” It’ll still be your problem.

This isn’t about becoming an AI-first company. It’s about removing friction from your sales process, eliminating hidden risks, and speeding up growth. Without adding another layer of complexity you can’t control.

The AI revolution feels a lot like other tech revolutions in the workplace. I remember when social media was the wild west of tech, and I imagine websites and email were similar. Those tech innovations came into the workplace before guardrails and oversight. In the early days of social media, we were writing HR policies as bad things happened and we finally knew what to avoid. AI is a much more powerful tool than Facebook was in 2007, so the risks of a misstep are much greater than if an employee complained about their manager to their online friends.

What You'll Get in This Post:

• Clarity on What’s Changing in B2B: Understand how AI is reshaping buying behavior in SaaS and fintech, without all the tech jargon.

• The 7 AI Blind Spots: Learn what CEOs and GTM leaders are missing about AI adoption across marketing, sales, and service. Before it impacts pipeline or retention.

• Why Deals Are Quietly Stalling: Spot the subtle AI-related gaps that cause pipeline bloat, ghosting, or misalignment between buyer expectations and team workflows.

• Real-World, Non-Technical Advice: You don’t need to be an engineer to lead with AI. Remember, I'm a non-techie! Get examples of how strategy-first leaders are using AI to work smarter, not harder.

• The Risks of “Over-Automation”: Explore when AI enhances buyer experience and when it starts to erode trust or create inefficiency.

• A 3-Minute Audit CEOs Can Run Today: Walk away with a simple framework to assess where AI is (or isn’t) working across your org right now.

• Next Steps to Align Your AI + GTM Strategy: Leave with a short, actionable checklist to improve go-to-market performance with AI.

If you want faster revenue, more aligned teams, and less chaos, it’s time to pay attention. Here’s what CEOs need to know, and what to do about it.

1. BYOAI is happening (whether you know about it or not).

Think you can wait until you "have time" to figure out AI strategy? What if your employees already made that decision for you?

• According to Tara Bonhorst, founder of Do That Dave, 75% of knowledge workers are already using AI, and 78% are bringing their own tools.

• Gartner backs this up stating that 22% of AI in most organizations is coming in through BYOAI. And remember, Gartner works with some of the largest global organizations.

Bottom line: your team isn’t waiting for you to approve a strategy, they’re doing what they need to be as efficient as possible. And while that spirit is admirable, it doesn't come without pitfalls.

The problem? The tools they’re using aren’t vetted. They aren’t secured. They aren’t standardized. Worse, nobody’s been trained on responsible use. My coach used to tell me that you can't get mad at people for doing something that you didn't tell them was off limits. Ask yourself:

• Do your employees know where you're OK with them using AI tools?

• Do they know what information that can load into a tool and what they can't?

I know companies where nearly every employee is using generative AI, which is great and tech-forward. But they’re doing it with personal, free ChatGPT accounts. No oversight. No consistency. Everything siloed. No safeguards. No guardrails. No training.

And if confidential client data or trade secrets get uploaded? It’s not just the employee’s problem. It’s yours.

And if that employee leaves, all their projects leave with them. What kind of knowledge loss are you looking at?

2. The uncomfortable questions every CEO should be asking.

You’re busy leading the company, but when was the last time you asked what’s really happening behind the scenes with AI?

Here’s what needs to be on your radar:

• What internal or client data is being exposed to online tools? And does that fall within your client agreements?

• What happens if there’s a breach? Legally, financially, and reputationally?

• Are your employees accidentally training someone else’s AI with your proprietary processes and trade secrets?

• Are their tools aligned with your goals and vision, or working against them?

• Are different teams all working in silos with their own separate "favorite apps"? And with those separate apps, separate outputs, data sets, and analytics?

• Is anyone tracking outputs, tool usage, and storage? Is anyone analyzing the impact of the AI tools? Are there any goals, objectives or KPIs attached to usage?

• What are your ethics and policies around responsible AI usage, and does anyone even know them?

• Those "favorite apps", do they do similar tasks as AI features that are embedded in some of your legacy (approved and vetted) tools?

If you’re not asking these questions, you’re not leading. I hate to tell you, but the monkeys are running the zoo.

3. Smart AI usage is a revenue multiplier if you know where to aim it.

Hiring more salespeople sounds like the obvious answer to hit your goals. But what if you could sell more without hiring anyone?

(By the way, I made a career out of that long before AI came on to the scene.)

Research shows salespeople spend over 70% of their time on administrative tasks. That’s 70% of their day not selling.

By using AI and automation responsibly, intelligently, and strategically, you can cut that admin time drastically. That leaves your sales team doing what you actually hired them to do... sell!

Day one of my first VP of Sales job, I started tearing down barriers and removing bottlenecks. The CEO wanted me to double the size of the sales team to drive growth, but I knew there were inefficiencies in the process. Optimizing the sales team's time allowed the CEO to realize the growth he wanted, but without doubling the sales department budget.

I love driving growth by challenging traditional norms, and AI is just the latest and greatest tool to help realize that objective. And my Smart Sales Playbooks take it even further. They’re packed with real-world sales strategies and coaching. Coaching that your reps can access in the moment, when and where they need it most. (Hint: in their pocket.) Not to replace live coaching, but to reinforce it. Because let’s be honest: no rep is going to remember every tactic they learned in training when they’re in the heat of a deal. And I've always found that sales reps are challenged with adapting the coaching lesson to a real-world scenario unless the example given "in class" was an exact match.

Systems that coach in the moment, paired with smart leadership, scale your team’s performance without killing them (or you).

4. Where CEOs and companies really stand today on AI adoption.

Are you trying to "wait until AI gets figured out" or are you planning to lead before your competitors do?

In my conversations with CEOs, I hear the same things over and over:

• “We use AI a little bit for marketing.”

• “We know we should be doing more with AI, but we don’t have time.”

• They won't say it out loud, but I can also tell there's a nervousness of picking the wrong tool. Maybe that one goes out of business, maybe a better one comes out next week. There's a carefulness that is keeping some CEOs on the sidelines.

Almost no one is operating with a real AI adoption strategy yet. If Gartner is schooling their clients on AI adoption, it hasn't become fully mainstream. Which means? There’s still a window to get ahead, but it’s closing. This technology is adapting faster than anything we've seen in our lifetimes, so naturally adoption is moving faster too.

Again, it feels like the early days of social media or the internet in the workplace. Anyone on the "laggard" side of the tech adoption bell curve is going to be significantly behind their competition once they adopt AI as an organization.

5. How to get started (even if you're already behind).

Feel like you're late to the party? Good news: most people haven't even left the driveway yet.

Let's remember that ChatGPT came out at the end of 2022. Even the self-proclaimed experts haven't been using AI all that long, and they're still learning too.

You don’t need a 100-page AI strategy or a massive new tech stack. You need to move fast, simple, and smart.

Here’s where to start:

• Identify 1–3 areas where friction is slowing you down, and where increased efficiency could help.

  • Look at your current tech stack for new features that could help your 1-3 use cases.

  • Look for tools you could add if you don't already have a "good enough" tool.

• Ask your employees what they’re already doing with AI, and find the use cases you can standardize and scale.

• Or, talk to someone who can help you build a practical, growth-focused AI plan that fits your company.

The key is starting with outcomes, not tools. Don’t chase shiny objects, fix your bottlenecks first.

6. How to position it to your sales team (and your whole company).

Worried your team will resist another "initiative"? Here’s the truth: they probably don't care about AI. They care about hitting their goals faster.

Don't frame it as "AI adoption." Position it as a program that helps them:

• Close more deals.

• Reduce busy work. (Sales people HATE busy work)

• Crush this year’s goals without adding 20 extra hours a week.

That’s what matters to them.

And this isn't about the spin, it's about being realistic and thoughtfully transparent. There's a lot of hype around AI, and an equal, if not greater amount of hesitation. People are worried about their job being automated. And if people think you're replacing them with tech, they will resist with every fiber of their being.

7. A cautionary tale (and a not-so-funny reality check).

Think bad things won’t happen to you? Neither did the healthcare company that accidentally uploaded patient data into ChatGPT.

Tara Bonhorst shared this story on my podcast: An employee uploaded non-anonymized patient data into ChatGPT. No public breach (yet), but it’s out there on a server. A ticking time bomb, waiting for the wrong moment. I've seen it firsthand - if it's severe enough and makes the news cycle, one simple mistake can sink a company.

And on a lighter note: If you're letting AI tools write your outbound sales messaging without oversight, ask yourself: Who trained the AI? Hint: It wasn’t a sales expert. It was tech bros. And tech bros know as much about selling as I do about coaching. I have a running joke with a client about "I hope this email finds you well" - it took months for use to train that out of his Smart Sales Playbook. But without an experienced sales leader leading the process? ChatGPT thought that was the perfect way to start an email. Every email.

Your reminder that bad outbound at scale won't help you close more deals. It’ll just help you do more stuff.

You have to decide: are you here to check off tasks or build sustainable revenue growth?

Conclusion: This Isn't About AI. It’s About Growth.

BYOAI isn’t a tech problem. It’s a leadership opportunity.

When your teams use AI without a plan, you don't just risk data leaks, you lose time, you lose alignment, and you lose deals. Faster growth doesn't happen because you bought the flashiest tool. It happens because you removed the friction, aligned your teams, and built smart systems that scale with you.

AI is just one of the tools in the toolbox. The real job is building a business that moves faster, smarter, and stronger. No matter what tools the future throws at you.

If you're ready to eliminate the hidden barriers slowing down your sales and build the next stage of your company’s growth, we should talk.

👉 Schedule a Strategy Session Let’s cut the chaos and build the systems that set you up for unstoppable momentum.

Rise of Us is a practice run by Summer Poletti, specializing in revenue growth: sales, strategic partnerships, customer success, marketing alignment. We generally work with financial services and SaaS companies from $2MM - $20MM ARR and help them plan and execute for their next stage of revenue growth. We concentrate on strategy, coaching, and organizational alignment.