"The AI-Driven Leader" by Geoff Woods (this new 2026 edition) makes the case that the real value of AI for leaders isn't drafting better emails, it's using it as a strategic thought partner to challenge your assumptions and speed up decision-making. Woods pulls from his own experience as former Chief Growth Officer of Jindal Steel & Power, and structures the book around practical prompts and real-world examples rather than just theory.
The concept of using AI to actively challenge your strategic plans, rather than just execute tasks, is a genuinely useful reframe, and the actionable prompts included in each chapter give you something concrete to try immediately rather than leaving the ideas abstract. That said, if you've already spent real time using AI tools in your work, a lot of this material will feel pretty basic. The core insight, treat AI as a thinking partner rather than a task-doer, is solid, but it's stretched across a lot of pages with some repetitive phrasing that could have been tightened.
This lands best for leaders who are AI-curious but haven't dug in yet, less so for anyone already comfortable prompting these tools daily.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Thanks Netgalley for this Audio ARC!

This was a great book not just to learn how to use AI better but also as a general strategy tool. It's a very quick listen at about 7 hours before increasing speed at all. The author talks about some ways to use AI to get to insights quicker but I found that most of the time it was about thinking of how to get bigger impact. He talks a lot about 20% and 80% (which I would have love if he backed up a little and went into more depth on that).

He also gives some examples of how best to use AI if you're short on time like being given a huge amount of documentation to look over before a meeting. I always like when books highlight how it's a valuable tool but that it can't do everything.

Once downside is that he directs you to the website a lot, especially to see charts and tables if you're doing the audio book. I didn't find any of those there, just links on how to buy many copies of the book. I don't need to be sold a book I already own but the tables and charts would have been nice to see!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Audio for the free audiobook in exchange for my honest review. The author does a good job narrating this story.

I honestly do not read books like this one but I wanted to find out more about AI and was intrigued by the premise that Geoff Woods makes: most leaders are misusing AI by treating it like a faster assistant instead of a serious thinking partner. I did find some good information in the book but was rather annoyed by the author's constant self promotion of "go to my website and buy my program."

3.5 rounded up.