This week, we spotlight how Dan Todd took the Forum3 Playbook and turned it into a company-wide AI-First transformation - from bootcamp to breakthrough.
Listen to the full episode here.
When we sat down with Dan Todd, what stood out wasn’t his technical background, it was his pragmatism. He didn’t start his AI journey as a data scientist or technologist. He started as a leader looking for leverage. He wanted to make faster decisions, empower his team, and remove friction from everyday work.
“I wasn’t looking for another shiny tool,” Dan told us. “I was looking for time and AI gave it back to me.”
His story captures what it actually feels like to move from experimentation to transformation and the mindset shift from “testing AI” to running an AI First Company.
1. Begin with Curiosity, End with Systems
Dan’s first “aha” moment came during the Forum3 Bootcamp, when he began using ChatGPT to structure thoughts before leadership meetings.
Small experiments turned into rapid results:
Drafting customer emails in half the time
Summarizing meetings and project updates
Building proposal templates and investor briefs
Each win built conviction.
“If AI can help me do this, what else can it do across my company?”
That’s the inflection point where curiosity turns into conviction, and conviction becomes a system.
It’s also where Dan unlocked the most important truth of building an AI-First organization: transformation doesn’t scale without executive sponsorship.
When the CEO leads by example, AI adoption shifts from optional to inevitable.
2. Audit Where Work Actually Happens
Instead of launching an “AI project,” Dan and his leadership team began mapping where time and effort were being wasted. They found bottlenecks and friction in:
Decision cycles - too many meetings to get to “yes”
Reporting and documentation - manual updates that drained hours
Customer communication - inconsistent tone and slow turnaround
By embedding AI agents into these workflows, the team began reducing cycle times and increasing decision quality.
“The most powerful thing about AI isn’t automation - it’s acceleration,” Dan said. “It compresses time between thought and action.”
3. Train Before You Transform
Like many Forum3 case studies, Dan discovered that education was the unlock. Before rolling out tools, he rolled out training.
A concept born from Forum3’s Bootcamp, he hosted an internal “AI fluency” session for every team lead, focused on:
Prompting fundamentals
Identifying high-impact use cases
Evaluating ethical and brand-safe use
Once people understood the “why” and the “how,” adoption skyrocketed. Teams began bringing their own use cases (marketing drafting product launches, finance reconciling reports, HR automating onboarding FAQs). Proof that education fuels momentum.
4. Build a Lightweight AI Council
To sustain momentum, Dan formed an AI Council - a small, cross-functional group representing operations, marketing, product, finance and HR. The council met bi-weekly to:
Evaluate new tools and pilots
Create simple guardrails for responsible use
Share learnings across departments
This structure mirrored Forum3’s AI-First playbook: Build Literacy → Establish Governance → Run Pilots → Measure Impact.
The council became the company’s internal “AI accelerator,” ensuring innovation stayed structured without slowing down.
5. Measure the Impact Like a P&L
The turning point came when AI started showing up in the numbers.
30% reduction in manual reporting time
Faster response to customer inquiries
New data insights surfaced weekly by AI agents
Dan turned these metrics into a simple dashboard, tracking hours saved and decisions improved. It was proof that AI wasn’t a side project, it was a productivity engine.
“Once you quantify the time you’re saving, you see the opportunity cost of not using it,” he explained.
6. Evolve the Culture. Not Just the Tech
Dan emphasized that real transformation comes from mindset, not models. He championed a company culture where people were encouraged to experiment, share wins, and teach others.
He set a new expectation: every role should have an AI-assist moment. This is one way the person used AI each week to make work faster, better, or more creative. This turned AI from a novelty into a habit.
Leaders like Dan are showing what AI-First looks like in practice.
Here’s how he brought the Forum3 Playbook to life across his company, in five practical steps:
Step | Focus | Outcome |
1. Explore | Start small, experiment personally | Early wins & credibility |
2. Educate | Upskill leadership and teams | Shared literacy & enthusiasm |
3. Embed | Integrate AI into workflows | Real efficiency gains |
4. Govern | Form an AI Council & policy | Safe, scalable adoption |
5. Measure | Track time, cost, and growth impact | Executive buy-in & proof |
Why It Matters
Dan Todd’s experience is a case study in what Forum3 calls “the second aha moment”. When leaders realize AI isn’t just another software platform, but a scalable layer of intelligence for every function, every employee, every day.
If your team is still in pilot mode, the real opportunity is to do what Dan did:
Move from ideas → to training → to transformation.
Want to Build Your Own Playbook?
The same framework Dan used started in the Forum3 AI-First Bootcamp, designed for executives and functional leaders ready to move from ideas to impact.
Schedule a private session with us to learn more: Book a 30-min discovery call