Episode 12 - Questions worth asking when your AI investments aren't showing returns

A significant number of AI initiatives are consuming budget and executive attention, while failing to reach production or deliver measurable value. Episode 12 of Talking Product helps you pressure-test your organisation's AI spend today.

In this episode, Collin and I use a Financial Times article as a springboard for a conversation about the state of AI initiatives in large organisations. The article—"AI's awfully exciting until companies want to use it"—captures a familiar pattern in technology: high expectations, significant investment, but limited impact. The article is freely available with FT registration.

In this episode, we explore three themes:

• Why pilots aren't scaling (often it's your data, not the technology)
• Whether organisations are bringing experimental rigour to AI adoption, or just buying impressive demos
• The leadership knowledge gap—understanding not just what AI can do, but what it can't

What you'll get:

• Questions that will help reveal whether your organisation is truly learning from its AI experiments or just spending
• Insight into why data governance problems you've been kicking down the road are now becoming existential
• What Gartner found about hidden costs in AI initiatives—and questions to ask to bring them out into the open
• Practical guidance on what experimental rigour actually looks like in an AI context

#AI #DigitalTransformation #Leadership #ProductManagement