What if you could sit down with Steve Jobs, Henry Ford and Oprah Winfrey and ask for advice on your next big decision?

While none of these icons are available for a board meeting, artificial intelligence offers something surprisingly close: the ability to simulate perspectives, communication styles and decision-making approaches inspired by well-known business leaders.

For small and midsize businesses, this can be a fun and useful way to pressure-test ideas, explore different viewpoints and uncover blind spots before committing time and resources.

Your New Boardroom

Modern AI tools can adopt personas based on publicly available information about notable leaders, entrepreneurs and thinkers. While these simulations aren't the actual people—and shouldn't be treated as infallible sources—they can provide valuable frameworks for evaluating decisions.

Imagine you're considering opening a second location.

You might ask AI to respond as:

• Steve Jobs, focusing on customer experience and brand impact
• Henry Ford, emphasizing efficiency, scalability and operational processes
• Oprah Winfrey, considering people, culture and emotional connection
• Warren Buffett, evaluating financial risk and long-term value
• Sara Blakely, looking for opportunities to innovate and challenge assumptions

The result is a collection of perspectives that may highlight considerations you hadn't previously explored.

Why It Works

Business owners often fall into the trap of seeking advice from people who think similarly to themselves. AI personas encourage you to examine an idea through multiple lenses.

For example, if you're considering outsourcing part of your production process, a finance-oriented persona may focus on cost savings. A customer-focused persona may question whether quality could suffer. A culture-focused persona may raise concerns about employee morale. A visionary persona may challenge whether outsourcing solves the right problem in the first place.

None of the responses are guaranteed to be correct. The value comes from exposing assumptions and generating new questions.

In many ways, the exercise resembles a structured brainstorming session—one that can happen anytime without scheduling a meeting.

Beyond Big Decisions

An AI advisory board isn't limited to strategic initiatives. Businesses are using AI to evaluate:

• Marketing campaigns
• Product launches
• Hiring strategies
• Customer service improvements
• Website redesigns
• Sales approaches
• Internal policies

You can even use it for lighter topics. Planning an employee appreciation event? Ask your AI board what would create the greatest impact. Designing a trade show booth? Let your virtual advisors critique the concept from different angles. The process often uncovers practical ideas that might otherwise remain unexplored.

Keep It Grounded

Of course, AI-generated advice should never replace expertise, experience or common sense. Think of your advisory board as a creative sounding board rather than a decision-making authority.

The best results occur when AI complements real-world input from employees, customers, accountants, attorneys, industry experts and trusted advisors.

If every AI persona loves your idea, that's not necessarily validation. It simply means you've gathered another set of perspectives to consider.

Sidebar: Building Effective AI Personas

Creating a useful AI advisory board is easier than you might think. Start with clear instructions. Rather than saying, "Act like Steve Jobs," try:

"Respond as Steve Jobs might. Focus on simplicity, customer experience, innovation and brand differentiation."

The more specific your instructions, the more useful the responses tend to be.

Test Multiple Versions

Try asking the same question several different ways. For example, one version of a Warren Buffett persona might emphasize risk and financial fundamentals, while another focuses on competitive advantage and long-term strategy.

Ask for Criticism

Many users unintentionally prompt AI to agree with them. Avoid this with questions like:

"Identify flaws in this plan."

"What am I overlooking?"

"What would make this fail?"

These prompts often generate the most valuable insights.

Compare Perspectives

The real power emerges when several personas evaluate the same issue and you compare their recommendations side by side. You may discover that the best answer isn't any single response, but rather a combination of insights from several different viewpoints.

So, while you can't actually convene a meeting with Steve Jobs, Henry Ford and Oprah, with a little imagination and the right prompts you can create a virtual advisory board that never misses a meeting and is always ready to offer another perspective.