Good Morning Reader it's Maria,

By now, I have had enough conversations about AI transformation to spot the pattern. Some companies keep getting stuck at the same bump in the road, and nine times out of ten, it comes down to the same issue: nobody actually owns the AI rollout.

When most businesses decide to get serious about AI, their first instinct is to do the obvious thing and hand it to IT. It makes sense on paper. AI is a technology, so give it to the tech people and let them figure it out.

But that's where I disagree, AI transformation is not a technology project and treating it like one is probably the most expensive mistake you can make.

If podcasts are more your speed, I've got you covered; there's a discussion about this topic available now here.

THE BIG IDEA

Here is the conventional approach, and why it is wrong.

When companies think of AI as an efficiency tool, a way to do the same with less, they hand ownership to whoever manages costs and systems: IT gets the budget, Legal gets the governance, and the people side of it gets forgotten...

So the technology gets rolled out, employees are asked to start using it, but nobody's told them why this is happening, and they don't get any training on how to use it properly.

It should then not come as a surprise when a year later, nothing has changed, and the great profits promised by AI or expected by the C-Suite do not show up.

Here is my take: every organisation says AI is a priority, but priorities have owners, and until someone's performance, role, and accountability are tied to it, it is not really a priority; it is a wish.

If AI is brought in as an efficiency tool, fine, IT can own it. But if it is a productivity engine you want, a way to make your people more capable, your expertise go further, your work look fundamentally different, then the whole ownership question changes, because that is not a technology project, it's a people project.

This is where the CEO has to be in on it, not running the day-to-day obviously, but owning the decision about what it is for and who is accountable for making it happen.

BCG shared a report at the World Economic Forum, which found that the C-level executives who are deeply engaged with AI are 12 times more likely to be among the companies winning with AI innovation.

You cannot delegate your way to transformation. But you also cannot do it alone.

I believe that what actually works is distributed ownership with central accountability:

The CEO holds the vision. Operations owns workflow redesign. IT enables and governs. And HR owns the part that determines whether any of this succeeds: workforce adoption, role redesign, skills development, change management, and trust.

And yet this is exactly what's not happening.

The people who contact me are rarely the CEO. They are the person inside the business who believes in AI, who has spotted the opportunity, and is trying to push it forward alongside their actual job.

The CEO is usually supportive because everyone agrees AI is important and some budget has been set aside for it, but nobody has sat down and thought about who's going to run this. And if they have appointed someone, it's usually someone who already has a full-time job and takes this on as a side project.

As we all know, that's not how you lead transformation or get any good results, because at some point it will stall when things get busy and never quite get the traction and momentum everyone expects.

And this is where the people function comes in. The Chief People Officer, or whoever leads HR in your organisation, should be invited into this conversation from the start because workforce adoption, role redesign, skills development, and change management that's HR's work.

The data backs this up. Gartner surveyed 426 senior HR leaders this year and found that the number one priority for 2026 is harnessing AI to transform how people work. And yet only 21% of those leaders are currently in the room when AI strategy gets decided.

That's a problem.

Some big companies have already seen this and have restructured their people leadership roles to explicitly combine people strategy with AI adoption.

So my advice here is simple: someone in your organisation needs to have this as their actual job. Not a side project they fit in around everything else. Their job. With a clear mandate, the right level of seniority, the resources to execute on it and a direct line to the top.

Because the cost of getting this wrong is not small.

It will show up in the expensive tools that were purchased but never used by the employees, in employee engagement, with employees resenting the change because nobody brought them along, or in good people leaving because the organisation stopped investing in them

Deloitte found that organisations investing properly in the people side of AI transformation are 1.8 times more likely to report better financial results. The gap between companies getting this right and those getting it wrong is widening every quarter.

And the consequences of a badly managed transformation will be long, costly, and painful. It is not like a bad software decision, where you can just switch tools and move on. No, when you mess up with people, you have to rebuild trust, and we know that that takes a lot of time ( If it can even be done).

What's ironic is that the secret to getting AI adoption right in your organisation is not about the AI at all; it is about getting the human side right.

Don't know where to start?

​Book a free consultation and let's chat!

THE ACTION STEP

Wherever you sit in this conversation, here are three questions you can ask yourself.

In your organisation, who owns workforce adoption, role redesign, and AI upskilling?

Write down the name and title. If it is nobody specific, or someone doing it alongside another full-time job, you have a problem.

Is your people function in the room when AI strategy gets decided?

Not informed afterwards, actually in the room and part of the conversation. If not, what would it take to change that this quarter?

Is your organisation treating AI as an efficiency tool or a productivity engine?

The answer to that question determines everything else, including who should own it.

Just get clarity about what AI is actually for in your business.

Have you just signed up? See all previous newsletters here.​

AI MADE SIMPLE

Use AI to help you map where ownership gaps exist in your organisation.

Paste this into Claude or ChatGPT:

"I am a [your role] at a [size and type of organisation]. We are in the process of AI adoption. Currently, AI initiatives are being led by [describe who and how]. Help me map the key functions that need clear ownership in a proper AI transformation: workforce adoption, role redesign, skills development, change management, governance, and leadership accountability. For each one, identify who typically owns it, who should own it, and what the risks are if it is left unassigned or given to the wrong function."

What comes back will give you a clear picture of the gaps and a starting point for the conversation your leadership team probably needs to have.

That's all for today Reader

Have a great weekend!👋🏼

Take Care

Maria

PS: If you want to explore what working together looks like, book a free call

PPS: If you enjoy these emails and want to do something nice, you can buy me a coffee 😉

​​​