Are We There Yet?

Every organisation knows its destination: revenue targets, product launches, operational excellence, market leadership.  These goals haven't changed.  What's changing is the pressure on leadership to get there faster.  If AI isn't a key discussion point at the Board or leadership table today, I'd be very surprised.

Many see AI as a new set of tools to reach these familiar destinations faster - our organisational 'Waze' that will optimise the journey.  In my view, this thinking is too limited.  AI isn't just providing a faster route; it's continuously revealing new possibilities and destinations.  The ability to navigate these shifting opportunities, not just the speed of arrival, is where unprecedented value is created.

Why "Are We There Yet?" Reveals Hidden Opportunity

When organisations ask "Are we there yet?" today, they’re not just tracking progress.  They’re asking, "Why isn't AI getting us there faster?”  They've invested in AI tools, so why haven't revenue targets been met sooner?  Why aren't we seeing a dramatic improvement in operational efficiency?

The conversation has shifted from "How do we reach our goals?” to "How do we use AI to accelerate toward them?”  This limited mindset - viewing AI as pure acceleration - is precisely what creates opportunity for those who see differently.

This shift represents what I call a momentum point: when organisations recognise that constraints they thought were fixed are actually flexible. AI doesn't just optimise existing routes; it reveals that the entire map is changeable.

AI is not like a new CRM system that, once installed, provides stable functionality.  AI capabilities evolve monthly.  What was impossible last quarter is routine today.  The tools AI offers for reaching your destination today will be different tomorrow.

Imagine if Waze didn't just reroute you around traffic, but continuously discovered new roads that didn't exist yesterday and changed the fundamental physics of travel while you were driving.  That's the extraordinary opportunity organisations have.  While your competitors are frustrated that AI isn't accelerating them fast enough, you could be discovering entirely new destinations.

Understanding What AI Actually Is

Before going further, let's be clear: AI today is a powerful probabilistic model, not a sentient being.  It excels at pattern recognition, prediction and specific trained tasks.  It can be a domain expert but doesn't truly understand context, reason about causality or comprehend real-world implications.

This is a reality to build upon, not a limitation to work around.  AI can process vast datasets and identify patterns humans would never spot.  It can generate possibilities faster than any human team and maintain consistency across millions of interactions.  But it can't understand why a long-time customer is upset, why a solution that works in Bangkok won't work in Berlin, or why today’s "optimal" answer might be tomorrow's crisis.

The opportunity isn't in AI being all-knowing; it's in understanding exactly what AI can and cannot do.  By building organisational capabilities around these realities, you can create genuine advantage while competitors wait for a magic solution.

The Starting Point Advantage.  Fix Your Fundamentals First

Most organisations implement AI believing it will be the acceleration tool they've been waiting for.  They invest millions, then wonder why they're not reaching their targets any faster.

Here's the truth: AI can't accelerate a journey through organisational dysfunction.  Those who fix their fundamentals first will have a massive advantage.

Consider these common dysfunctions - each one a blocker to momentum that must be removed:

• Information entered multiple times into systems that don't communicate.

• Departments using different definitions for "customer" or "revenue."

• Political roadblocks that force detours regardless of efficiency.

• Teams hoarding knowledge rather than sharing insights.

• Middle management spending more time reporting on the journey than actually traveling.

These aren't just inefficiencies; they're the constraints that keep organisations stuck. As I've explored before in previous posts, true momentum comes from identifying and removing these blockers systematically.

While competitors struggle with why AI isn't delivering, organisations that fix these fundamentals can leverage AI in ways others can't even attempt.  When your vehicle can actually turn quickly, you can take routes others can't see.  When your CRM talks to your ERP and teams collaborate on insights, AI can orchestrate possibilities your competitors can’t access.

Watch also for those who use "the algorithm says" to override experience and relationships - they're often advancing agendas that couldn't succeed through normal channels. AI shouldn't become a political weapon to bypass good judgment.

The Human Advantage.  AI Needs Us

When AI doesn't deliver the promised acceleration, leadership often questions whether their people are "AI-ready." This is a huge missed opportunity.  What looks like resistance to AI adoption is often expertise.

• The sales team knows why the AI's lead scoring misses relationship nuances - that's valuable insight into AI's limitations.

• The operations manager understands your club membership numbers are dropping because you don't have the car parking facilities to accommodate members needs - that's contextual intelligence AI lacks.

• The analyst sees patterns the AI misses - that's human intuition that can't be programmed.

Imagine an experienced employee whose knowledge is suddenly deemed less important than an algorithmic recommendation.  The organisation loses the very insights that could make AI truly powerful.

Instead of dismissing this expertise, organisations should build translation layers between human wisdom and artificial intelligence.  The employee’s relationship knowledge could train the AI, while the AI's data processing could surface opportunities the employee wouldn't have time to discover.  Together, they become more powerful than either could be separately.

This combination - human creativity, judgment and contextual understanding paired with AI's computational power - creates value that neither could achieve alone. It's not about humans versus AI; it's about humans with AI discovering what wasn't possible before.

Organisations that recognise this human intelligence as essential to AI's effectiveness unlock possibilities others miss.  They don't ask "Why isn't AI getting us there faster?”  They ask, "What can our people plus AI achieve that neither could do separately?”  The answer is transformational value.

Where the Opportunity Lives

Let's be honest about where most organisations actually are on their AI journey. Many are stuck in Foundational Dysfunction, where systems don't communicate and "AI" simply means a basic chatbot. A smaller percentage has achieved Digital Readiness, with core systems that can exchange data and a basic understanding of AI's strengths.

Most leaders are trying to leap directly to results by launching pilot projects. But the real opportunity isn't in these isolated experiments. The most successful organisations are in a stage of Continuous Learning with AI, where they learn faster from failures and build knowledge that competitors lack. This journey reveals what AI can truly do and, just as importantly, what it can't.

The goal isn't a final destination of "AI Integration." It's to build an Adaptive AI Capability. This is a place where continuous value creation begins, built on a realistic understanding of what AI is - a powerful tool for discovery, not a magic solution to simply get you there faster. The fact that most organisations are stuck in Foundational Dysfunction, using AI vocabulary to describe Excel-based processes while not understanding what AI actually is, creates extraordinary opportunity for those willing to build real capabilities based on real understanding.

Building Your Competitive Advantage

The organisations successfully using AI aren't just asking "how do we use AI to get there faster?”  They understand that AI offers a fundamentally different way of creating value that requires new organisational capabilities.

Here’s where to build your advantage:

1. AI Literacy Throughout the Organisation. Build genuine understanding from leadership to the front lines about what AI actually is - a sophisticated pattern-matching tool, not a thinking entity. Your competitive advantage comes from knowing when to trust a 95% probability and when to recognise the 5% could be catastrophic.

2. Human-AI Translation Layers. This is where unprecedented value lives - in people who understand both business goals and AI's capabilities and limitations. They know AI can process vast amounts of data and identify patterns humans would miss, but also that it can't understand context, causality or consequences.

3. Dynamic Adaptation Capability. The most successful organisations don't just learn from AI; they build systems that can recalculate quickly when AI reveals new patterns. Every new AI capability that emerges is an opportunity to leap ahead - if you understand its actual capabilities and limitations. This is about embedding momentum-building into your organisational DNA. The engine that powers this capability is a Journey Learning System, which systematically captures what works, what doesn't and why. Your learning compounds; your competitors' doesn't.

Creating Your Future

The question isn't "how do we use AI to get there faster?”  The real question is: "Given AI's actual capabilities and limitations, what's becoming possible today that wasn't possible yesterday?"

This shift from expecting acceleration to discovering possibility changes everything:

• From waiting to building. Don't wait for AI to deliver magical acceleration. Build the capabilities to leverage its evolving power.

• From defending to advancing. Don't protect old ways hoping AI will simply speed them up. Create new ways that combine human contextual intelligence with AI's pattern recognition.

• From scarcity to abundance. Don't fight over which AI tool will accelerate you fastest. Discover new paths others can't see.

  
  

The organisations reaching their goals faster - and discovering new goals - won't be those with the best AI technology.  Everyone will have access to similar tools. The winners will be those who understand what AI actually is and build organisational capabilities to continuously discover and capture new possibilities.

The opportunity isn't in using AI as an accelerator to familiar destinations. It's in becoming the organisation that continuously discovers new possibilities while others are still asking "Are we there yet? Why isn't AI getting us there faster?"

That's where extraordinary value lives - not just in the destination, but in the continuous discovery of what's possible.

Is your organisation still waiting for AI to deliver magical acceleration, or are you building the capabilities to continuously discover and create what others can't yet imagine?