A leadership team working late in a boardroom above the city, their planning wall coming alive

The Future is NoW… are you ready?

Your people are your AI advantage.

For CEOs and leadership teams at companies of 50 to 5,000 people.

AI is not an IT project. Tools alone won’t change how work gets done. We help leaders change the behaviours, workflows, and culture that make AI part of how the business runs.

AI Strategy · exampleweek 6

Where AI pays off, ranked.

  • 01 Proposal draftinghigh value / low effort
  • 02 Site reportinghigh / medium
  • 03 Customer follow-upmedium / low
Governance & ownership defined
  1. It was never about the licences.

    The companies that thrive with AI won't be the ones with the most tools or token use. They'll be the ones who changed the behaviour of the organization. That's the work we do.

  2. Your AI is already running.

    People are using it quietly, on their own. Workflows are shifting informally, and risk is climbing while nobody owns it. We call this Shadow AI, and we turn it into sanctioned, scalable AI.

  3. Measurable impact in 90 days.

    You define the win, your AI Dividend, and we measure against it every month. Steady momentum after, held by a team of AI Champions you keep.

Some of our valued clients

Clients include Government of Canada, Heart & Stroke Foundation, Providence Health Care, YMCA, MacKay CEO Forums, Nexstar Network, Sprucegrove Investment Management, Ontario Waterpower Association, Discovery Co-op, Cedarglen Homes, Ocean Wise, Accelerate Okanagan, Connective, Cube Business Media, Reliable Logistics, Vista Railings, Eco Electric and Plumbing, Media Profile, Kearney Funeral Services, Radiant Health Saunas.

The problems to solve

Everyone’s experimenting. Governance is missing. Impact is unknown. People are starting to feel unsafe.

  1. AI pilot purgatory.

    The licences get bought. The operating model never follows. Access, but no adoption. Activity, but no measurable outcomes.

  2. Shadow AI.

    AI is most often being used by employees quietly, on their own, without oversight or meaningful governance. It’s inside most organizations whether they’ve planned for it or not.

  3. Vanity AI.

    How many businesses can confidently measure the ROI of their AI investments? Few. The amount of “AI Theatre” happening is jaw-dropping considering every AI pilot’s impact can be measured.

  4. FOBO.

    Individual fear of becoming obsolete is starting to challenge organizational fear of missing out, both within organizations and throughout broader society.

We believe strongly that AI is an unstoppable force, and that human-centered AI transformations are the only solution for organizations serious about winning in these rapidly changing and uncertain times.

The shifts

We’ve seen this enough times to know the pattern.

Ten shifts show up in every transformation that works. We scope the engagement against them. You can check them yourself at any point to see how far the organization has actually moved.

  1. Tech-drivenPeople-driven
  2. Fear of AI (FOBO)Willingly co-existing with AI
  3. IT-ownedLeadership-owned
  4. Shadow AISanctioned AI
  5. Access, no useAdoption at scale
  6. PilotsWorkflows
  7. ActivityImpact
  8. Ad hocReal use-cases
  9. Tools, no frameworkAn operating model
  10. Slow adoptionLeading-edge capability

How you’ll know

You’ll know it’s working, because you’ll have named the win before we started. We call it your AI Dividend: revenue lift, capacity returned, margin recovered, in your words, not ours. We measure against it every month and report it to your leadership honestly. The goal was never more tools. It was better work, owned by your people, sustained long after we step out.

Who we are

We’ve sat in the seat you’re in.

Since 2016, The NoW of Work has helped organizations navigate transformation in rapidly changing environments. Our clients span industries, home builders, hospitals, national brands, financial services and federal agencies, because the challenge is structural, not industry-specific. And we use AI ourselves. Our own operations run on it, so we won’t steer you anywhere we wouldn’t go.

Rocky Ozaki, Founder & CEO
Rocky Ozaki
Founder & CEO

Rocky combines a decade of senior leadership roles in large enterprise with nearly 10 years in startup and scale-up tech to form what he believes is the operational DNA of all modern companies. Prior to launching NoW, Rocky was the Vice-President and Head of Corporate Innovation for the BC Tech Association. He is also a 3x startup founder with 1 exit.

Ashleah Wilson, Partner
Ashleah Wilson
Partner

Scaled Jane App from $5M to $125M ARR as its first marketing hire, with a background in growth marketing, organizational strategy and business development. Alongside Rocky, he delivers client engagements and runs the firm’s own AI-enabled operations.

Keynotes & speaking. Move your room from AI anxiety to action. Book Rocky or Ashleah to speak →

A diverse team working together

FOBO

The fear of becoming obsolete.

FOBO is the Fear of Becoming Obsolete: the quiet worry moving through your people as AI arrives, that a skill, a role, or a whole team is about to be made redundant.

Left unspoken, it hardens into stalled pilots, quiet resistance, and your strongest people hedging their bets elsewhere. It is the real reason most AI efforts stall, and it is a leadership challenge before it is a technical one. We help you name it, and turn it into a plan your people can actually use.

Three ways to work with us

Our services.

Many clients start with one and move through the others as they’re ready. Each program changes a specific behaviour. Together they change the company.

  1. Program 01 · 6 weeks

    AI Strategy

    Leadership stops guessing, and your people stop bracing for what it means for them.

    Company-Wide AI Strategy$10,000–$15,000People & Culture Strategy$20,000–$30,000
    AI Strategy · example6 weeks

    Where AI pays off, ranked.

    • 01 Proposal draftinghigh value / low effort
    • 02 Site reportinghigh / medium
    • 03 Customer follow-upmedium / low
    Governance & ownership defined
  2. Program 02 · 3–12 months

    Human-Centered AI Transformation

    Measurable impact within 90 days. Steady momentum every month after.

    Single-Team: From $36,000 · 3 monthsMulti-Team / Company-Wide: From $250,000 · 12 months
    AI Champions - rosterlive
    • JM Jordan M.Ops
    • PL Priya L.Finance
    • SB Sam B.Marketing
    Workflow redesignedthis week
  3. Program 03 · Scoped per engagement

    AI Automation & Agents

    Teams adopt AI-enabled ways of working.

    Priced per engagement
    First AI Employee - Marketingrunning

    Draft weekly performance brief

    Reading data, drafting…
    Human review before send

Pricing shown reflects 2026 rates. Final pricing is confirmed through a formal proposal and may vary based on scope, complexity, and client requirements.

People, not just tools

AI will reshape roles. Your people shape it with you.

Reskilling, upskilling and role redesign are part of the work from the first week. The people who do the job help decide what changes in it, and AI Champions inside each team lead the way for their colleagues.

A training program ends with a certificate. Ours ends with people who lead the work themselves.

How transformation works
Colleagues in conversation around a table during a working session

Not sure where to start?

Start with the AI Boardroom Clinic.

Four hours, your leadership team in one room. A state-of-AI briefing, why most transformations fail, then live demos solving problems your business is facing today. A working session, not a lecture. The worst case: you walk out with a clearer 90-day plan than you walked in with.

See how it works

$5,000

4 hours · in person

Your best first step as a leadership team

From our clients

“A must for any company looking to accelerate the responsible, scalable and value-driven adoption of AI.”
Nancy MacKay, PhDFounder & CEO, MacKay CEO Forums
“In just 12 weeks, we went from barely understanding AI to leveraging it for real-world impact.”
John FinanPresident, Finan Home Service
“What used to feel like chaos now feels like a strategic advantage.”
Ted FoxOwner, Fox & Sons

Let’s have the conversation.

Wherever you are in your AI journey, we’d love to talk it through. Start with the free AI Transformation Readiness Assessment and a grounded read on your next 90 days.