Beware of “trophy-style” AI adoption

Companies are celebrating AI usage for its own sake, but activity isn’t the same as impact.

Most enterprise generative AI investments have yet to deliver the value companies envisioned, and every day, more leaders are recognizing that people lie at the heart of the struggle. In this year’s AI & Data Leadership Executive Benchmark Survey, 93% of executives leading AI and data efforts identified human issues around culture and change management as the primary obstacle to adoption. McKinsey Global Managing Partner Bob Sternfels put it plainly on HBR’s IdeaCast: “Half if not more of the secret sauce” in getting value from AI, he said, “is organizational change, as opposed to technology implementation.”