The impact of effective internal AI adoption

“Twenty per cent of the challenge in AI adoption is technology, eighty per cent is people,” says Sarah Carney, Chief Technology Officer for Microsoft ANZ.[1] This statistic communicates what is becoming a trend in AI transformation: a failure of the organisation to adopt AI into the culture, resulting in failure of the AI investment.

The social and technical aspects do not exist in isolation. According to MIT NANDA initiative research a staggering 95% of deployment of AI at companies failed.[2] This divide is not driven by AI quality or regulation but seems to be determined by organisational approach.

There is a junction between adoption of technology and enterprise AI success. Participants in the MIT study were asked to rate common barriers to AI. The results revealed a predictable leader: resistance to adopting new tools. However, the second-highest barrier proved more significant than anticipated: lack of executive sponsorship. Together one thing is clear: the dominant barrier to crossing the GenAI divide is not integration or budget - it is organisational design.

Within an organisation, it is not only the technical expertise that is important. Managers and executives, customers and suppliers all play a role too. Without these stakeholders, AI adoption in an organisation cannot exist.

In particular, marketers face a large internal shift. The two industries reporting the largest structural disruption are tech and media,[3] through shifts in workflows, rise of AI-native content, and shifting ad dynamics.

With GenAI spend not yet formally quantified across organisations, MIT asked executives to allocate a hypothetical $100 to different functions. Sales and marketing functions captured approximately 70 per cent of AI budget allocation. Sales and marketing dominate not only because of visibility, but because outcomes can be measured easily. Metrics such as demo volume or email response time align directly with board-level KPIs.

As such, marketers' daily tasks have, or will be, significantly affected by AI implementation. Thus, marketers need to be approached early to create a smooth transition. Senior leaders must take measures to ensure that they are assessing internal capability, mentality, and readiness to drive cultural change and adoption. For further guidance on AI adoption and governance, you can refer to ADMA’s AI Toolkit, exclusively available for members. 

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