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.

Messaging: What CEOs want you to know

Reading these memos back-to-back is like watching five directors tackle the same script. The plot points are identical—AI is here, we need to adapt, the future depends on it—but the emotional registers couldn't be more different.

On one end, there's Will England, CEO of hedge fund Walleye Capital (an Every Consulting client), practically vibrating with enthusiasm. ChatGPT isn't just a tool; it's a "magical elixir that makes you 20 percent smarter instantly." His memo reads like a tent revival for the algorithmically enhanced. "Not using these tools is like refusing to use the internet in 1995," he declares. "That's just dumb."

On the other end sits Fiverr's CEO Micha Kaufman, who opens with the rhetorical equivalent of a cold shower: "AI is coming for your jobs. Heck, it's coming for my job too." He suggests employees might need to "scream hard in front of the mirror" before getting to work. It's radical candor turned up to eleven—part motivational speech, part existential crisis.

Between these poles, the other CEOs strike different notes. Lütke wraps Shopify's mandate in philosophical metaphors about red queens and constant running. Box's CEO Aaron Levie stays pragmatically focused on eliminating "drudgery." Luis von Ahn at Duolingo took what seemed like the measured strategist approach, comparing AI to the company’s prescient mobile bet. (Note: Von Ahn has since reversed course on key parts of their memo after consumer backlash over plans to replace human contractors with AI.)

But look past the tonal differences and a unified message emerges. Every memo shares three core elements:

1. The inevitability narrative: This isn't optional. It's not a pilot program. It's happening, with or without you.
2. Personal testimony: Each CEO claims to use AI constantly. "I use it all the time, but even I feel I'm only scratching the surface," Lütke admits. They're modeling the behavior they expect—and admitting their own learning curves.
3. The paradox of urgency. Every CEO delivers the same contradiction: "We must move fast" coupled with "We're still figuring this out." It's a mandate wrapped in uncertainty—decisive action despite incomplete information.

These aren't stone tablets handed down from the C-suite. They're leaders thinking out loud about a transformation that's moving too fast for anyone to fully grasp it. The range of tones—from evangelical to apocalyptic—reveals just how much uncertainty lives beneath the surface of these seemingly definitive declarations.