Markup AI’s CEO, Matt Blumberg, has created an AI-generated “fantasy board of directors” of 15 digital advisors to help him plan meetings and challenge his business ideas. The group includes AI versions of famous leaders like Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, and Oprah Winfrey. Blumberg said he uses these AI tools to get faster feedback, since his real board members may not always be available to provide it. The system uses profiles built from thousands of words of public data to copy the leadership styles of these famous figures. By using models like ChatGPT and Gemini, the CEO can now get advice on business proposals and prepare for real-world governance tasks at any time.
What MarkupAI CEO said about his AI-powered ‘fantasy board of directors’
In a statement to Fortune, Blumberg said, “As a CEO steering a company’s strategy and execution, any additional inputs and learnings and challenges strengthen my work.” He also explained that in the fast-moving AI industry, his fantasy board gives him quick, ‘whenever-he-needs-it’ advice that traditional board meetings sometimes can’t provide.He noted that setting up the fantasy board only took about an hour or two and is now an “incredible supplemental tool” for preparing for real board meetings with human members or working on internal company projects.He also asked the AI to evaluate his work performance in 2025, which he said it “nailed” by highlighting his real strengths and weaknesses.Right now, Blumberg is using the technology to prepare for his annual employee and board meetings. But like any AI, he stressed that it’s not perfect.“With any AI agents, you need to be really careful not to believe the bullshit. They’re predictive, and they’re good, but not perfect. They’re not human, and they miss a lot of cues,” Blumberg added.“I’ll say things like: Hey, I’m doing a presentation for our kickoff meeting next week. What do you think are the top three themes I should hit?” he said to Business Insider (BI).However, for Blumberg, the technology isn’t about replacing people, but it’s about helping them do better. He said his real board of directors isn’t worried about being replaced anytime soon.“They viewed the fantasy board the same way I do, which is that it’s a nice add-on, a sort of augmentation of thought partnership. But that it’s never going to be a substitute for a real board,” he said to BI.Blumberg’s experiment is part of a broader trend in which companies are integrating AI into top-level decision-making and company leadership.Last week, JPMorgan Chase announced it was cutting ties with major advisory firms ISS and Glass Lewis. Instead, it’s using its own AI-powered platform, Proxy IQ, to help inform shareholder voting decisions. This shows how deeply AI tools are being used.Other CEOs have gone even further with AI, sometimes by creating virtual versions of themselves.Zoom CEO Eric Yuan appeared on an earnings call last year as an AI-generated avatar that looked and sounded like him, delivering his opening remarks.“I am proud to be among the first CEOs to use an avatar in an earnings call. It is just one example of how Zoom is pushing the boundaries of communication and collaboration,” Yuan’s AI avatar said.This happened after Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski did something similar, using an AI-generated video copy of himself on an earnings call. The financial tech company has also created a 24/7 “AI CEO Hotline,” which answers customer questions in Siemiatkowski’s speaking style, in both English and Swedish.
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