Everyone and their grandmother is talking about AI, and it’s just not interesting anymore. Let’s face it, once a technology topic becomes kitchen-table conversation fodder, tech pros grow weary of discussing it. Yet every vendor has a “game-changing” solution you should buy, every staffing firm has highly trained AI specialists, and your neighborhood barista can make you a coffee with a dusting of AI cocoa powder on top (OK, perhaps not, thankfully).

I am going to let you in on a little secret that’s extremely boring if you’ve been a tech leader for a while: There’s nothing new here.

Every Major Technology Evolution Follows A Familiar Arc

OK, sure, there’s a lot new with AI, and it does introduce a whole host of new challenges. But in order for you to truly unlock AI’s value and solve those challenges, you still have to do the boring stuff well: data quality, governance, talent, change management, and all the other things that block your organization from absorbing new tech. Nothing new, right?

Well, you’ll be surprised to learn that in our recent survey of high-performance IT organizations, only 37% of respondents exhibited high levels of technical maturity and confidence to be defined as “high-performing.”

It’s necessary to do these things but not sufficient, of course. AI will completely change your organization … but perhaps not yet.

Want to learn more? I’ll be hosting our Technology & Innovation Forum Central in Austin, Texas on September 14 and 15, along with our T&I Forum East in NYC on November 4 and 5. I’ll share more remarks on the boring stuff, but perhaps more importantly, a collection of some of the brightest minds in AI will help you think through how to fully unlock the value of what is new with AI, once you’ve solved the boring.

See you there!

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