Why Isn’t AI Improving My Team’s Productivity?
Usually because the tools came before the process. Business operations consultant Emily Hatton told BrightKeel founder Alex Bacon that founders often end up “chucking a few tools over to the team” without looking at the process the tool is meant to improve, “and therefore nothing really changes.” Her advice is to look “process first”: decide what you’re trying to achieve, such as reducing time per output or getting more clients into each team member, redesign the workflow around it, then measure whether it worked.
How Should a Business Start With AI Adoption?
Start by knowing where you are now. Alex Bacon, founder of BrightKeel, maps businesses against his AI maturity model. Leadership buy-in sits at the base, because “that’s what everything else is built on.” Next is experimentation, where most organisations are: using ChatGPT or Copilot, but not in “a structured, strategic, consistent way.” Then come strategy, governance, guidelines, training and data. And before any of it, get your existing foundations right, because “all AI does is amplify what is there.”