Three philosophies, one format
Reading these memos side by side, a pattern emerges. They all use the same format (CEO writes to all employees about AI transformation) but contain three fundamentally different philosophies about what "AI-first" means.
AI as gate. Shopify, Duolingo, and Fiverr share a version of this: before you get resources (headcount, budget, tools), demonstrate that AI can't do the work. The human must justify their role relative to AI. This is the most provocative framing, and it generates the most press.
AI as ladder. Box takes this approach. AI doesn't replace people, it makes them more productive, and the productivity gains get reinvested. Teams that adopt AI get more resources, not fewer. Levie specifically contrasted his approach with Duolingo's "prove AI can't do it" framing.
AI as fait accompli. Klarna didn't write a forward-looking memo. It reported what had already happened. This framing is the riskiest. When Klarna's numbers turned out to tell a simpler story than reality allowed, the reversal was public and awkward.
The memo is the strategy
The CEO AI memo isn't a communication about strategy. It is strategy. Writing it and publishing it under your own name does several things at once that no Slack message or quiet policy change could.
It creates accountability. Every manager now has cover to enforce it and no room to ignore it. It sets the narrative externally. Investors, analysts, and potential hires all read these memos. Lutke didn't just tell Shopify employees to use AI. He told the market that Shopify is an AI company. And it creates peer pressure. Not having a memo started to look like not having a strategy.
Nobody defines it
The most revealing thing about these memos is what's absent: a definition. None of them define what "AI-first" actually means. Lutke says it's a "baseline expectation" but doesn't specify what that looks like for a designer vs. a supply chain manager. Von Ahn says Duolingo is "AI-first" but has to walk it back months later because people filled in their own definition.
That's not a flaw. The memo works because it's directional rather than definitional. It says "this is where we're going" without getting bogged down in what it looks like when you arrive.
The investors are further along on definitions than the operators. Bessemer draws a line between companies advancing AI as a science vs. using it as a distribution machine. Intel Capital uses a four-tier spectrum from AI-Enhanced to AI-Native. Sequoia looks at revenue per employee. Hit $1M+ and you're probably the real thing.
But the CEOs don't need taxonomies. They need momentum. And the memo, public, permanent, attached to their name, creates it.
The Klarna lesson
Every CEO writing one of these memos should read Klarna's story. Siemiatkowski went further than anyone: a hiring freeze, a 40% headcount reduction, public celebrations of AI replacing hundreds of agents. Then he reversed course, admitted quality had suffered, and started hiring humans again.
He's been more open about this than most executives would be. He's publicly wrestled with the implications, writing that AI could make his own role unnecessary, which he finds "gloomy." But the arc (from loud AI-first announcements to quietly hiring humans again) exposes the gap between the CEO AI memo as a communications device and what's actually happening inside the company.