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...
by Wayne Pales | Mar 1, 2026
When we first sat down to design AI governance, we did the obvious thing. We started listing risks. Data leakage, hallucination, bias, privacy, model drift, vendor lock-in. The list grew fast, as risk lists do. Workshops were held. The spreadsheet acquired colour...
by Wayne Pales | Feb 22, 2026
Every AI-generated meeting summary in our organisation carries a line stating that it was generated by AI and may contain errors. It’s the least sophisticated control we have, and it’s done more for trust than anything else we’ve built. That still...
by Wayne Pales | Feb 15, 2026
“Human-in-the-loop” became our favourite comfort phrase. Every AI conversation with a nervous stakeholder eventually reached it. Don’t worry, there’s a human in the loop. Nods, relief, next agenda item. Then I started looking closely at what...
by Wayne Pales | Feb 8, 2026
Once we opened AI up broadly, a particular question started arriving from every direction. Am I allowed to use it for this? At first I treated these as policy questions and answered them as policy questions. Yes for this, no for that, here’s the guidance page....
