Most organisations say they want to adopt AI. Few can agree on what that actually means.

This talk isn’t about models, tools, or architectures. It’s about the part that fails first getting alignment across the organisation.

There’s nothing particularly new about the problem. We’ve seen it before in cloud migrations, platform rebuilds, and every “we should modernise” initiative that stalled before it started.

Executives want outcomes. Managers want predictability. Engineers want clarity. All three are reasonable and often incompatible.

AI just makes the gaps harder to ignore.

We’ll look at why teams struggle to get to “yes” on AI initiatives, using real patterns drawn from everyday software delivery. Where does alignment breaks down, why starting with a proof-of-concept often makes things worse, and what it actually takes to move from vague ambition to something a team can deliver.

If your organisation is stuck somewhere between “we should use AI” and “we don’t know where to start,” this talk will give you a clearer way forward without pretending this is a new problem.