Operating Intel

Field Notes.

Unvarnished observations on transformation, AI, and the messy reality of scaling teams.

Enterprise AI is not the same as startup AI. The stakes are higher, the systems are older, and the procurement process alone can kill an initiative. These posts cover what it takes to actually deploy AI inside a large organisation with existing infrastructure and competing priorities.

Professional reviewing notes in an early customer onboarding meeting

Customer SuccessJun 18, 2026

Customer Churn Doesn't Happen at Renewal. It Happens in the First 30 Days.

Most churn prevention efforts focus on late-stage accounts. The actual decision happens months earlier - in the first weeks after signing. Here's what that means for how CS teams should allocate their time.

Read Essay 8 MIN READ

Recent Essays

Analyst reviewing data on a laptop, representing the financial and workforce arithmetic at the centre of India's AI-driven IT restructuring

Enterprise AIJun 15, 2026

Infosys Called It Compression. Let's Do the Math.

On April 23, Infosys's CEO disclosed that AI had cut the cost of transformation programs by 60%. In the same quarter, headcount fell by 8,440. The company called it a demand-supply equation. The arithmetic suggests something more structural.

8 MIN READ

Two professionals reviewing work together, representing the mentorship and knowledge transfer that builds expert judgment over time

Enterprise AIJun 12, 2026

AI Is Replacing the Work That Made Your Experts

AI is making human judgment the scarcest skill in any organization. It's also automating the entry-level work through which expert judgment is built. BCG estimates 50-55% of US jobs will be reshaped in two to three years. The capability pipeline no one is measuring closes first.

8 MIN READ

A team in a collaborative working session, representing the gap between individual AI capability and organizational readiness

Enterprise AIJun 11, 2026

Your Employees Are Ready for AI. Your Organization Is the Bottleneck.

Most companies have the AI tools. Most don't have the conditions to convert them into results. Microsoft's 2026 Work Trend Index found only 19% of AI users work in organizations where readiness and structure reinforce each other. The rest are leaving value on the table, and not for the reasons they think.

8 MIN READ

Person at a desk reviewing a laptop screen, representing the gap between AI deployment metrics and real customer experience

Customer SuccessJun 10, 2026

Your AI Is Answering Your Customers. Your Customers Are Leaving Anyway.

Your AI is handling the volume. Customers are quietly losing faith. TELUS Digital found two-thirds of enterprises can't measure whether their CX AI is actually working. Forrester warned this would damage customer trust in 2026. The data says it already has - silently, without anyone looking.

7 MIN READ

Team in a corporate meeting room looking at a laptop - representing the gap between executive AI strategy and organisational reality

AI StrategyJun 8, 2026

Your AI Budget Is Real. Your AI Strategy Is Performance Art.

75% of executives admit their company's AI strategy is more for show than actual guidance. 54% say AI is tearing their company apart. The technology is working. The organisation underneath it isn't. Here's why - and what the 29% actually getting ROI are doing differently.

8 MIN READ

Abstract digital network of connected nodes representing autonomous AI agents operating across an enterprise system

Agentic AIJun 6, 2026

Agentic AI Will Break Your Company Before It Fixes It

Gartner predicts more than 40% of agentic AI projects will be cancelled by 2027. The technology isn't the problem - the operations underneath it are. Here's what's actually breaking, and why the companies succeeding are approaching this completely differently.

8 MIN READ

Rows of identical server racks in a data center - representing commoditized AI infrastructure

AI StrategyJun 5, 2026

Almost Every Company Has AI. Almost None of Them Have an Advantage.

AI adoption is nearly universal. Competitive advantage from AI is not. The reason has nothing to do with the technology - and everything to do with what happens when every competitor buys the same tool from the same vendor.

8 MIN READ

Business leader reviewing growth strategy at a desk, representing the shift from AI cost-cutting to AI-enabled revenue growth

AI StrategyJun 1, 2026

You've Been Using AI to Cut Costs. Your Competitors Are Using It to Win Customers.

Most companies deployed AI to reduce costs. A smaller group deployed it to understand their customers better and grow revenue. In 2026, the gap between those two decisions is becoming visible in the numbers - and increasingly hard to close.

7 MIN READ

Enterprise AIMay 15, 2026

Most AI Pilots Don't Survive Production. Here's What Actually Works.

The 80% pilot-failure number is real, but the diagnosis is wrong. It isn't a model problem or an infrastructure problem - it's a workflow problem. A field guide to the four reasons enterprise AI pilots stall, and the operating model that gets them past production.

13 MIN READ