One of the biggest mistakes organisations make with AI is treating it like any other IT deployment.
It’s an understandable assumption. New technology arrives, licences are assigned, training is delivered and success is measured by how many people are using it. That approach has worked for countless software roll outs over the years but AI is different.
The organisations seeing the greatest return from AI aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest deployments. More often than not, they’re the ones that recognise AI isn’t simply changing the technology people use but instead changing the habits they’ve built over decades.
More than another software roll out
Every major technology shift changes the tools we use. AI changes something much more fundamental: how we approach work itself.
Think about how many everyday tasks begin with a blank page, from writing proposals and preparing for customer meetings to researching opportunities or summarising notes. Increasingly, AI is changing the starting point for all of those activities. Instead of beginning from scratch, employees are beginning with a prompt that helps them move faster, think differently and spend more time adding value.
That’s what makes AI different. It’s encouraging people to rethink the way they solve problems, collaborate with colleagues and make decisions throughout the day.
We’ve experienced something similar before. When hybrid working accelerated, organisations deployed collaboration platforms at remarkable speed, but building new ways of working took much longer. The technology enabled hybrid work; people made it successful.
AI is following the same pattern. Deploying the technology is often the easiest part but helping people understand how it fits into the way they work is where the real challenge begins.
Changing habits, not technology
One of the most interesting things I’ve observed over the past year is that successful AI adoption has surprisingly little to do with the size of the deployment or how much tech is involved.
I’ve seen organisations with relatively small AI roll outs generate impressive results because people were encouraged to experiment, share ideas and learn from one another. I’ve also seen businesses invest heavily in AI only to find employees continued working exactly as they always had.
That’s because the biggest challenge with AI is unlearning the way we’ve worked for years, and psychologically, that’s a difficult thing to do. Confidence grows through curiosity, experience and a workplace culture that encourages people to explore, experiment and learn from each other.
Leadership plays an important role in every AI transformation, but culture isn’t built through announcements or strategy documents. While senior leaders set the direction, it’s team leaders, managers and early adopters who influence what happens next. By demonstrating practical use cases and encouraging experimentation, they make AI feel relevant to the work people are already doing.
That’s why every successful AI deployment needs champions, not just users.
What’s your role?
For partners, this shift creates an opportunity that’s every bit as important as the technology itself. Customers will always need help selecting the right AI platforms and preparing their environments, but increasingly they’re asking a different set of questions. How do we encourage adoption? How do we build confidence? How do we measure success beyond licence numbers? These are questions about people, behaviors and culture.
The partners who create the greatest value over the next few years will be the ones who help customers build the confidence, habits and culture that allow AI to become part of everyday work.
Technology enables AI but culture unlocks it.
Sven Berckmoes, Solutions & Alliances Lead, TD SYNNEX Maverick
