The Win You Can't See

AI done right disappears into the work.

If you read the free version, you saw IBM walk back one of its biggest claims: AI for everyone became AI where it fits — we can make it work in these specific areas. I wanted to dig into why so many of these initiatives fail, and it’s not new. We aren’t building on solid foundations.

But more importantly, it’s about mindset. Move fast and break things was the Agile discovery approach. Now it’s the motto for AI integration. It’s the Raptors testing the fence: we’re probing for the right spot to make AI fit, and the breaking is how we find it.

It means moving decisions to the people running the plays, and giving them permission to fail fast, learn, then redirect. It means stopping putting off that foundational rebuild because it “TOO BIG a lift”. Give teams with real ownership to carry out a plan, knowing there will be twists and turns. If we stop pressuring every effort to show the ROI, we might actually build something useful. Where it really falls short is leadership deciding there’s only one direction when the real path looks more like the roots of a tree.