What you’ll find in this week’s Triple Threat:
💥 Power: The AI voice engine transforming ads, assistants, and customer interactions
🎯 Precision: Why consulting giants are racing to reframe AI and what it really means for your business
🚀 Momentum: A GPT that simulates your next big move so you can see the risks before they hit
💥 Power: A tool that unlocks a new superpower for your business
ElevenLabs: The AI Audio Game-Changer
What it is: ElevenLabs is an AI voice synthesis and text-to-speech platform that creates natural, human-like voices in 70+ languages. It supports voice cloning, multilingual narration, speech-to-speech transformation, and integrates with apps, sales tools, podcasts, and customer support workflows.
Instead of needing dozens of voice actors or manual recordings, you can now scale audio content, test variations, and deliver brand-consistent voices instantly. Pricing starts at $5/month, which gets you access to studio-quality voices, the ability to generate hours of speech, and access to their massive voice library.
Why it’s worth trying: Voice is becoming a practical channel for sales and marketing. ElevenLabs makes it possible to produce ads, narrations, and assistants that sound authentic and human, at a fraction of the cost of hiring voice talent.
How I’m Using It:
Podcast Ads – I record the same script in different voices to A/B test which tone drives more conversions.
Chatbots – I give client-facing bots voices that sound like real people, making them more approachable and engaging.
Sales Assistants – I build branded AI sales voices for clients that sound natural and conversational, consistently answering FAQs and delivering pitches.
Relevant Use Cases for Leaders:
Investor Updates – Generate polished audio summaries of quarterly results that sound like your CFO or CEO.
Executive Communications – Produce internal messages or change announcements in your own voice, quickly and consistently.
Customer-Facing Content – Deliver personalized product walkthroughs, onboarding guides, or explainer videos with a natural-sounding company voice.
International Growth – Localize campaigns and sales materials into multiple languages without extra production cost.
How it stacks up:
vs. Manual voiceover → Faster, scalable, lower cost
vs. Generic AI voices → More realistic and expressive, with custom and community voice options
vs. Hiring multiple actors → Easier iteration, cheaper, and better for testing at scale
How to use it (high level):
Start with the $5/month plan to test voices and generate initial ads or narrations
Clone your voice or pick from 10,000+ community voices
Apply styles or emotions ([excited], [whisper], etc.) to tailor delivery
Export narration, ads, or assistant voices into your sales and marketing channels
First step: Try ElevenLabs by recording one campaign ad in multiple voices. Run an A/B test to see which resonates most with your audience.
For a full overview on everything ElevenLabs can do, check out this video:
🎯Precision: A real-world case where the strategy clicked—and what it means for growth, trust, and traction
Rewiring for AI Value: What McKinsey’s 2025 Report Really Shows
McKinsey’s State of AI 2025 report highlights a hard truth: while adoption is high, most companies still aren’t realizing meaningful ROI from AI.
At first glance, the numbers look impressive: 78% of organizations report using AI in at least one business function. But dig deeper-only 21% have fundamentally redesigned their workflows to unlock real value. Most firms are layering AI on top of old processes rather than restructuring around it.
What happened next:
Companies with CEO- or board-level oversight of AI are the ones seeing measurable business impact.
Early adopters are finding traction in marketing personalization, service operations, and IT-but few are reporting large-scale bottom-line results yet.
Why most fail to capture value:
Treating AI as a bolt-on tool instead of rethinking workflows
Lack of governance or leadership involvement
Automating without change management or reskilling plans
What it means for consulting:
The consulting industry itself is in flux. Much of the “grunt work” that powered the traditional consulting model-research, benchmarking, analysis-is now automated by AI. This undermines the old pyramid structure where armies of junior consultants fed senior strategists.
The shift:
Value proposition change → Clients now expect consultants to act as AI integrators and transformation partners, not just deck-builders.
Internal disruption → Firms are using AI themselves (e.g., McKinsey’s “Lilli,” BCG’s “GENE”) to cut costs and deliver faster.
Narrative control → Reports like McKinsey’s don’t just inform clients-they also reframe the AI story to position consulting firms as essential guides through transformation.
What it teaches: AI success isn’t about experimenting everywhere-it’s about precision in where and how you apply it. And for consulting firms, success depends on adapting their own models while convincing clients they remain indispensable.
How to apply it as a leader:
When choosing consulting partners, prioritize those who can demonstrate real workflow transformation, not just strategy slides.
Inside your company, start with one critical workflow (sales outreach, marketing personalization, or customer onboarding) and redesign it end-to-end with AI in mind.
Put executive governance in place early-this is where value capture actually happens.
Build safeguards and human oversight into any high-risk or customer-facing automation.
Bottom line: Don’t mistake adoption for impact. The firms winning with AI aren’t the ones using it everywhere-they’re the ones rewiring key workflows with precision. And remember: many consulting firms are still figuring this out themselves. In some ways, it’s the blind leading the blind-so choose partners who can show proof of transformation, not just theory.
🚀 Momentum — A custom GPT to help you take action today
Scenario Simulator GPT: Stress-Test Your Strategy Before You Roll It Out
Most leadership teams make decisions with limited time and incomplete information. The Scenario Simulator GPT lets you model strategic “what ifs” in minutes. It takes your company profile and a core challenge, like automating lead qualification, pivoting campaigns, or expanding to new markets, and generates outcomes, SWOT analyses, and alternative plays you can take to your team.
Who it’s for: CEOs, founders, CROs, CMOs, and strategy leaders who want to anticipate risks, pressure-test moves, and get decision-ready insights fast.
What it does: You enter your company context (size, industry, priorities) and your strategic question. The GPT then runs scenario analysis, projecting outcomes, highlighting risks, surfacing second-order effects, and providing a simple executive brief with action items.
Why it’s worth using:
Cuts down weeks of “what if” discussions into minutes
Provides structured SWOT and scenario analysis you can share with leadership
Surfaces risks before they become costly mistakes
Suggests alternative plays you might not have considered
*Note: You will need a ChatGPT account (ideally a Plus or Team plan) to run this GPT.
The best insights come from conversations with people actually doing this work.
If you're experimenting with AI in your sales and marketing, I'd love to hear what you're learning—the failures are often as valuable as the wins.
You can find me sharing more of these observations daily on LinkedIn.
If this resonated, share it with someone else figuring out this puzzle.
Cheers,
—
Alexandria Ohlinger
CEO, Leadway