The Gap Between AI Theater And AI Economics

Why are we currently confusing the achievements of AI with genuine progress?

When we consider our beliefs about innovation, we realize that we believe a particular innovation can drive a particular movement within a company. Yes, of course, factory workers in 1950 were busy with new automated processes. But were they really productive enough to reduce costs and achieve a higher ROI?

Industrialization promised unprecedented productivity, yet it also generated a felt loss of presence. Our whole business cycle is historically built on craftsmen displaced by machines; goods became cheaper but less meaningful, and “progress” showed up as uniformity rather than depth of capability.

As factories optimized for scale in the early industrial revolution, like in 1760 in Great Britain, a counter‑movement of Arts and Crafts, the cult of antiques, and the renewed premium on hand‑made work emerged, where value migrated back to visible human judgment and authenticity that industrial throughput could not supply. The paradox here was that the very success of mechanized production made societies newly conscious of what only embodied, situated human work could do, and those qualities could be sold at high prices.

The Extra Long Pilot Phases

88% of organizations use AI today in some function, and every CEO claims the technology is the organization's top priority at every step of the strategy. When we look at the data, it tells a totally different story. 56% of the same executives admit that AI has not increased revenue or decreased costs so far. Only 12%, roughly one in eight, report a positive influence of AI on revenues. The majority of the companies are still in a pilot phase. They are mostly stuck in these pilots and are working on trial-and-error-based projects.

They're endlessly experimenting and are almost ready. But there are no real transformations in the AI-driven world. Two-thirds of companies remain in this minimal state, taking small steps and buying great tools without adopting any change. What we are witnessing at the moment is not the real transformation. It is more of a theatre than a real change.

Why have we arrived here? The new AI tools seem very seductive, with an image of transforming the business world for the better. The teams and the companies at the moment get tools because CEOs buy them or are seduced to buy them. When AI can summarize something in seconds, calculate instantly, or even imitate a voice or create an image or film, everyone is fascinated.

There's something dangerous happening for a company with this, because a small win, a localized outcome for one sector of the organization, is generalised into a company-wide narrative. This problem lies deeply in human nature. We are creatures who learn from storytelling, we hear from others, and we have that strange feeling of FOMO, a sensation that we are missing out on something. We read about competitors and endless press coverage about the fascinating next steps AI can take for every company on the planet, like AI-guided robots in factories doing the work in seconds and never getting ill.

We have the sense that AI can remake everything at the moment. And those who do not adapt quickly enough will be gone. The social pressure rises with this sensations on CEOs, company owners, and employees. And still, more than 70% of employees remain untouched by AI tools, doing their daily work without any support from them. Companies still ask me, when I consult them, if I can send them something via fax, as in 2019.

A Transformation Designed by Humans

It seems that everybody in the business world is on a journey, measuring an outcome but not talking about the right destination. The real transformation doesn't lie in the technology itself, which has been designed by humans. Only a small group of firms are analyzing the value of implementing AI into business processes at the moment. They moved from theatre to substance without the best algorithms. They analyze every process and daily task in the company to determine whether an AI is needed. By doing very detailed, not glamorous work, they are redesigning whole-company processes and restructuring the organization. People are retrained following the new commitment of an AI implementation; their job descriptions are totally changed.

Here, the process is building a new company that fits into the business world, defined by AI tools. The most important step is to ask yourself a question that many CEOs avoid: “How do we have to change the whole company and ourselves as members of this organization?”

When you discuss this with your team, you will find that the enormous process of change currently taking place, caused in part by false claims of superhero AI combined with a toxic climate of uncertainty in today's society, is not the technology that is the bottleneck. It is about human habits and perspectives on the daily workflow, how they organize themselves, and the difficult combination with their fear of being replaced by AI.

Companies have introduced AI without creating a suitable framework for evaluating the new business model based on AI implementation. They integrate AI, but at the same time invest too little in change management by purchasing a tool but refusing to learn how it really works.

As in other change management projects, organizations tend to trap themselves in the pursuit of optimization. But what they need is to look at the intention behind that change. When you consider cognitive sovereignty, for example, the right to control your own mental processes—thoughts, attention, and decisions, organizations tend to deploy this to AI tools. Now, the machine owns the attention and owns the work, and no longer the employees. An external narrative dictates an internal action. The CEO claims in a town hall meeting that with this kind of AI use, there is a "huge change” happening for the organization, but nobody's looking at the real intention behind it. The AI, of course, can do the work faster and more efficiently, but nobody can tell the AI the real intentions behind it.

A company has to ask the basic questions for the coming period of change management:

• What problems are we actually solving by using an AI?
• What kind of capability do we actually need that an AI actually has?
• Are we really willing to change ourselves, not the software?
• How are we going to get there?

What Matters To You as A System

The current situation also creates a window of opportunity. There's an advantage for companies doing the described not-so-glamorous work. You can use this window to avoid being at fancy tech and AI keynotes or startup conferences. Do the slow, patient labour of redesigning the whole process and rebuilding the structures of your company. Discuss every step with your workers to retain them and measure what really matters to you as a system designed and lived by humans.

Let the machine handle the generic, invest leadership time and capital in designing a company where human judgment and relationships are defended from automation, the way Arts & Crafts ateliers and antique dealers defended craft in an age of steam. Deliberately under‑automate the few sectors in your company where your brand’s trust and pricing power truly come from. In these sectors, you can measure progress not by speed or volume, but by the density of human presence that your customers can actually perceive.

It requires what we call deep-time thinking, acting not for a quick summary report but for a new organizational structure. Be able to cope with the challenges of the next 5 to 10 years. This window of opportunity isn't seen by everybody. So, if you want to step back from the big AI theatre, and if you're interested in substance, this window is wide enough open for you, if you're willing to do the real work that has to be done.

If we were honest about what this technology actually demands of us, would we still recognize ourselves on the other side?