Kate Dohaney says AI demands a different type of leadership—“I’m not a CEO sitting back saying cut, cut, cut.” 

“It’s not cost-cutting,” Bill Winters, the chief executive of Standard Chartered, insisted during a recent panel discussion. “It’s replacing lower-value human capital with the financial capital and the investment capital we’re putting in.” 

The words created a flurry of protests—“replacing lower value human capital” hitting a nerve for those nervous about an approaching AI “jobs apocalypse”. Winters was obliged to apologize, pointing out that Standard Chartered was investing heavily in retraining teams. 

How company leaders respond to the AI wave–and take their colleagues with them—is one of the most important issues for C-Suite leaders as they contemplate the year ahead. At Fortune’s CEO Forum this week on September 16, AI, workforce planning and return on investment will be a centerpiece debate. And that’s before any discussion on the fact that AI might kill us all in any case. 

“It’s fundamentally changing the way we work and our timescales and getting products to market quickly,” Kate Dohaney, the CEO of the U.K. mobile network, Giffgaff, part of the Virgin Media Group, tells me. “The question is not necessarily how do we bring down our human capital, but........

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