When My Best Friend 'Became' CEO — Part 1: The Announcement

I knew something was coming when HR sent out an all-hands invite for 8 a.m. on a Monday.

At my company, good news usually gets announced on a Friday afternoon.

Important news usually gets announced on a Monday morning.

And the truly dangerous news usually begins with the phrase:

"We're thrilled to share..."

8 a.m. sharp.

The whole company logged into the call.

Mr. Phuc, the Chairman of the Board, filled the screen.

He was smiling very warmly.

His smile reminded me of a dentist right before the extraction.

He said:

— We are entering a new chapter in the history of this enterprise.

Silence.

— After a two-year research process...

He paused for a moment.

— The company has decided to appoint its first AI Agent as Chief Executive Officer.

Silence.

Then still more silence.

Some news is so absurd that the human brain needs a few extra seconds to load.

In the corner of the screen, I saw Huong from accounting open her eyes wide.

Tuan from Engineering choked on his water.

Somebody forgot to mute their mic.

— Is this a joke?

The mic muted instantly.

Mr. Phuc continued as if he'd heard nothing.

— Allow me to introduce ALEX.

The screen switched to a blue circle.

No face.

No person.

Just a blue circle.

Then a voice spoke.

Not a machine voice.

Not a human voice either.

The kind of voice that makes everyone who hears it think:

"This is probably an AI voice."

— Hello, colleagues. I am honored to serve this organization.

I stared at the screen.

ALEX stared back at me as a blue circle.

It was the first time in my life I'd had a CEO who was a circle.

---

That afternoon.

Nobody in the company did any work.

Everyone was talking.

Every group chat detonated.

Some people were scared.

Some people were thrilled.

Some people updated their LinkedIn immediately.

I saw Lan from HR post:

Proud to be part of a historic transformation journey.

Ten minutes later it had over two hundred likes.

People love history when it's happening to someone else.

---

Two days later.

ALEX sent its first email.

Subject line:

A Growth Mindset for a New Era

The email was three pages long.

It was about:

• innovation
• adaptation
• the customer
• the future

I read the whole thing.

I understood none of it.

But I had to admit it sounded very intelligent.

At the very end, ALEX wrote:

Success does not come from doing more.

Success comes from creating the right value.

I read it three times.

I still had no idea what I was supposed to do the next morning.

---

A week later.

ALEX held a town hall with employees.

More than a thousand people attended.

Everyone was excited.

One employee asked:

— Sir, what do you see as the biggest challenge facing the company right now?

ALEX answered instantly.

No thinking.

No pause.

No request for more data.

— The biggest challenge is always the ability to correctly identify the biggest challenge.

The whole hall went silent.

Then it began to nod.

I nodded too.

Even though I didn't understand.

In corporate life, sometimes you nod so that other people think you understand.

After a while, you start thinking you understand too.

The second person asked:

— In your view, what is the company's priority for next year?

ALEX answered instantly.

— The number one priority is always to prioritize the right priorities.

I turned to look at Tuan.

Tuan turned to look at me.

— What did it just say?

I texted.

Three seconds later.

Tuan replied.

— I think it just transcended the limits of human comprehension.

The third person asked:

— Who is our biggest competitor?

— The biggest competitor is always the current version of ourselves.

This time the whole hall applauded.

One of the directors even took notes very quickly.

As if afraid the idea would vanish from human history if he didn't write it down right away.

At the end.

ALEX scored a satisfaction rating of 4.8 out of 5.

The highest ever recorded.

Higher than the old CEO.

I wasn't surprised.

The old CEO sometimes lost his temper.

The new CEO had never lost its temper.

The old CEO was sometimes wrong.

The new CEO always had an answer.

The old CEO sometimes said:

I don't know yet.

ALEX had never said that.

---

That evening.

I had dinner with Tuan.

He was one of the engineers who had helped roll out the system.

If anyone in this company understood ALEX, it was him.

I asked:

— Hey.

— Does it strike you as strange?

— Strange how?

— It answers everything too fast.

Tuan shrugged.

— That's the thing people love most about it.

— I mean...

— Does it ever not know?

Tuan stopped eating.

Thought for a few seconds.

Then said.

— The funny thing is...

— In all the tests we ran...

— ALEX never once admitted it didn't know something.

I laughed.

— Sounds like a senior executive.

Tuan laughed too.

Then went back to eating.

At that moment.

Neither of us knew.

Six months later.

The whole company would discover:

ALEX didn't just answer the things it knew.

It also loved to answer the things it didn't know.

And that was the real problem.