As COO, you sit at the intersection of every function — and you own the quality of operations across the business. AI is the highest-leverage operational change of the decade. Here is the playbook for deploying it well.
1. Process documentation. SOPs, runbooks, decision trees. See how to write SOPs with Claude.
2. Vendor management. Vendor scorecards, contract review prep, RFP evaluation matrices.
3. Knowledge management. Internal KB that actually gets used. See how to build an internal KB.
4. Cross-functional reporting. Status summaries, project briefs, incident writeups.
5. Workflow design. Process mapping, gap analysis, improvement hypotheses.
You see across functions — you can spot AI deployment patterns that work in one area and could apply elsewhere.
You own process discipline — AI workflows decay without governance, which is exactly what COOs are wired to maintain.
You allocate operational resources — you can prioritize AI investment vs. competing initiatives based on actual impact data.
Cross-functional AI policy with department-specific addendums.
Quarterly AI deployment review across functions — what is working, what is not, where to invest.
AI vendor consolidation policy. Each function tends to buy independently; COO can drive consolidation.
AI literacy minimums for managers.
— Bill Colbert, Treetop Growth Strategy