AI is coming for our jobs, or so we keep hearing. But what if, as AI continues to evolve exponentially, there’s a very human solution to organisations making the most of the opportunities AI brings?

We attended the Reuters Events Momentum AI conference in London recently and noticed this shift. The conversation used to be “what can AI do for our business?”. Now it’s focused on how organisations realise value from AI at scale — whether that’s embedding AI or redesigning organisations around it.

So far, no surprises. It’s a natural evolution of the conversation as confidence and usage grow.

But what we’re hearing from our clients and our network of consultants raises flags. Tools, bespoke agents and systems integrations are now commonplace — but so is a quiet concern that people are using them without a real grasp of their true power or risk. 

Governance matters, of course. So does building capability, new competencies and behavioural change, and understanding your actual starting maturity — rather than the one you’d like to have.

It all comes down to your people. Their understanding of the opportunities and challenges AI provides, their appetite for risk, and their ability to harness the potential of AI to drive real value in their day-to-day work.

The challenge is that most AI rollouts rely on one tool, one project timeframe, one training strategy, despite needing the buy-in of hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals with wildly different starting points, confidence levels and operational needs. 

The organisations getting real value out of AI are the ones which took the time to understand the people they were rolling out to — and how the organisation itself might have to change.

Without a targeted approach to adoption — and treating these changes as the people transformations they are — your new AI rollout will keep showing up as a cost on the balance sheet, and never a return.