The Real AI Divide? Execs vs. Employees
- 3 days ago
- 1 min read
Executives love GenAI.
Employees use it.
MIT’s new NANDA report drops a stat that should terrify transformation teams:95% of AI automation efforts fail to deliver measurable ROI.
But here’s the twist: it’s not the tech. It’s the org.
The few winners—the 5%—do a few things differently:
• They go narrow: one use case, big impact
• They empower pilots beyond the C-suite
• They partner with vendors who embed, not just sell
• And they make ROI someone’s job, not just a slide
Meanwhile, real value is emerging where no one’s looking: “shadow AI.”Employees are already using ChatGPT and Claude to streamline work—without waiting for permission.
That’s where adoption lives. Quiet. Unofficial. Human.
If AI isn't landing, maybe it’s not about the model.
Maybe it’s because you never negotiated internal adoption in the first place.
You can’t scale what your people don’t trust.
You can’t transform what your workflows don’t support.
Will your next pilot fail because you forgot to ask:
What do they want out of this?
