Most Companies Aren't Anywhere Near Ready for AI

WEBVTT - Most Companies Aren't Anywhere Near Ready for AI Most companies aren't anywhere near ready for AI, and it's not that they aren't using AI, it's that they can't use AI. Most of the frustration people have with AI not being able to do what they want is actually them not being able to describe what they want. I've consulted for the world's largest companies hundreds of startups, tons of mid-sized companies, and lots of companies in the global 1000. And the number one issue I see is unclear and constantly changing vision and goals.

AI is about execution, and it's quite powerless when it doesn't know what to execute. Companies that know exactly what they want are thriving with AI, and the better the AI gets, the more they will crush it. But this is a small percentage of companies, because only a small percentage of companies are self-aware and together enough to give AI proper instructions. You can't optimize what you don't understand, and it's foolish to scale something that you shouldn't be doing in the first place.

People talk about companies not being ready for AI, and I don't think they realize how bad the problem is. this is not a technical maturity issue. It's a whole lot more fundamental than that. A massive percentage of companies are haphazardly successful despite themselves.

It's not super clear what they were trying to accomplish or how exactly they're doing it, but they have a few tricks that work that they're decent enough at executing, that they're still around. But if you were to walk into the company and say, okay, describe to me what you're trying to do and what your strategies are and your challenges are and what your work streams are, they would either stare blankly at you or laugh in your face. It would take them weeks to put together a project to find that out, and then months to actually do the project.

And of course, by the time you got done, it would be out of date. I honestly believe the vast majority of companies are in grave danger because they are essentially chaotic black boxes that barely work. Having the board or leadership tell everyone in a company to use AI is like looking at a screen of nothing but static and saying, we got to scale this thing. So worker says, cool, boss.

Do me a favor and point to the thing you want me to improve. And the boss, like, pauses for a little bit and says, yeah, great question. Let's get some meetings together to figure that out. AI is mostly useless in these companies, and unfortunately, that means many, if not most companies.

Their narrative right now is that AI isn't helping enough companies yet. So what's the problem? When will AI get good enough? Maybe AI isn't as good as people thought.

What's hilarious and easy to see is that the company's AI is helping are somehow, magically the same companies that already know what they're doing. They can tell you very quickly the problem or problems that they're solving for customers. The problem with existing solutions that their solution solves, the goals that they have for the company, the metrics associated with those goals, the challenges that are stopping them from reaching their goals, the strategies that they are pursuing to overcome those challenges, the projects that they're doing to implement those strategies, the work that's being done within those projects by what people and how much it's costing them.

And crucially, companies that know what they're doing give largely the same answers to these questions across different quarters and years. A sure sign of a flailing company is when their departments mean massive amounts of time claiming to have these answers. But the answers significantly change every quarter because everything is constantly in flux. So people are basically just writing down whatever they think makes them look good as a manager or as a department or whatever.

It takes them weeks to prepare, only to be discarded a few weeks later when the process starts over again. AI can basically do nothing for these companies. In fact, it could even make it worse because now it helps people flail more impressively, like with more backflips and charts and stuff. And you may ask, well, if they're so bad, how are these companies still around?

And the answer is simple most of their competition is just as bad. So what's the point of all this? A few things I think we can take away from this. AI has barely even started in the enterprise, because only a tiny fraction of companies have the self-knowledge and ability to articulate themselves well enough to be ready for AI.

Two, we should stop looking at AI as the problem, or even technology as the problem. The issue is not being able to describe one's company clearly, including its goals, workflows, operations, decisions, teams, and spending in a clear and consumable fashion. Three companies who are unable to do this are in grave danger from the companies who can. For the primary danger to large, unwieldy companies is that it's now possible for a smaller company to function with the strength of a much larger one.

And it's far easier for a small company to be able to answer the questions above. And because of this, all existing companies are about to face extraordinary downward force, and only companies who have their shit together will stay afloat and rise. AI is a remarkably small part of who will win or lose in this initial phase. AI is what the winners will use to fight each other in the new world.

But right now, the game is figuring out who's going to make it there. The number one question you should be asking yourself as a company is not what AI can do for you, but whether or not your company is in the state where AI can help at all. And if not, you need to get into that state as quickly as possible.