“The board wants AI. What exactly do I bring them?”
“The POC was going great. Then we switched it on for real.”
“I want the configurator. It’s basically a price list that can talk.”
“I’m rolling it out to everyone, across the board. More output, same people.”
The only one not talking is Rocco.
Ferragosto, the same beach as all summer. His friends have arrived — the ones who are in the company all year long — and under the sun umbrella something has happened that hasn’t been seen since June: Rocco is silent. Not because he doesn’t know what to say: he spent the summer learning the words, he knows them all now and feels ready to give advice. His finger is already raised. It’s just that four people are talking, and whoever has to actually decide on 1 September isn’t waiting for his turn.
But the detail that counts, listening to them, is something else entirely. They’re all talking over each other and saying the same word.
Cesare, the CEO: his people are asking him for AI, and he doesn’t know what to tell them.
Tecla, the CTO: she has to make it work on the ground, and the last POC died the moment it went live.
Sara, the sales director: she wants the configurator — and has already sold it to herself.
Aldo, the entrepreneur: he wants it rolled out to everyone, to do more with the same people. He says.
Four problems that have nothing in common. An identical vocabulary.
And that’s the end-of-summer trap. We know the words by now — we took them apart one at a time in the previous articles. The real risk is using them to simplify problems that aren’t simple. Understanding AI too fast does more damage than not understanding it at all.
In the coming weeks we won’t be taking apart more words. We’ll be taking apart solutions — and I’ll tackle them in order of price. The first ones, if you get them wrong, cost you a meeting. The second ones you find every morning inside a process. The last ones your client discovers.
The only solution that’s definitely wrong is the one that works for everyone.