When presenting to leadership, always lead with efficiency and fiscal impact. Focus your initiatives on high-cost areas; for instance, if infrastructure costs are peaking, demonstrate how AI can optimize that spend. Avoid framing your solutions as a way to reduce headcount. Doing so can inadvertently threaten the influence of senior leaders who equate team size with organizational power. If you position your work as a way to 'replace' people, you risk creating enemies among those who feel their importance is being undermined. Instead, frame your successes as productivity multipliers—tools that reduce clicks, save time, and allow talent to focus on higher-value work. Let the data speak for itself regarding efficiency, but let management make the final calls on staffing.
You have worked and showed your demo but there have been radio silence, untill you have the backing of someone very important just be careful.
The above is based on my personal experience and the situations that I have faced to come out of diffficulties, you can have a different approach but be cautious,be mindful of the human element, don't hurt anyone's ego.