Every CEO Is Writing the Same AI Memo. Here's What They're Really Saying.

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Your CEO is about to write an AI memo.

I know because I've been collecting them like disaster preparedness manuals, and they're multiplying faster than ChatGPT responses. It’s a professional survival instinct: If I know what these CEOs want, I’ll be able to give it to them—and I’ll be safe from this particular flavor of apocalypse.

Barely a week goes by without another internal memo screenshot rocketing across X or LinkedIn, mixing optimism about what AI promises with urgency about what it portends. The results come across as part pep talk, part ultimatum: Get fluent with AI, or get left behind.

It all kicked off when Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke posted his memo to X, declaring that "reflexive AI usage is now a baseline expectation” at the e-commerce giant. Within weeks, similar manifestos emerged from Duolingo, Box, Fiverr, and Walleye Capital. The speed of the cascade itself is a signal: AI sophistication has reached a point where CEOs feel compelled to act. Fast.

These aren't just corporate communications; they're cultural artifacts—real-time documentation of how organizations are processing the biggest shift in knowledge work since we all got email addresses. Digital archeologists of the future will look at documents like these as they piece together the story of how people navigated the earliest days of AI in the workplace.

So why wait? Let's see what these memos reveal about where work is headed, what leaders really mean when they say "be AI-first," and—most importantly—how to navigate the productive tension between executive vision and ground-level reality. Because mark my words: If your CEO hasn’t sent out the “AI memo” or some kind of directive about how AI is or isn’t to be deployed, they’re about to. May this survey help you prepare.

If 90%+ of your team isn’t using AI everyday, you’re already behind

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Messaging: What CEOs want you to know

Become a paid subscriber to Every to unlock the rest of this piece and learn about:

1. What the CEOs of Shopify, Box, Duolingo, Fiverr, and Walleye Capital want their employees to know
2. How the companies differ in their approaches to AI implementation
3. The four steps that you can take to set yourself up for success