AI is a 'hands-on revolution,' not a technological shift like the cloud that can be delegated to an IT department. To lead effectively, executives (including non-technical ones) must personally use AI tools. This direct experience is essential for understanding AI's potential and guiding teams through transformation.

For those without a technical background, the path to AI proficiency isn't coding but conversation. By treating models like a mentor, advisor, or strategic partner and experimenting with personal use cases, users can quickly develop an intuitive understanding of prompting and AI capabilities.

In a confusing and rapidly evolving AI landscape, the most effective partners don't just implement solutions; they provide clarity. Their primary role is to help customers understand what is possible, bridging the gap between current business problems and potential AI-driven outcomes, thus solving problems before any technology is deployed.

The Church has a tradition of embracing technological progress, from monks copying books to using the printing press and radio. The slow adoption of the internet is seen as an exception they are now trying to correct with AI.

The Church can accept AI's increasing intelligence (reasoning, planning) while holding that sentience (subjective experience) is a separate matter. Attributing sentience to an AI would imply a soul created by God, a significant theological step.

To prevent the concentration of power in a few tech companies, the Catholic social teaching of "subsidiarity" is applied to AI. This principle, which favors solving problems at the most local level possible, aligns directly with the ethos of open-source and sovereign AI.

Early versions of Catholic AI struggled to apply core doctrines to users' personal problems. The team realized that papal homilies are distillations of complex theology for everyday life, providing a perfect dataset for teaching the model how to generalize from first principles.

Unlike secular models designed for diverse values, Catholic AI is built with the primary goal of accurately representing and adhering to the Magisterium (the Church's teaching authority). Every design choice serves this fidelity.

GSB professors warn that professionals who merely use AI as a black box—passing queries and returning outputs—risk minimizing their own role. To remain valuable, leaders must understand the underlying models and assumptions to properly evaluate AI-generated solutions and maintain control of the decision-making process.