Salim Ismail says larger firms should build an AI stack on the side

Salim Ismail founded the consulting group Open ExO. He said companies with more than 50 people should build an AI-run version of their work on the side. He said so on the podcast Moonshots, in an episode posted Wednesday.

Why you'd care

For most people this is about how an employer might change. If AI takes over more of how work gets done, jobs and team structures could shift. Ismail's advice is aimed at company leaders.

The hosts began with Anthropic's IPO filing. They said it shows Claude, Anthropic's AI system, wrote more than 90% of its new code in September. They also said Anthropic's own use of Claude grew more than 250-fold between January and September. Ismail said big companies should keep running as they are. He told them to build a new AI setup beside it. Then, he said, "start moving workflows over one by one". That starts at 54:15. He said one company took a process of 22 steps and shrank it to four.

In the news

Forbes published a piece Wednesday titled as a question about a world without managers, on Anthropic's vision of the future. Its description says Anthropic's filing lays out a sweeping vision. It adds that checking AI's work and keeping humans in the loop carry substantial costs.

Ismail said he will share hard numbers from a pilot in the next few weeks. He coaches companies on this, so he has a stake in the advice. He also said the question he puts to CEOs is how quickly their system improves its own capability.

Watch the 8 minutes where he explains it.49:09