Bain just released their new “Guide to AI Transformation” It is beautifully designed, wonderfully optimistic, and completely allergic to reality. Reading it feels like watching someone explain how to build a spacecraft using only Post-it notes, duct tape and confidence. It makes AI transformation sound like a strategy workshop with pastries, rather than the organisational identity crisis it actually is. I thought I could waffle, but combining “vectors of disruption”, “strategic clarity”, “value pools”, and “outside-in perspectives” in one sentence deserves an award. AI transformation fails for one embarrassingly simple reason: Most companies do not understand how they actually work. Not how they say they work. Not how the org chart pretends they work. How they actually work. This is the part Bain glosses over with the enthusiasm of a realtor describing a flat with no windows as “cosy” and “intimate”. Their report answers the questions CEOs wish AI would solve, not the ones that determine whether AI works at all. And I get why. - Big bets justify big programmes - “Organisational activation” scales better than data architecture - Framing AI as “strategy” avoids the operational entropy - “Pick your battles” beats admitting most battles are lost in the trenches - Case studies are flawless because the real ones are politically radioactive chaos It reads less like a guide to AI transformation and more like a guide to selling AI transformation. AI has pushed consulting firms into a strange dual role: interpreters of the future and vendors of the present. The result is frameworks that sound transformative while avoiding the operational truth. The bit Bain will not say out loud: AI transformation is not blocked by a lack of vision. It is blocked by a lack of organisational self-awareness. Most companies: - Do not know how their workflows run - Do not trust their own data - Cannot explain their decision loops - Have incentives built to resist automation - Rely on long-tenured staff holding the place together with memory and vibes AI does not fix this. AI exposes it. It drags dysfunction into the light like a forensic lamp in a dodgy hotel room (good luck getting that image out of your head). Confusion. Incoherence. Process entropy. Hero culture. Zombie workflows everyone insists are “temporary” but are in year nine. Ironically, the most valuable lines in Bain’s report are accidental. They hint that AI is really about speed, clarity, and organisational honesty. On that, I agree. AI is not a technology revolution. AI is an organisational honesty revolution. The companies that success with AI will not be those spending the most on models. They will be the ones finally willing to confront how they operate… then rebuild with clarity, trust, and ruthless simplicity. Far less glamorous than a 40-page slide deck. Far more effective.
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