The headline story in business today is that AI is over hyped, unpredictable, and failing to deliver the promised transformation. Leaders point to stalled pilots, expensive tools that nobody uses, and dashboards that fade into irrelevance. But after two decades leading enterprise transformations across life sciences, manufacturing, retail, chemicals, oil and gas, and public agencies, I have learned something much more uncomfortable and consistent: AI is not failing companies; instead,companies are failing AI.
To me, this is a controversy worth facing directly because the gap between AI’s potential and its real impact isn’t a technical issue. It’s an organizational one. The failure begins well before the first model is trained. It starts with leadership beliefs, cultural blind spots, and strategic shortcuts that weaken the system long before AI ever enters the conversation. I observed that many leaders want the benefits of intelligence without the discipline required to build it. They seek automation without redesigning processes, efficiency without...
