Why AI Fails at Most Companies: The Buy-In Playbook No One Talks About
Genuine team buy-in starts with clear, practical benefits.
There's something about that extra spring daylight after work that shifts everything—same planet, different energy. I’ve been thinking about how the tech world does this same dance with trends. Last week was quiet, and this week the internet’s losing its mind over ChatGPT’s image upgrade, turning real life moments into Ghibli moments. That contrast got me thinking about something deeper: how often we chase the shiny new tech without asking what problem it actually solves.
When organizations pitch new technology based on excitement rather than utility, the pattern is painfully predictable: high initial interest followed by rapid drop-off, low team engagement rates, a bloated technical stack, and eventually, increased internal frustration and attrition. I've seen it happen time and again.
Technology adoption is like tending a garden. When you lead with hype instead of practical benefits, you're essentially scattering seeds on unprepared soil—they might sprout with initial enthusiasm, but they won't take root or thrive.
Here's the thing: selling on hype instead of practical benefits is the fastest way to ensure your technology adoption fails. When we lead with "this is exciting" rather than "this solves your problem," we're setting ourselves up for disappointment.
The metaverse is a perfect example. For about a year, businesses were scrambling to establish a presence without asking a fundamental question: what actual problem does this solve for us? The hardware infrastructure wasn't ready (and may never deliver what we imagined), but companies jumped in headfirst anyway, driven by fear of missing out rather than identifying a practical use case.
Look, there's a lot of fear in the workplace right now. With agentic AI and a wave of new tools hitting the market, people are legitimately worried about what this means for their jobs. When Bill Gates says doctors and teachers will be replaced within a decade, it's hard not to feel that anxiety ripple through every industry.
The reality is we're seeing exponential growth in AI capabilities, but humans are slow to adapt. There's a fascinating contradiction happening: on one hand, the technology is advancing at a frightening pace, yet on the other, I'm still meeting people who are just waking up to the fact that ChatGPT exists. Some of my relatives barely know what it is, while these tools have become part of my daily workflow.
At the end of the day, I'm not saying AI isn't the biggest economic disruption we've ever seen. I lose sleep turning over likely scenarios myself. But I am saying we're adaptable and resilient. We will find new markets, new ways of working, and new ways to spend our time and resources.
To make those transitions happen, we need buy-in—from our peers, our colleagues, and our families. We need to show the potential and frame the opportunity. Those who resist innovation simply because they deem it a threat are doing so at their own peril on the seas of career change.
Optimism is our biggest tool in this technology shift. But blind excitement isn't enough. There's a right way and a wrong way to drive adoption.
Your organization is sabotaging tech adoption before day one
Just as a garden needs proper soil preparation before planting, technology adoption requires groundwork. Organizations consistently undermine this preparation phase in painfully predictable ways.
If you don't clearly articulate why a decision has been made to adopt a technology, your team isn't set up for success. This often comes down to who explains the decision—ideally, it should be the person who proposed it, as they have authentic enthusiasm.
An easy low-hanging fruit is to explain the scope of the adoption. Is this technology expected to be used daily? Is it already purchased and ready to deploy? Will training be required? These might seem like no-brainers, but they often get lost in the excitement and pace of a fast-working environment.
Most people want to feel involved in the decision-making process. This isn't always possible, but as leaders, we can still lead with empathy, remembering that new ways of working bring anxiety. Simply holding a town hall as a one-way monologue to announce a decision is a recipe for resistance. I've seen this happen before. Your team wants some level of agency in shaping the integration of tools, especially in creative, collaborative organizations.
Another crucial mistake is fragmenting adoption across the team. When some people adopt new tools and others are left out, it breeds resentment—even when there's a perfectly logical reason for the phased approach. Make it clear when you're running a pilot program that will expand later. Get aligned with your leadership team about what success looks like and ensure everyone knows what wins are emerging.
Do not hoard access with one or two individuals. When some team members become more efficient with the new technology, make sure everyone understands that these improvements will soon benefit the entire organization.
Effective organizations create a culture of change far before they ever implement new technology. People need to expect that adopting new tools is part of the job. And don't forget to show and tell—make time to demonstrate why these tools are making an impact.
If you don't properly prepare this cultural soil, you'll have to reengage all over again to secure buy-in every time a new opportunity presents itself. What a waste of time.
Hype-driven pitches will bite you in the ass
Let me be clear about what I mean by "hype": It's when we pitch technology based on its novelty, coolness factor, or industry buzz rather than its practical application to specific problems. Hype-led pitches sound like: "Everyone's talking about blockchain!" or "We need to be in the metaverse!" instead of "This tool will reduce our reporting time by 40%."
Selling on hype can really bite us in the ass when talking about new tech. We've seen it before with cryptocurrency, NFTs, Web3, the dot-com boom—there's always some new thing that's all hype. I've done this myself, getting excited about something without communicating the actual benefit.
Blockchain technologies and IoT followed similar patterns. Companies invested heavily because they feared missing the boat, not because they had identified specific problems these technologies would solve. The result? Half-implemented systems, frustrated teams, and wasted resources—classic signs of stalled adoption.
That said, top-performing teams need people who are motivated, curious, and excited to share their findings. Something might be a fad, but we don't want to knock down people's efforts to unearth new things. We just need to ask certain questions to cut through the noise.
If you're planting the seeds of a new tool, think about the root problem you're trying to solve. There may be several reasons, but try to solve one big problem first. Position that problem in front of your team and demonstrate how this tech will solve it.
For example, take AI note-taking software, where a bot sits in virtual calls to record and summarize meetings with action items. The root problem is simple: nobody has to take meeting minutes anymore. That's a job in itself. Often the lead of the call is responsible, which overburdens them with cognitive load and administrative tasks.
The solution is low-friction and saves time. You barely need to flag the rest of the benefits because the root benefit presents value in itself. We would be crazy not to adopt it.
It's easy to get caught up in the AI hype because much of it is intangible and buzzy—"the latest innovation to spur revenue and reduce workload." But we can't identify solutions before we identify problems.
When we get excited about using AI, we need to ask ourselves: why are we excited? Is it because everyone else is talking about it? Or because we've identified a genuine problem and found a solution?
The process should be: identify problems in your pipeline, then ask what tools can resolve those practical issues. Start with the problem, find the tool that offers a solution, then pilot research to see if it actually fixes the issue. This careful selection of the right seeds for your specific garden ensures better growth later.
Breaking down the walls between resistance and embrace
Once you've planted the seeds of new technology, the nurturing phase begins—and this is where many adoption efforts falter. Like plants that need consistent care, new technologies require attention and support to thrive.
I've experienced this resistance-to-embrace journey myself. I was an elitist about my artwork for years. I always wanted to draw with charcoal on paper, using brushes and paints. Early in my journey, I tried a Bamboo tablet and hated it. It was cumbersome, with a slippery digital pencil that lacked the tactile feeling and precision of traditional tools.
This informed my bias against digital art for years. I turned my nose up at it because my ego told me that "real artists" use traditional tools.
Years later, I picked up an Apple Pencil and started using Procreate. I was blown away by how natural and accurate it felt. Now I'm an extreme advocate for digital art because it can be based on the same foundations as traditional art while opening so many doors for creative expression.
The problem was that I let my bias from an early negative experience build a wall against innovation. Our teams can fall into the same trap—one bad experience informs their bias, and they put up walls in the face of change.
As leaders, it's our job to see past that wall and look to the future. How can this new technology solve our problems tomorrow? How do we start taking baby steps to get there? We need to nurture the growth with patience and care, understanding that adaptation takes time.
It was only through curiosity and small steps that I gained the buy-in to see the ease and beauty of the digital medium. Frankly, I carry shame when I think about my resistance to digital art but it helps me understand where people are coming from when they resist new technologies.
When digital art first emerged, many in the art community rejected it as a whole. "Computer-generated art could never replace the beauty and humanity of traditional forms," they said. "It's a parlor trick that will make artists lazy."
But look at the medium now—opportunities flourished, use cases multiplied. The same will happen with AI-generated art, despite today's controversy. Innovation and opportunity exist behind that wall of bias, just as we're seeing with all forms of AI technology.
Sandbox environments make or break your adoption strategy
Just as gardens need weeding to remove what doesn't belong, technology adoption processes need regular pruning and management. Sometimes it's important to pilot new systems within a small scope of work to identify drawbacks and potential. This might be a real client project or just an internal initiative—the point is to reduce risk in a safe environment.
Honestly, this is less about reducing risk and more about the buy-in aspect. You want your team to feel comfortable. There's a time and place to "break stuff and resolve it later," but I've found that starting small and scaling up once you've identified potential creates less chaos for a functional team.
One counterintuitive approach: avoid adopting multiple tools at once. There's an important rule in technology design that you shouldn't add too many steps for the end user or create friction. The more tools you adopt simultaneously, the more friction you create.
Keep it simple. Adopt one tool at a time and refine your process to as few steps as possible. Regularly weed out unnecessary complications and streamline the process.
Most tech adoption fears mask a deeper human truth
Every garden faces challenges from the surrounding environment. In technology adoption, that environment is often filled with fear and resistance.
You'll always encounter resistance with technology adoption. Let's not beat around the bush—in the current environment, people are afraid of losing their jobs to AI. They throw up all sorts of barriers: security concerns, ethical concerns, environmental concerns.
Yes, those concerns are valid, but we need to be real. What people truly fear is becoming redundant. That's a legitimate concern.
As leaders, we need to acknowledge this feeling and communicate candidly. If you're an empathetic leader, your purpose isn't to reduce headcount but to support your team—to eliminate redundant tasks, enable more fulfilling work, and grow the organization. Along the way, we'll find ways to increase revenue and profit.
Will it impact headcount? We don't know, because we don't know if revenue will increase or decrease. There are too many variables to predict, and I don't think anyone has the answer today.
Is any of this comforting? I don't know, but talking about it helps.
Effective organizations are values-based. When implementing change, always refer back to organizational values and how the change facilitates the goals you're trying to achieve together. Those who are aligned with the organization's goals and embrace change will be fine.
In 15 years of working in agencies, there's always been some paradigm shift that changed how we work. I remember when responsive design emerged—suddenly it seemed like we were doing triple the work for the same cost. But over time, the tools got more sophisticated, the designs more innovative, our users better served, and our clients happier. Revenue went up.
The initial resistance always transforms, but you'll only recognize that in hindsight.
We've survived every tech revolution and will survive this one
The comforting part is that this cycle is nothing new. It's like the changing seasons in a garden—predictable and necessary for growth. The automobile replaced the carriage. Television replaced radio. Computers replaced the printing press. The internet killed the video star.
The machine revolution replaced farmers, and nobody could fathom a post-farm world. The information age replaced machine operators as the main economic driver. Now we're experiencing another technological revolution, and our world will be different again.
Luckily, we're a generation raised to deal with change and adapt. They should call millennials the "chameleon generation," because that's what we truly are.
Small changes harvest bigger results than grand initiatives
The final phase of any garden is the harvest—reaping the benefits of your careful preparation, planting, and nurturing. In technology adoption, this means seeing the measurable results of your efforts.
Create a series of micro-changes at the start. Don't splash cold water on your team—lay out an adoption plan with a test pilot period, facilitate feedback, and then outline additional steps for full adoption once you've listened to your team.
Let your team trial the tools themselves for specific tasks. Ask for preliminary thoughts and hold them accountable to just trying. Even if something breaks, we must be fearless in this competitive world.
To measure success, I like surveys—they're boring but easily measurable. Google Forms takes five minutes to set up. Ask questions like: What is your understanding of this technology? Rank its usefulness. How skilled are you with it? How much time will it save?
Send the survey at the beginning and end of the pilot period. Sentiment might initially drop, but usually you see a return to positivity by the end of these cycles. Also set tangible goals: hours saved, dollars saved, project costs reduced by 10%. Make your objectives clear as day.
Watch for the warning signs of stalled adoption: high initial interest with rapid drop-off in usage, low team engagement rates after the first month, a bloated technical stack with overlapping tools, increased internal frustration, and even attrition. When you see these indicators, it's time to reassess your approach and refocus on practical benefits rather than excitement.
How do you know when you've achieved genuine adoption rather than superficial compliance? It's simple: genuine adoption happens when your team starts sharing the technology with peers unprompted. When engagement rates remain high after the initial rollout. When you start hearing unsolicited feedback about how to expand the tool's use. These are the signs that the technology has moved beyond mandated usage to becoming a valued part of your team's toolkit.
Without buy-in nothing else matters
In summary, buy-in is everything. Get in front of it with your team. Create a culture of change at your organization. Talk openly about the realities of these AI technologies—it's immensely better to express feelings than to bottle them up.
We're facing the biggest economic shift from technology in our lifetimes. We'll see some crazy stuff, let's be real. But we can make this shift easier for our teams by expressing empathy and showing the benefits to secure their buy-in.
And then, as with any garden, the cycle begins anew. New technologies will emerge, requiring fresh preparation, planting, nurturing, and harvesting. This isn't just about surviving disruption—it's about thriving through each season of change.
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