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AI-Augmented Leadership Is Not About Using AI

April 21, 2026 by Annyce Davis

I thought AI was going to make me more productive. Maybe even give me some of my time back. That was the plan 😅 It didn’t quite work out that way.

Instead, it made it a lot harder to ignore where things were actually broken.

If I’m being honest, the signs were already there. Over the past year of building with AI, I kept seeing the same pattern: the tools weren’t the bottleneck. The system was.

I wrote about some of that in A Year of Building, Learning, and Laughing My Way Through AI at Ford—but I don’t think I fully appreciated what it meant yet.

The model I started with

I was thinking about AI the same way most leaders are right now: As a tool. Something teams could use to move faster. Write code quicker. Summarize more. Do more in less time. And to be fair—it can do that.

But that framing assumes something important: That your system already works.

That your workflows are clean.
That your systems of record are reliable.
That your teams are operating with enough discipline for speed to matter.

If that’s true, AI helps.

If it’s not…

AI doesn’t fix it.
It exposes it.

Jetpack Compose and the Speed of Thinking

February 22, 2026 by Annyce Davis

I wasn’t excited about Jetpack Compose. There. I said it.

When it first came out, it felt like Flutter in a different outfit. Kotlin instead of Dart. Same declarative energy. And look, I didn’t have anything against Flutter. Once you get comfortable with it you can build a solid multiplatform app.

I just didn’t feel the need to adopt something new. XML worked. Views worked. We were shipping.

And then there was the terminology. <insert multiple facepalms> mutableStateOf. derivedStateOf.

It sounded like I needed an encyclopedia just to build a button. I wasn’t eager to relearn concepts I already understood — definitely a lot of “get off my lawn” going on.

Back in 2017 at Google I/O, I ran into Dave Burke. He was leading Android at the time. I asked him what he thought about Flutter. Was it the future? Should we all be paying closer attention?

He didn’t tip his hand. But he mentioned that declarative UI had clear advantages. I remember nodding politely. It was Dave after all. But I wasn’t fully sold.

Years later, however, that comment made a lot more sense.

How I Finally Tamed My Chaotic Files

February 16, 2026 by Annyce Davis

From Raw Notes to Signals — and How AI Became the Multiplier

For years, my file system looked “organized.” Folders. Subfolders. Strategic docs. I even kept an Archive. And yet I still felt friction. Not clutter, per se. But instead, what you could call “cognitive drag.”

I would remember that a decision happened — but not why. I knew we discussed a risk — but couldn’t recall the trade-offs. Ultimately, I had notes — but not leverage.

The problem wasn’t file chaos. It was signal decay. I made it hard for myself to find what actually mattered.

A Year of Building, Learning, and Laughing My Way Through AI at Ford

December 11, 2025 by Annyce Davis

This year at Ford stretched me, humbled me, and—thanks to AI—occasionally saved me from myself.

Ford is the largest organization I’ve ever worked in. Leading at enterprise scale requires patience, clarity, and a sense of humor. Preferably all at once. Some days I brought all three. Other days, I brought coffee ☕ and a prayer 🙏🏼.

And somewhere in the middle of it all, AI slid into my leadership toolkit like, “Hey girl… let me help you with that.”

The model I started with

From Raw Notes to Signals — and How AI Became the Multiplier

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