If you’re a business leader evaluating AI investments, you’ve likely sat through countless vendor pitches promising to “transform your operations” or “unlock unprecedented efficiency.” You’ve probably also noticed that most AI implementations fail to deliver on these promises, not because the technology doesn’t work, but because organizations treat AI as just another technology deployment.
AI is not a technology implementation. It’s a Labor Strategy.
Understanding this distinction is critical to capturing the extraordinary value AI can create and avoiding the expensive mistakes that sink most AI initiatives.
In 1998 I was sitting at the bar of Frankie, Johnnie and Luigi Too! on El Camino Real in Mountain View (the original - if you know you know) talking about CRM - this was when Clarify and Siebel were dominant - and all the potential business benefits that could be achieved when business were able to really know their customers and serve them as individuals. One of my coworkers said – “But, customers are never going to share that data”.
