Front cover of The AI Strategy Playbook: From Zero to 100 by René Bohnsack, published by RoutledgeOut now

The AI Strategy Playbook:From Zero to 100

by René Bohnsack, ranked by Stanford among the top 2% of scientists worldwide

The essential guide for leaders determined to move past hype, avoid paralysis, and create lasting advantage in the age of AI.

For executives and board members, transformation and innovation leaders, and anyone turning AI ambition into coordinated execution.

Paperback, hardback and Kindle.

Why this book

Why this book exists.

The AI Strategy Playbook combines academic rigour with hands-on frameworks. It introduces the four AI Stacks every leader needs and moves an organisation step by step from isolated experimentation to full integration of AI.

It has already guided thousands of executives on how to embed AI into strategy, operations and business models.

"The paradox is not that AI is failing organizations. It is that organizations are failing to organize themselves around AI."
The AI Strategy Playbook, p. 12

Tools, language and confidence

Gives leaders the clarity and vocabulary to act decisively on AI strategy.

Strategic implications

Understand AI's impact on strategy, operations and business models.

Practical playbook

A tested roadmap to lead transformation, with the tools to run it.

The framework

The four AI Stacks

Together they take an organisation from isolated experimentation to full integration.

Skill Stack

Teaches prompting, responsible use, tools, co-intelligence, and AI Mastery.

Programme: AI Fluency

Transformation Stack

Provides tools and tactics to move from experimentation with AI to acceleration of use cases and full integration.

Programme: Zero to Hero

Strategy Stack

Adapts the Play to Win model for the AI era, guiding leaders through aspiration, opportunity mapping, building AI moats, designing an AI business model, and creating a roadmap including data readiness.

Programme: AI Leadership

Governance & Control Stack

Ensures governance across five dimensions (operational, ethical, legal, environmental, and strategic) and measures progress through the AI Balanced Scorecard.

Programme: AI Leadership

What you get

Five things you will be able to do after reading it.

  1. 1

    Place your organisation on the Zero to 100 Matrix. Two axes, AI Capabilities and AI Direction, and four positions: Observers, Thinkers, Doers, Leaders. You will know which one you are in under a minute.

  2. 2

    Write a prompt that works, every time. CRAFT sets out the five elements of any prompt: Context, Role, Action, Format, Tone.

  3. 3

    Decide what is safe to put into an AI tool. The AI Compass gives four directions of responsible use and one test: Would I email this to a stranger?

  4. 4

    Run the three phases in order. Experimentation, Acceleration, Integration, each with its own culture tactics, technology tactics and metrics.

  5. 5

    Measure AI progress on one scorecard. STORI covers Strategy, Technology and Data, Organisation, Responsibility and Innovation, with a fully worked example for a bank.

Inside the book

What is in it.

  • Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence Tools
  • Introduction
  • Part 1: The Skill Stack
  • Part 2: The Transformation Stack
  • Part 3: The Strategy Stack
  • Part 4: The Governance and Control Stack
  • Conclusion
  • List of Tables
  • List of Figures
  • Glossary
  • References and Further Reading
  • Index

248 pages, 48 illustrations, a glossary and a full index.

Book and platform

The book is one expression of the Zero to 100 methodology.

1

Measure the baseline

A diagnostic gives each person and team a baseline, so you know where to start.

2

Build the capability

Learning paths practised in the AI tools people already use.

3

Put AI to work

People design assistants and workflows for their real work.

The book gives you the method.

The platform runs it with your teams.

René Bohnsack, author of The AI Strategy Playbook

The author

About the author.

René Bohnsack has been ranked by Stanford University among the top 2% of scientists worldwide in Business and Management. He designs and delivers AI leadership programmes for multinationals, small and medium enterprises, and governments, and has trained thousands of leaders globally. A frequent speaker at international venues including TEDx, he is a guest lecturer at globally leading universities and co-founder of three AI startups.

Zero to 100 is grounded in this work.

Top 2%
Stanford, Business and Management
3,000+
executives trained
3
AI companies co-founded
TEDx
speaker

The book in conversation

René on when AI becomes the strategy

In InnoWave's Human Side of Innovation, René walks through the core argument of the book: How AI moves from a tool on the side of the business to the operating model at its centre.

Read the three takeaways