This whole AI thing is simpler than you think

"At least three-quarters of the speaking invitations I get these days are about AI. But lately, they're for different reasons. Companies used to bring me in under the assumption that artificial intelligence was going to change everything. So they'd ask me to talk about the jobless future, prompt engineering, or automating marketing online. Today, they're asking a different kind of question: What went wrong? Where are the promised productivity gains? In other words, why isn't AI helping our company do stuff?"

"And if I were to answer honestly, I'd tell them the simple truth: It's because you and your people don't know what you want to do with it! This is not a technology problem or even a people problem, but an organizational one. Most companies are trying to run 21st-century AI-enabled companies on 20th-century industrial age architectures. The goals and the values are simply not aligned."

"The failure of AI to increase productivity isn't just cherry-picked anecdote or idle speculation. According to Microsoft's own study, only 25% of AI initiatives achieved expected returns over the past three years. Computer scientist Gary Marcus has been writing about the hype and misplaced hope around large language models (LLMs) for just as long. But the problem here is not that AI can't do great stuff; it's that organizations are not yet thinking in a human-first way about technology."

Most speaking invitations now focus on AI and on questions about why promised productivity gains have not materialized. The core problem is organizational: companies and employees often lack clarity about what to do with AI. Many firms attempt to run AI-enabled operations on industrial-age architectures, producing misaligned goals and values. Microsoft's study found only 25% of AI initiatives met expected returns in three years, and critics warn of hype around large language models. A human-first approach, termed the Human OS, requires redesigning human systems and organizational structures so people can utilize, grow with, and realize value from AI.

Read at Fast Company