Over the last few weeks, I’ve noticed something interesting.
Everyone is talking about AI. But very few people are talking about how businesses should actually begin. Last Friday I spent a couple of hours with the owners of a small residential construction company. Funnily the conversation headed towards AI. (It was not at all in the agenda, funnily the conversation ended up there) Like many businesses, they’d been to an AI seminar, seen what agents and automation could do, and left excited—but also slightly overwhelmed.
They’d heard about AI agents, automation, copilots… all the things dominating our social feeds.
Their question was refreshingly simple:
“How could this actually help our business? Where do we start?”
That, for me, is exactly the right question.
Not “Which AI platform should we buy?” Not “How do we build an AI agent?” Not even “How do we automate everything?”
Just…
How could this genuinely help us?
I think that’s where many organisations are today.
There’s enormous curiosity. And that’s a great place to start.
However, we’re asking businesses to imagine the destination before we’ve helped them understand the journey.
We’re telling businesses about autonomous agents and end-to-end automation before we’ve helped them understand what problems they’re trying to solve.
Recently I read a Harvard Business Review article discussing how AI adoption is placing increasing pressure on middle managers. One of its key observations is that organisations often approach AI as a technology rollout, when in reality it’s an organisational change.
That really resonated with me.
But I think the challenge starts even earlier. Before organisations worry about managing AI, they need a clear pathway for adopting it.
Every business has its own way of creating value.
Different workflows. Different cultures. Different competitive advantages.
In this case, the founders had more than 50 years of experience building homes. That judgment—the countless decisions they’ve made over decades—is one of their biggest competitive advantages.
AI shouldn’t replace that. It should amplify it.
A residential builder doesn’t have the same priorities as a manufacturer.
A professional services firm won’t adopt AI the same way as a retailer.
Even two businesses in the same industry can have completely different starting points.
That’s why I don’t believe AI should begin with technology.
It should begin with understanding. Understanding your people. Understanding your processes. Understanding where friction exists. Understanding what success actually looks like. And why.
Only then should you decide whether AI is the answer—and if it is, which approach makes sense. Our job isn’t simply to introduce businesses to the latest AI tools or agent frameworks.
It’s to help them navigate the journey. To ask better questions.
To provide practical frameworks.
To help them move from curiosity to confidence.
Because one size doesn’t fit all.
The organisations that will succeed with AI won’t necessarily be the ones using the most sophisticated technology.
They’ll be the ones that take the time to define why they’re adopting AI, where it creates value, and how it fits their business.
Technology has never been the hardest part of transformation. People have been saying that for decades, yet we continue to approach every new wave—from ERP to cloud to digital transformation and now AI—as though buying the technology is the transformation. It isn’t. The difficult work has always been helping people make better decisions, redesign processes, and build confidence in a new way of working. AI doesn’t change that. It simply makes it more visible
Building the right pathway is where the real work begins.
I’m working on a simple way to help businesses map this before they touch any tool — more on that soon. I’d love to hear from others.
Where do you think businesses struggle most with AI today? Is it understanding the technology—or understanding where it fits?