If AI is not in your strategy, you’re already losing ground.
Key takeaways
Waiting for clean data can stall your AI progress.
Pilot purgatory means competitors are passing you by.
Across the middle market, artificial intelligence adoption is accelerating—often in ways that leadership can’t see. Many executives think they’re keeping pace, but competitors may be building scalable AI capabilities while your business experiments at the edges. If AI isn’t embedded in your strategy, operations and decision making, you might already be losing ground.
Here are five signs your organization is falling behind—and what to do before the gap widens.
1. AI is missing from your enterprise architecture and strategic roadmap
If AI isn’t showing up in boardroom conversations, enterprise architecture frameworks or strategic planning sessions, that’s a red flag. AI should be treated not as a one-off software investment, but as a core capability embedded in both your technology architecture and business strategy. Without aligning AI with your enterprise architecture and long-term strategic goals, you risk creating fragmented solutions that don’t scale or integrate.
Ask yourself the following: Are we designing an AI-enabled architecture and strategy, or just reacting to trends with disconnected tools? Without a clear blueprint, you're limiting your ability to compete while others build for agility, intelligence and growth.
2. You’re waiting for clean data before making a move
Many organizations delay their AI programs because their data isn’t perfect. But waiting for flawless data is no longer a viable excuse. Modern AI can work with unstructured, messy and incomplete datasets and still deliver value.
That said, advancing your AI journey should go hand in hand with maturing your data practices. The goal isn’t to wait for perfect data, but to continuously improve data quality, governance and accessibility while still making strategic progress. The longer you delay, the wider the competitive gap becomes.
3. You can’t name a revenue-generating AI initiative
If your leadership team can’t point to at least one AI-driven initiative that’s delivering measurable value—whether in revenue, margin or customer experience—you may be stuck in pilot purgatory.
Too many companies run endless pilots without producing solutions. Moving beyond pilots requires a tight alignment among business strategy, IT and measurable outcomes.
4. Your AI strategy begins and ends with ChatGPT and Copilot
Encouraging employees to experiment with generative AI is smart, but mistaking that for a strategy is dangerous. A mature AI approach includes governance, security, integration with core processes and a roadmap for scaling.
If you are only using generative AI such as ChatGPT or Copilot for personal productivity, you are reacting, not leading.
5. Your leadership team isn’t using AI
If executives aren’t actively using AI even in basic ways, they’re missing a critical learning curve. Personal experience sparks ideas, accelerates adoption and helps leaders ask the right questions.
Not using AI tools today is like refusing to use email in the 1990s. It signals that your organization may be culturally unprepared for what’s next.
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What’s next: From awareness to action
Do you recognize yourself in any of these signs? You’re not alone, but you do need to act soon. Consider taking the following actions:
- Make AI a standing boardroom topic. Treat it as a strategic imperative, not a side project.
- Upskill your teams, starting with leadership. Decision makers must understand AI’s capabilities to set realistic goals.
- Build an AI-ready foundation. Align enterprise architecture, data strategy and governance so you can scale.
And don’t stop there. The next wave is agentic AI, which creates autonomous systems acting as nonhuman employees capable of taking action, making decisions and collaborating across workflows. If you’re not exploring these capabilities now, the gap between you and your competitors could soon become impossible to close.
RSM contributors
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David BrassorManaging Director -
Case study
Making a connection: City of Cornwall leverages AI in local government
"RSM is focused on helping modernize the operations of public sector and government services clients, and over the last several years, we have collaborated with the City of Cornwall to support their evolving technological needs. This initiative is the perfect example of how AI can support modernization efforts in public sector operations."
- Rhett Nussey, RSM Management Consulting Government Services Leader
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