CEOs and leadership teams can’t afford to “dabble” in GenAI from the sidelines. To really understand its impact, they need a secure way to use AI directly on their own contracts, board decks, CRM data, and plans. This article explains why we recommend OpenAI ChatGPT Teams (not the $20/month consumer version) as the primary, secure employee chatbot for your top 40 leaders, and how a modest investment of ~$40K can unlock roughly 10,000 hours of additional leadership capacity in under a year.
CEOs and leadership teams must collectively experience and apply GenAI with their own confidential business data to truly understand its transformational potential.
In this age of exploding AI innovation and disruption, CEOs and their management teams are not aggressively learning and applying AI. Far too many business leaders don't have an intuitive feel for the power of GenAI and view GenAI as an IT project.
Learning the power of GenAI is a contact sport (like swimming or riding a bike). You cannot learn GenAI via delegation. GenAI projects buried in the organization and the support of a handful of GenAI enthusiasts at lower levels are not sufficient efforts.
Often cited adoption barriers of cost and security are red herrings.
Our Recommendation
OpenAI has both consumer and business versions of its products:
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Consumer versions of its product (free, Plus ($20/mo), and Pro ($200/mo)).
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Business versions: ChatGPT Teams and ChatGPT Enterprise.
This article focuses on the Teams version. Neither business versions don't use your data to train their models, and both versions have enterprise-class security.
Use OpenAI ChatGPT Teams ($30/mo/employee) with company confidential data for the CEO and leadership teams to drive value and accelerate learning.
The OpenAI ChatGPT Teams version is similar at the user level to the popular $20 plus consumer version.
OpenAI ChatGPT Teams looks like the consumer version ($20/mo). But your company name is in the footer and logo in the top right corner.
OpenAI ChatGPT Teams Doesn't Use Your Data to Train and Has Enterprise-Class Security
If you use a hosted or SaaS application like Salesforce, Microsoft Office, NetSuite, or HubSpot with confidential employee information, then you can, with the same confidence, use ChatGPT Teams.
Data ownership and control
Security features
Administration and governance
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Granular Workspace Administration
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Customizable Data Retention Policies
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Third-Party API Integration Controls
Compliance
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Regulatory compliance support for GDPR and CCPA
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Regular third-party penetration testing
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Persistent memory with user control
For $30/month per employee, you get a company-specific "ChatGPT" that can be used confidently with company-sensitive information like proposals, contracts, customer purchase history from your CRM, analysis of business plans, contracts, etc.
Use OpenAI ChatGPT Teams and Not Microsoft Copilot
Our GAI Insights community and our work with companies consistently find that users prefer OpenAI ChatGPT over other AI chatbots like Microsoft Copilot. ChatGPT has the most advanced AI models, the most features, and remains the market leader. Dozens and dozens of people have told us that they have access to both OpenAI ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, and consistently prefer the former.
Moreover, using the market leader secure chatbot (OpenAI) instills confidence in your employees, especially since their kids, grandkids, and neighbors are all using it for personal, work, and school use.
Stop jumping from AI tool to AI tool and obsessing over learning multiple AI products. Pick one to "major" in. AI innovation is changing so fast that a feature that is missing in one secure employee chatbot (Claude, Gemini, Copilot, ChatGPT, etc.) is often added in weeks or months.
Our Recommendation
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The CEO commits to group training and the use of ChatGPT Teams for 12 months for the top leaders and directors of the company
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Work with IT to ensure a written Employee GenAI Use Policy that is updated and names AI tools so there is no confusion
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Schedule a 6-hour hands-on workshop with an outside facilitator. An instructor-led GenAI training is the only effective way for rapid learning -- emailing links to YouTube videos and relying on self-learning doesn't work. Half of the agenda is dedicated to working in small teams on department-specific use cases with confidential company data
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Implement change management follow-up: regular "office hours" to learn, celebrate, department-specific training, etc.
ROI and Benefits
Assume 40 top executives and leaders.
Software and training cost:
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40 employees use ChatGPT Teams at $30/mo for 12 months: $14,400
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GenAI Training (initial and ongoing support): $25,000
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Total: $39,400
Assumptions
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Assume 40 employees average fully loaded costs of $150K, which equals $6,000,000 labor cost per year.
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Assume each employee works 2,080 hours per year, so 83,200 total hours
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Assume an average of 5 hours saved per week per employee (5 hours/week × 50 weeks × 40 employees) = 10,000 additional hours of capacity for your top 40 employees. 5 hours is the average, as a power user will save 10-15 hours.
Benefits
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What value do you put on 10,000 hours of additional capacity for your top 40 employees?
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5 hours saved on average per employee drives a payback of <12 months
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Better decision-making on profiting from larger AI investments
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Improved employee satisfaction and retention
Prompts Examples to Use with Company Confidential Data
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Legal Analysis: "You are an outstanding lawyer. Analyze this confidential customer or vendor contract. Identify top legal risks and suggest ways to improve."
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Board Preparation: "You are an excellent and savvy board member of publicly traded companies. Critique my board presentation. What are likely 3 questions that Board members will ask?"
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Sales Enhancement: "You are an expert HVAC salesperson. Review this confidential $4M proposal. Identify weaknesses in the argument and top 5 questions"
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Strategic Pricing: "You are a pricing expert. Here is our current price list. Create 3 different pricing strategies for a recession."
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Customer Analysis: "You are an expert financial analyst. Here is data from our Salesforce CRM about our top customer purchasing history. Analyze for trends."
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HR Support: "You are an expert HR manager. Here are the last two written performance reviews for a key employee. Summarize their strengths and weaknesses. Compare to this new job description."
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Business Planning: "You are an expert business strategist. Here is our confidential 3-year business plan. What are the logical inconsistencies? Identify the biggest risks and opportunities."
Frequently Asked Questions about OpenAI ChatGPT Teams for Leadership
1. Is OpenAI ChatGPT Teams safe for confidential company data?
Yes. ChatGPT Teams is designed for business use and does not use your data to train OpenAI’s models. Your company keeps ownership of its data, which is encrypted in transit and at rest, with controls like SOC 2 compliance, MFA, admin tools, and configurable data-retention policies.
2. How is ChatGPT Teams different from the $20/month consumer version of ChatGPT?
The $20/month Plus plan is a consumer product for individuals, while ChatGPT Teams is a business offering built for organizations. Teams adds workspace administration, centralized billing, enterprise-grade security, and clear data-usage guarantees. For end users, it feels similar to Plus, but it’s designed for safe use with confidential company information.
3. Why do you recommend ChatGPT Teams over Microsoft Copilot for leadership learning?
In our work with companies, leaders consistently report that they prefer OpenAI ChatGPT for depth, flexibility, and speed of innovation. ChatGPT remains the most widely used general-purpose AI chatbot, and many employees already know it from personal use. Rather than spreading attention across multiple tools, we recommend “majoring” in ChatGPT Teams and building real habits and workflows around it.
4. What ROI can a CEO expect from rolling out ChatGPT Teams to a 40-person leadership team?
Our model assumes 40 leaders, each saving around 5 hours per week, which yields roughly 10,000 hours of additional capacity per year. With about $39,400 in combined software and training costs, that translates to payback in well under 12 months for organizations with multi-million-dollar leadership payrolls. The biggest upside comes from better decisions and faster execution, not just hours saved.
5. What do we need in place before deploying ChatGPT Teams to executives?
You’ll need IT sign-off on security, SSO/MFA configuration, and data-retention settings, plus named workspace admins. Just as important is a clear Employee GenAI Use Policy that specifies which AI tools are approved and what types of confidential data can be used. Once that foundation is set, you can move directly into hands-on training with real company documents and data.
6. What are the biggest risks when adopting ChatGPT Teams, and how can we avoid them?
The main risks are low adoption and unclear guardrails, not the technology itself. Programs fail when companies buy licenses without structured training, don’t define use cases, or leave employees unsure about what’s allowed. You avoid this by having visible CEO sponsorship, running an instructor-led workshop with real use cases, and following up with office hours and department-specific sessions to turn early wins into repeatable workflows.
Summary
CEO and leaders need to jumpstart their collective learning and AI adoption. Incremental "tweaks" to learning are no longer sufficient in this Age of AI Disruption.
This is best done as a group using a secure employee chatbot. We strongly recommend OpenAI ChatGPT Teams with instructor-led training. An investment of $30K will jumpstart organizational learning, improve AI project identification and prioritization, enhance attraction and retention of key employees, and drive millions in value to the company.
“The only skill that will be important in the 21st century is the skill of learning new skills. Everything else will become obsolete over time.” - Peter Drucker
Onward,
Paul
GAI Insights Team
