Most AI projects fail because companies chase shiny tech instead of solving real problems. 95% of pilots flop when you treat AI like magic instead of a business tool.
The story
Most AI implementations fail because companies treat them like magic wands instead of business tools.
The problem isn’t the technology – it’s the approach. Research shows 95% of generative AI pilots are failing, with over 80% of AI projects never making it to production.
Here’s what actually works: treating AI like a scalpel, not a sledgehammer.
After 30 years in tech, I’ve seen this pattern repeatedly. Teams get excited about AI’s possibilities but frustrated by its complexity. The breakthrough comes when you stop asking “What can AI do?” and start asking “What’s wasting our people’s time?”
That shift changes everything.
I recently helped a development team cut deployment time from 6 hours to 2 hours by automating their testing workflows. Nothing fancy – just removed the manual bottleneck that ate their afternoons.
The automations I design consistently triple efficiency because they solve actual problems, not imaginary ones. They integrate with existing workflows instead of replacing them entirely.
Business leaders often ask about AI strategy. The winning approach: start with your biggest time-waster and work backward to the solution. Don’t start with the coolest AI feature and try to find a problem for it.
The companies winning with AI aren’t the ones with the most sophisticated models. They’re the ones with the clearest understanding of what needs fixing.
That’s the difference between AI theater and AI results.
Need a player-coach who turns technical complexity into business results? Let’s talk.
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