by Wayne Pales | May 10, 2026
We are use case led. Almost every organisation says this about AI now, and it sounds like discipline. Increasingly I think it’s where discipline goes to hide. Here’s the pattern I’ve watched, in our organisation and others. The call goes out for AI...
by Wayne Pales | May 3, 2026
We declared early that AI was everyone’s job. It sounded right, it went on slides, and heads nodded everywhere it was said. Months later I noticed what the phrase had actually produced: warm agreement and thin accountability. Use cases waited for someone to...
by Wayne Pales | Apr 26, 2026
Early in our AI journey, I made a well-intentioned decision that nearly stalled us. I opened the conversation to everyone. It felt right, and in a culture sense it was. People across the organisation had views about AI, hopes and worries both, and inviting them in...
by Wayne Pales | Apr 19, 2026
Three plain words have defused more anxiety in our AI program than any risk framework we’ve produced: learning before scaling. I stumbled onto the phrase in a tense meeting. Stakeholders were worried we were moving too fast, others that we were moving too slow,...
by Wayne Pales | Apr 12, 2026
For months, our AI conversations at the leadership table went in circles. Anecdotes duelled with anecdotes. One leader had a transformative story, another had a sceptical one, and each meeting relitigated the same question, is this actually working, with fresh energy...
by Wayne Pales | Apr 5, 2026
A senior leader once pushed me hard for more AI licences for their area. Passionate, articulate, impatient with the pace of the program. The kind of advocacy you’d think a technology executive would love. Then I looked at the usage data. This leader was using...
by Wayne Pales | Mar 29, 2026
“Should we reclaim the unused licences?” It sounds like a procurement question. A portion of our AI licences were being barely used, the renewal was approaching, and the responsible thing, on paper, was to harvest the idle ones and shrink the bill....
by Wayne Pales | Mar 22, 2026
The most valuable thing our Executive gave the AI program wasn’t an approval. It was a posture. I remember preparing for those early Executive conversations, expecting to be asked for the usual artefacts: the strategy, the business case, the risk assessment, the...
by Wayne Pales | Mar 15, 2026
I used to explain our AI risk approach with frameworks and matrices. Eyes glazed, meetings ran long, and people left no clearer about what they could actually do on Monday. Now I explain it with one word: zones. The idea is almost embarrassingly simple. Not all AI use...
by Wayne Pales | Mar 8, 2026
The most uncomfortable position I’ve taken this year is this one: using AI to amplify your work is an expectation, not an option. I resisted it for months. Everything in modern change management argues against it. Bring people along. Respect different paces. Let...
