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By Tim Stoddard | May 21, 2026
Your People, Not Your Platforms, Will Unlock AI's True Potential
A striking paradox is unfolding in boardrooms worldwide. Companies are investing heavily in AI, yet a recent Hoover Institution study found over 80% of them report no meaningful productivity impact. This disconnect points not to a failure of technology, but to a failure of focus. We concentrate on algorithms while we neglect the most critical ingredients for success: our culture, our people, and our processes. Leaders must solve one of their most important challenges: closing the gap between AI investment and real-world results.
The Missing Ingredients for AI Success
The Hoover report’s analysis proves revealing through its omissions. For example, the report did not discuss workplace culture and learning. This trend underscores a timeless business truth: culture still eats strategy – even an AI strategy – for breakfast. In contrast, the Boston Consulting Group finds that top-performing companies dedicate 70% of their efforts to people and cultural processes, 20% to the technology ecosystem, and only 10% to the algorithms.
We can define culture in simple, practical terms. It shows in what our organisation recognises and rewards, how it shares and delegates decision-making, and how our people behave under pressure. These actions provide a clearer indication of our real culture than the values any website lists. When we view AI as just another tool for executives to log into, we confine its potential. We should instead perceive it as an execution layer we weave into our operations, much like we leverage Wi-Fi in our daily lives.
Seeing AI Through a C-Suite Lens
With the right culture and capabilities, AI elevates a wide range of work, making automation intelligent, autonomous, and adaptive. These intelligent operations provide what the C-suite needs: revenue growth, higher profits, and better earnings per share. This journey begins when we create total asset visibility. When you know what you have and where you have it, you can improve everything from demand forecasting to loss detection. Our partners at Boggi Milano, for example, utilised advanced RFID solutions and pushed their inventory accuracy to an incredible 99%, providing the high-quality data their AI systems need to work effectively.
This visibility then enables a truly connected frontline. When you empower your people with the right tools and real-time information, you unlock significant efficiencies. Currys, a leading electronics retailer, streamlined its store operations and reclaimed approximately 900 management hours, which managers then redirected toward customer-facing activities. These examples demonstrate how a clear strategy delivers both operational and financial returns.
As Professor Carl Benedikt Frey argues, AI delivers lasting prosperity only when we use it to create new ways of working, not just to automate what we already do faster. This idea echoes the productivity paradox of economist Robert Solow, who noted that the computer age can be seen everywhere except in the productivity statistics. With hindsight, we know the lag came from the time business models took to catch up with the technology.
AI unlocks valuable workforce hours, but we miss a great opportunity if we only allocate those hours to do more of the same. Those “higher value tasks” we often mention represent potential “great leap” moments. During a recent LinkedIn Live conversation at EuroShop 2026, my colleague Mark Thomson and I discussed how these concepts move beyond theory and into real-world solutions that empower associates.
We see our customers making these leaps. Evri scaled its out-of-home delivery network with dependable, sustainable technology, creating a more resilient service model. In the automotive sector, TAS GmbH enhances the quality control of EV battery covers with deep learning, demonstrating how companies can improve even complex industrial processes.
Technology often moves faster than the businesses that want to harness it. In my conversations with leaders across the EMEA region, I frequently hear about the challenge of closing this gap. My recent discussion with Alexandru Vlad, the Managing Director of Selgros Germany, articulated this point perfectly. He shared that for his business, "it's not about implementing systems, it's about changing the mentality of the people."
His comment highlights the human element at the core of progress. Success requires more than just great technology; it demands partnership, a shared vision, and a relentless focus on people. Our vision helps make frontline operations everywhere digitised, automated, and intelligent, and we pursue this by designing the hardware, software, and automation solutions that enable it. We relentlessly pursue innovation and lean on our leading partner ecosystem, because we know we achieve our greatest successes when we work together.
The AI productivity gap closes only when we give our culture the attention it deserves. To close it, we need leadership, a clear strategy, and a collective commitment to creating new ways of working that make life better for organisations, their employees, and the customers they serve.
To hear a firsthand account of a leader navigating this very journey, I encourage you to watch my full conversation with Alexandru below.
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