Cassie Kozyrkov, Google’s first-ever chief decision scientist and founder of consulting firm Kozyr, is best known for championing decision intelligence—a field that helps leaders move beyond instinct and data overload toward clarity and structure. In an exclusive interview for Performance Magazine’s AI Edition, she argues that many leaders still get AI wrong by focusing on automation rather than decision quality.

Kozyrkov draws a sharp line between tool use and automation. She points out that the former empowers employees to use AI systems like ChatGPT or Claude to do better work, while the latter involves handing off decisions entirely to machines. Leaders often conflate the two, she warns, launching AI projects without asking whether they truly understand what outcomes they’re pursuing.

Instead of starting with data, Kozyrkov believes that a good AI strategy starts with intent. “The answers are cheap now,” she says. “It’s the questions that are valuable.” For her, prompting is a leadership skill—one that requires clarity about what success looks like and how to recognize it. Off-the-shelf metrics, like accuracy or speed, often miss the point if they’re not tied to the organization’s core priorities.

Kozyrkov also emphasizes the importance of technical fluency at the leadership level—not necessarily coding expertise, but enough knowledge to manage complexity and ask the right questions. She warns that a “non-technical leader who ignores the technology is a hazard” and that trust, especially in external vendors or automated systems, should always be earned—not assumed.

The conversation spans real-world examples, like AI-driven parking lot metrics and automation misfires, to broader themes of governance and accountability. Kozyrkov calls for what she terms a “new breed of leader”: someone who understands that in a world flooded with tools, what matters most is judgment.

Read the full interview in Performance Magazine – Print Edition, Issue No. 33 (The AI Edition), now available as a free digital download via the TKI Marketplace. Print copies can also be ordered through Amazon (standard printing and shipping fees apply).

Performance Magazine has released its newest print issue, and this time, it focuses on one of the most defining changes in today’s workplace: AI in strategy and performance. Performance Magazine Issue – Print Edition, Issue No. 33 (The AI Edition) explores how artificial intelligence is influencing not just tools and workflows but the deeper layers of how organizations plan, execute, and evaluate performance.

The cover story features Cassie Kozyrkov, Google’s first ever chief decision scientist. Rather than echoing the dominant automation narrative, Kozyrkov calls for a return to disciplined thinking. Her reflections point to a core concern in strategy work today: how to make better decisions, faster, with the support of AI—not at the cost of human oversight. She draws attention to the difference between replacing judgment and reinforcing it, which frames much of what the rest of the edition explores.

Among the features is a practical explainer on how machine learning works, covering its core structure, main types, and underlying learning processes. Another article offers historical context that traces how AI has developed over time, helping distinguish durable progress from hype.

One article takes a closer look at the role of AI in strategy and performance, showing how machine learning models are being used to assess current conditions, simulate future outcomes, and support strategic direction. It also explores how AI contributes to performance management by helping set more accurate targets, cascade KPIs across levels, and monitor progress with predictive insights.

Several articles explore how AI is embedded in the daily flow of work. These cover its integration into familiar tools and platforms, the rise of AI agents, and the increasing importance of prompt engineering as a technical skill. On the governance front, readers will find a scan of AI regulatory developments around the world, focusing on how companies are adjusting policies and compliance mechanisms to match legal expectations.

The Interviews section brings in a mix of technical, academic, and legal perspectives. Alongside Kozyrkov are voices like Tarry Singh, Professor J. Mark Bishop, Frank Naussbaum, and Dr. Jon Truby, who discuss the operational, ethical, and structural implications of adopting AI at scale.

Closing the edition is a contribution from guest editor Islam Salahuddin, a data consultant and facilitator at Systaems. He is certified as a data analyst and trainer by Microsoft and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in AI. In his essay, he explores how much of the confusion around AI stems from language itself. Even the term “AI” can mean entirely different things depending on background or experience. This confusion, he argues, is especially present in business conversations, where abstract terms often blur rather than clarify. 

Performance Magazine Issue – Print Edition, Issue No. 33 (The AI Edition) is now available as a free digital download via the TKI Marketplace. Print copies can be ordered through Amazon, with standard printing and shipping fees applied.

The newest edition of the PERFORMANCE MAGAZINE is now available in The KPI Institute’s Marketplace and Amazon.

The 22nd edition of the Performance Magazine focuses on how data may transform businesses while producing significant results considering that in today’s generation, everything is developing fast and drastically, including how plans are established and implemented, as well as how employees carry out their jobs. 

On the cover, join Kevin Hartman, Google’s Chief Analytics Evangelist, and dive into the world of data analytics. Discover how data creates new structures and dynamic bonds while embodying digitalization.

Moreover, this issue explores how artificial intelligence affects performance management, what makes a strong data strategy, and what the top business intelligence trends are like in 2022. It also covers the digital initiatives of several cities across the world using performance assessment methods and strategic development ideas. This edition can be an instrument for learning how to embrace technological change while making achievements in sustainability.

The 22nd Performance Magazine highlights the following:  

• The state of strategy and performance management in 2022
• Updates on industry trends, best practices, and innovations
• Role of data analytics in business strategy and performance
• Interviews with strategy experts and academicians
• Comprehensive global analysis and concept presentations
• Exclusive insights from top consultants
• Guides in boosting personal performance
• Recommended resources and tools for data savvy and decision-makers

Learn more about data analytics, innovation, and digitalization in relation to strategy and performance management while reading through each page of the PERFORMANCE MAGAZINE Issue No. 22, July 2022. You can grab a digital copy in The KPI Institute’s Marketplace or through this link: Performance Magazine 22. For an additional printed copy, you can order yours via Amazon. 

The KPI Institute (TKI) recently caught up with Kevin Hartman, Google’s Chief Analytics Evangelist, to discuss how data is changing the way organizations develop their strategy and improve their performance.

Below is an excerpt of the interview, which will be published in the next issue of Performance Magazine – Print Edition.

TKI: How important is data today to businesses and organizations?

Hartman: It’s really at the center of everything now, and not just [in] business, but also private life and public sector life and everything in between. It’s data [that] should play a role in every decision that an organization is making — to make them more effective, more efficient… Data and [the] collection of data should play a role in any organization’s operations. It is really at the center of everything that companies are doing today, at least those that are successful.

TKI: What do you think are the challenges that organizations are facing in terms of using data or maybe attempting to use data?

Hartman: Ohh, there are many. You know, from organizations who just don’t have the digital and data maturity — meaning they lack the people, the processes, the technologies to really collect and utilize data. We see that as an enormous challenge. [There are] organizations [that] just haven’t made the investment necessary either because they don’t believe in the return. They don’t want to spend the resources, whatever that is.

But that presents an enormous challenge. Another is just the idea of organizations lacking the kind of leadership that is required to get that organization invested in data and its use, and moving the organization behind a mindset that says data is going to be important to us and we’re going to use data to drive decisions.

…I’d like to say measurement — today getting that right is a leadership challenge, not a technological one. The technology is there. [What matters is] how the organization [will] embrace that challenge and lead from a position of data being a strength.

TKI: Are there times when you’re able to apply what you do at work to your personal life? For example, are there practices at work that you think that people who are not really in the data world professionally can actually adopt at home or for their day-to-day activities?

Hartman: Well, data is a part of everyone’s life… You don’t have to be the chief analytics evangelist at Google for data to affect you. And so I think there’s a lot of crossover, particularly because people are awakening to the existence of data that they are generating online that others are holding and using. And so I think that there’s great opportunity for consumers to just become more savvy in how that data is used, who’s using it, and why.

And it’s no longer a secret should not be because of regulation. And so it — in that way — can become a bigger part of consumers’ lives.

For me personally, I’m in it all the time. I’m either in my work. In the environment and role. Or I teach at a number of institutions and programs, analytics, and so I am fully immersed in this idea of data and the data field all the time.

And it’s really the ability that I have or the opportunity that I have to be that practitioner and see what’s happening in the public sector and private sector, and then stand in front of a classroom of students with the expectation they have that I can explain that to them and make it accessible is really challenging and it keeps me kind of using both of those roles to strengthen how I perform in each area, right? Like my practitioner role at Google makes me a better teacher. My teaching role makes me a better practitioner at Google. So it’s a very symbiotic relationship for me.

*****

To dive deeper into our conversation with Hartman, stay tuned for the release of Performance Magazine – Print Edition No. July 2022. Get updates from the LinkedIn page of The KPI Institute.