Mandating AI Will Fail

Follow your natural leaders into uncharted territory

Look, I know I can be obsessive about things. AI triggers me in ways I can't help but dive deep on: coming up with a billion ideas and chopping them down, auditing everything based on viability, feasibility, and desirability, creating actionable insights, refining processes and ways of working. It's made a huge impact on my life and honestly invigorated me in ways I’m not sure I can fully articulate.

But here's the thing: while AI has entered our world, I've been working with diverse teams at a massive agency (#1 in the world, in fact), in financial services companies, and ecommerce brands you know and use. Even in that world, my obsession with AI is an anomaly. Today, I know a select few who have truly adopted it into their daily workflow.

Two Realities

Reality #1: The AI Champions
In every organization, there are a handful of us who have genuinely integrated AI into their day. Their experiences become the "success stories," leading lunch-and-learns and getting quoted in company all-hands about "AI transformation."

Reality #2: Everyone Else
The other folks have barely touched these tools beyond the mandatory demo. They know the AI platform exists, the company has invested and hopes they'll use it. Everyone might have it bookmarked, but ask them how they use it - they get shy.

This isn't about resistance or lack of capability. So what's really happening?

Why Adoption is Actually Low

• The Integration Problem
  AI tools live in isolation. Teams adopt Slack, Jira, and Figma because these solve clear problems, integrate with existing processes, and have social components that facilitate collaboration. AI tools require you to leave your workflow, think differently about your task, struggle independently, then manually translate the output back.

• The Context Gap
  AI works best with rich context and clear prompts. But most business work is messy and nuanced. The difference between useful AI output and generic fluff comes down to how well you frame the problem, both in implementation and usage. This is a strategic skill that takes time to develop. Without vision, purpose, and demonstrated possibilities, your AI platform and users will just stare at each other, blankly.

• The Trust Barrier
  In high-stakes decisions, trust matters. The blank page can intimidate users from the start, and even when they get going, AI outputs feel like rough drafts, not final answers. The time required to prompt, verify, refine, and take ownership often doesn't feel worth it.

Turning Hype Into Reality

Smart organizations aren't celebrating implementation, adoption metrics, or mandating AI usage. They're quietly asking different questions:

• "What specific problems do we need to solve?"
  Teams seeing real AI impact aren't vaguely adopting new technology. They're using it as a solution for clearly defined challenges where the value is obvious and immediate.

• "How do we scale what's working?"
  Successful implementations start with power users who become natural advocates, then expand through empowering mentorship and peer learning rather than top-down mandates or vague offerings.

• "What does success actually look like?"
  When you clearly define the challenges to solve, success metrics stand out: time saved on specific tasks, quality improvements in specific outputs, acceleration of decision-making processes.

The Path Forward

Organizations honest about low adoption rates are better positioned for success. They can focus on solving real problems rather than managing perception. The question isn't whether your team is using AI. The question is whether you're solving real problems that matter to your business outcomes.

This is exactly where experience strategy leadership makes the difference. Rather than simply investing in technology, you need to identify your AI advocates, understand what's working for them, and create a culture of innovation that doesn't feel like mandates or job replacement threats.

The goal isn't simply AI adoption. It's about empowering your people, helping them stay competitive in the marketplace while driving measurable business success for your organization.

If you're navigating the gap between technology hype and business reality, let's talk about how you and I can collaborate to help your business move forward with speed, clarity, and confidence.