Faced with the explosion of AI opinion flooding newsfeeds, conference keynotes and inboxes, it would be understandable for any executive to feel a little overwhelmed. That feeling is likely not reduced when the spectrum of “popular” opinion on how AI will impact an enterprise ranges from Jerry McGuire euphoria to Chicken Little paranoia.

Like many innovations that have preceded it, we’ll look back in a decade and recognize that between the hype and the hyperbole, AI will have had a profound impact on the ways we work, how we organize, distribute and deploy our humans and our capital and that many of those transformations will be both unexpected and unanticipated. In the sage words of Ray Amara and his eloquent “Law” – “we tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.”

What’s not open to debate is whether you and your executive team can take the bench and sit this one out.