“We’re building an AI-ready culture” sounds like progress. In practice, it often means something much simpler.The licences were purchased. Everyone got access. A few champions ran pilots in low-stakes corners of the business — a chatbot for FAQs, a summariser for meeting notes.
Leadership sent an email about embracing innovation, and maybe a slide made it into the all-hands presentation.
In the short term, it looks like momentum. Adoption numbers go up, usage dashboards look healthy. The next board update writes itself: usage is increasing, sentiment is positive — and the narrative remains intact.
But something important doesn’t happen. Behaviour doesn’t change. Without a shift in how decisions get made, people simply use AI to do the same old work faster.
A manager who used to write a status report in an hour now writes it in 15 minutes, then spends the saved time doing more of the same work.
