By Blair Little
Tech Enthusiast | Innovator | Embracing the Digital Frontier for a Connected Future
AI is genuinely transformative. The technology is real, the capability is real, and the value is absolutely there for businesses that approach it properly.
Do your homework before signing any AI solution contract with your vendors. We saw this exact playbook with RPA a decade ago where up to 50 percent of initial projects failed, yet vendors kept selling and companies kept buying.
AI is genuinely transformative. I use it every single day and it has become as normal to me as opening a browser. The technology is real, the capability is real, and the value is absolutely there for businesses that approach it properly.
The Problem Is Not AI
The problem is not AI. The problem is vendors exploiting the hype around it.
Right now, vendors are packaging up tools you already have direct access to, adding a layer of complexity and a healthy margin on top, then selling it back to you as something only they can deliver.
McKinsey surveys consistently show that while AI adoption is now above 50 percent across organisations, only around a third report meaningful financial impact. That gap exists because most businesses are still experimenting without a clear strategy, and that is exactly the environment vendors thrive in.
The Platforms Are Already There
Platforms such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are already directly accessible to you and your team today. Many businesses are already paying for one or more of them without realising the full extent of what they can do.
The primary barrier to getting real value from AI is rarely the technology itself. It is usually a lack of process clarity, data readiness, and well defined use cases. That is internal work no vendor can do for you.
Start With Your Own Business
Start by documenting and genuinely understanding your own processes, services, and where the real friction lives. Identify the problems worth solving, then brainstorm how AI can address them in practical and measurable ways.
In most cases, the AI subscriptions you already have are more than capable of getting you there.
| What to do first | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Map internal processes | Shows where time, errors, and handoff friction actually occur |
| Define measurable use cases | Prevents AI for the sake of AI spending |
| Check existing subscriptions | Many teams already pay for tools with enough capability to pilot |
| Interrogate vendor claims | Separates implementation help from simple repackaging |
Vendor Help Is Not Always Wrong
Some businesses may benefit from vendor expertise, and there is nothing wrong with that, but go in with your eyes open. Demand clarity on what you are actually getting, what it is built on, and whether it solves a problem that genuinely exists in your business.
If they cannot answer that clearly, you already have your answer.
The One Question To Ask
Before you hand over the budget, ask one simple question: what exactly are you building on top of that I cannot access and use myself?
That question immediately forces specificity. It cuts through vague AI transformation language and gets to the practical issue: are you buying real implementation value, or are you paying a margin on top of someone else's API?
Have you been pitched an AI solution recently that turned out to be nothing more than a wrapper around a tool you already had access to?