Understanding Technological Evolution

19 September 2024: Excerpts from my article with former special operator Andy Yakulis in the Wall Street Journal: The wars in Ukraine, Gaza, and the Red Sea have revealed a pressing reality: Innovative, low-cost technologies are changing how nations wage war. This highlights the urgency with which the U.S. must overhaul its defense system, from operational concepts, structures, and training to weapons systems, procurement and manufacturing. The U.S. [needs] to replicate the achievements of Ukraine—a country that has sunk a third of Russia’s Black Sea fleet without a meaningful Navy and held off major ground assaults despite being outnumbered and outgunned. Cutting-edge technologies, produced rapidly and at enormous scale, have enabled Ukraine’s successes. Warfare is at an inflection point. Some senior U.S. military officials are paying attention. Adm. Samuel Paparo, head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, intends to turn the Taiwan Strait into a “hellscape” if China attempts to invade the island. The plan reportedly features the mass application of unmanned systems on land, in the air, on and under the sea, and presumably in cyberspace. But the vision is still mostly conceptual. The Pentagon needs to rethink its fighting doctrine, force structure, training, and processes for producing, procuring and using weapons fit for such combat. The status quo won’t suit... There is no procurement process set up to buy enough of the systems needed to make the “hellscape” a reality. Nor is the industrial base currently capable of producing these systems at the scale needed. Pentagon and industry leaders have begun to undertake some impressive efforts to capitalize on the private sector’s innovative capabilities. Most notable is the Replicator Initiative, , to provide a mechanism to procure large amounts of cheap drones. But it will likely take years for the initiative to field one of its prized systems: a more than $100,000 one-time-use loitering munition. This is a long way from the cheaper but very capable suicide drones that Ukrainians are producing and employing in the thousands every day. The goal of Ukraine’s “People’s Drone initiative,” as we’ve learned in Ukraine, is to produce one million drones per year that cost between $300 and $1,000 a unit. If Replicator is any indication, the U.S. still doesn’t understand how speed and volume must take precedence over exquisite capability when it comes to unmanned systems. Our military isn’t providing its soldiers with the concepts, training and weapons to fight effectively. Technology is moving faster than our ability to harness it. [We must] escape the cycle that too often delivers the technology of yesterday to tomorrow’s battlefield. To succeed, the Pentagon can’t tinker around the edges. It must seriously transform its processes, from military doctrine to weapons acquisition. If it does, we will be well-positioned to win the 21st century. If it doesn’t, the hellscape may well be brought to us.

At PwC, we've learned that the biggest barrier to scaling enterprise AI isn't model capability: it's trust. Here's how we think about that problem. Every new technology faces the same deadlock: you don't use it because you don't trust it, and you don't trust it because you don't use it. The way out is usually a trust proxy, a visible marker that tells people it's safe to change their behavior. The SSL padlock is the classic example. Ecommerce was technically possible in the 1990s, but adoption stalled because typing a credit card into a browser felt reckless. The padlock didn't create security, the encryption was already there. It made security visible. Enterprise AI faces the same issue. The models work. Real solutions exist. But capability is compounding faster than confidence. You see it in cautious adoption: professionals double-checking outputs the system got right. Not because the models aren't good enough, but because there's no structured way to show they've been rigorously evaluated by people who know what good looks like. These aren't capability problems. They're trust infrastructure problems. That's what we built Evaluation Navigator and the Human Alignment Center to address. 📊 Evaluation Navigator gives AI teams a consistent, repeatable way to evaluate solutions across the development lifecycle, with shared guidance and standardized reporting. By embedding evaluation directly into developer workflows through an SDK, trust markers are built into the solution as it's constructed, not stapled on before deployment. 🧐 The Human Alignment Center adds structured expert review at scale. Automated metrics can assess technical correctness, but in professional services the real question is whether the output reflects experienced professional judgment. The Human Alignment Center translates that judgment into dashboards and audit trails that governance leaders can actually act on. The padlock made invisible security visible. Evaluation infrastructure does the same for AI. Adoption is a trailing indicator of trust, so as evaluation becomes visible and accessible, adoption follows.

GenAI adoption is all about people, not about tools. Pharma giant Novo Nordisk offers a great case study of working out what supports useful uptake of AI across a large organization. A case study in MIT Sloan Management Review uncovers a range of useful lessons. Here are some of the most interesting. 🚀 Recognize a mid-cycle drop as normal. Novo Nordisk grew Copilot use from a few hundred to 20,000 users in just over a year, with 23% becoming frequent users within one month. However, by month three or four, 15% of early adopters dropped off and average time saved per week declined. Recognizing this dip as natural helped avoid panic and kept the focus on re-engagement strategies rather than getting staff to try tools for the first time. 🛠 Deliver function-specific training through champion networks. Generic AI onboarding failed to meet the needs of specialized roles. Novo Nordisk succeeded by creating domain-specific training, leveraging internal champions to contextualize AI use, and allowing teams to shape guidance based on their actual work. This addressed “AI shaming” and bridged confidence gaps across functions. 🤝 Use internal champions to overcome cultural resistance. Skepticism wasn’t solved by policy, it was shifted by influence. Novo Nordisk identified trusted, high-status employees to openly adopt and advocate for AI tools. Their visible endorsement encouraged hesitant peers to try AI without fear of judgment or failure. 📈 Treat adoption as a change process, not a tech rollout. Rather than pushing a one-time launch, Novo Nordisk framed GenAI as a long-term transformation. This meant investing in ongoing communication, support structures, and iterative learning. The approach acknowledged that adoption would ebb and flow, and prepared the organization to adapt accordingly. 🎯 Emphasize strategic value over time saved. Though average users saved about 2 hours per week, the most meaningful wins came from higher-quality work—more strategic thinking, clearer writing, and better planning. By highlighting these human-centric gains, Novo Nordisk built a stronger case for AI’s workplace relevance beyond mere productivity. 📊 Use employee data to shape the deployment strategy. Over 3,000 employee surveys and interviews helped Novo Nordisk spot where and why adoption lagged. This feedback guided real-time adjustments—like where to invest in new use cases, where to scale back, and how to tailor messaging. It also surfaced which functions became tool-reliant versus those needing more support.

Last week, a customer said something that stopped me in my tracks: “Our data is what makes us unique. If we share it with an AI model, it may play against us.” This customer recognizes the transformative power of AI. They understand that their data holds the key to unlocking that potential. But they also see risks alongside the opportunities—and those risks can’t be ignored. The truth is, technology is advancing faster than many businesses feel ready to adopt it. Bridging that gap between innovation and trust will be critical for unlocking AI’s full potential. So, how do we do that? It comes down understanding, acknowledging and addressing the barriers to AI adoption facing SMBs today: 1. Inflated expectations Companies are promised that AI will revolutionize their business. But when they adopt new AI tools, the reality falls short. Many use cases feel novel, not necessary. And that leads to low repeat usage and high skepticism. For scaling companies with limited resources and big ambitions, AI needs to deliver real value – not just hype. 2. Complex setups Many AI solutions are too complex, requiring armies of consultants to build and train custom tools. That might be ok if you’re a large enterprise. But for everyone else it’s a barrier to getting started, let alone driving adoption. SMBs need AI that works out of the box and integrates seamlessly into the flow of work – from the start. 3. Data privacy concerns Remember the quote I shared earlier? SMBs worry their proprietary data could be exposed and even used against them by competitors. Sharing data with AI tools feels too risky (especially tools that rely on third-party platforms). And that’s a barrier to usage. AI adoption starts with trust, and SMBs need absolute confidence that their data is secure – no exceptions. If 2024 was the year when SMBs saw AI’s potential from afar, 2025 will be the year when they unlock that potential for themselves. That starts by tackling barriers to AI adoption with products that provide immediate value, not inflated hype. Products that offer simplicity, not complexity (or consultants!). Products with security that’s rigorous, not risky. That’s what we’re building at HubSpot, and I’m excited to see what scaling companies do with the full potential of AI at their fingertips this year!

AI adoption in enterprises rarely follows a straight line. You can build a capable agent that solves a real problem and still find no one using it. One extra click from the usual process can become an inhibitor. A new window, and your DAU/WAU/MAU can tank. Adoption isn’t just about rolling out a tool; it’s about reshaping ingrained habits. Teams grow so comfortable with existing workflows that AI tools can initially feel like a liability rather than a productivity enhancer. The journey moves through three stages: adoption, adaptation, and transformation. Strategy often starts with the end state (transformation), but execution must begin with the first step: adoption. Each stage requires building trust, lowering friction, and proving value in small, tangible increments. Without that, even the most well-designed AI solutions risk becoming "shelfware". AI isn’t a solo game. It’s a team sport. One weak link, one reluctant user, can cause the whole purpose to fall flat. Success depends not just on technology but on shared conviction. Real transformation happens when every click, every process, and every team member feels like AI isn’t an extra step but the obvious next one. #ExperienceFromTheField #WrittenByHuman

#AI in #healthcare isn’t failing because of technology. It’s failing because of trust. In the ER, I don’t reject AI because it’s powerful. I hesitate when it’s unexplainable. Patients sense that hesitation immediately. So do clinicians. That’s the quiet truth behind most “AI adoption problems.” Not resistance. Not fear. But trust that hasn’t been earned. This image captures the principles I’ve learned the hard way: • Trust before automation If clinicians don’t trust the output, AI becomes background noise not support. • Context over computation Without longitudinal history and human nuance, intelligence turns into guessing. • Human-centered design The real risk isn’t AI replacing doctors. It’s AI built without them. • Collaborative progress Technology moves fast. Medicine moves carefully. Progress happens when both respect the pace of the other. AI should make care more human not less. More listening. More clarity. More time where it matters most. When you think about AI in healthcare, what’s the one thing you believe must not be compromised as we scale it? #HealthcareAI #HumanCenteredCare #PatientTrust #DigitalHealth #FutureOfMedicine #DrGPT

AI doesn’t stumble on technology. It stumbles on trust. Most companies still deploy AI like old IT systems: top-down, pre-baked, “here’s your new workflow.” And then they wonder why adoption stalls. The numbers say it all: Trust in company-provided gen-AI fell 31% in two months. Trust in autonomous tools fell 89%. That’s not resistance — that’s feedback. You can’t mandate trust. You have to earn it — and track it. If you can measure sentiment, friction, and confidence, then Trust Health becomes a KPI. Treat it like latency or uptime: if the trust baseline drops, you stop the rollout. Simple. And once trust is a KPI, the approach shifts: - Co-create workflows with the people who actually do the work. - Ship in small loops to reveal friction early. - Make “No trust → No scale” a rule, not a slogan. The companies winning with AI aren’t the ones with the flashiest models. They’re the ones that understand one thing: Technology is cheap. Trust is the moat. What’s the one trust metric you’d track before scaling any AI tool in your organisation? https://lnkd.in/eRShuVSs #AI #Transformation #Business #Strategy

There is a growing gap I am observing with technology. Tools are advancing. People are hesitating. → Leaders underestimate behavioural resistance. → Teams lack shared literacy. → Governance feels heavy rather than enabling. → Success is measured in pilots, not decision quality. The result? Impressive demos. Limited enterprise impact. A Digital strategy is NOT a technology roadmap. It is an adoption and trust agenda. Boards and executive teams that recognise this early avoid the cycle of excitement followed by disillusionment. Transformation occurs when capability, culture, and accountability evolve in tandem. Anything else remains surface-level. If you are seeing adoption friction despite strong investment, there is usually a deeper structural reason.

In our recent work with organisations, I keep seeing the same patterns emerge when it comes to adopting AI. Yes, there are technical considerations like security and privacy, but at the heart of it these are people issues. Nobody wants to use a technology if they feel it puts them or the business at risk. Trust matters, and without it, adoption stalls. Change management and training are also critical. Helping people develop an AI mindset allows them to use these tools in increasingly creative ways, producing higher-quality outcomes rather than just faster ones. Another big one is executive-level commitment. This cannot sit only with the CIO. Every leader, from the CEO to the CFO and beyond, needs to be able to explain why AI matters for the organisation. When leaders can clearly articulate that story, it signals to the whole business that this is a strategic priority, not just an IT project. Equitable access is just as important. Too often I see organisations give AI tools to a select group to control costs. While that makes sense in the short term, the result can be a cultural divide between the haves and the have-nots. People left out either disengage or start using unapproved tools, both of which create risk. Providing broad access, with the right guardrails and support, helps avoid that divide and encourages responsible experimentation across the organisation. These human, cultural, and leadership factors are what really drive successful AI adoption. The technology is only part of the equation.

McKinsey & Company published a report on shopping in the age of AI. Recommended read. I wanted to extend this to the retail media implications. 🛒 The headline: AI is bifurcating the shopping journey into convenience-driven trips (delegate to an agent) and discovery-driven trips (go for the experience). Store visits become LESS frequent but MORE valuable. That tracks. But here's what the report doesn't address: what happens to retail media when the convenience trip gets intermediated by an agent? Retail media is one of the fastest-growing ad categories in our industry. Its entire value proposition rests on the assumption that consumers visit retailer-owned properties, where their behavior can be observed and monetized. Agentic commerce challenges that assumption in digital. If an AI agent assembles the basket, compares alternatives, and executes the purchase upstream, the retailer's site becomes a fulfillment station and not a media surface. The pace of this shift is the part I think most people are getting wrong. I keep coming back to online banking as the analogy. Wells Fargo launched online banking in 1995. It took until roughly 2010-2015 for it to become majority behavior. That's a 15-20 year curve for technology that was fully functional by 2000. 👉 Protocol readiness is not the same as consumer adoption. Let me say that again for the people in the back. PROTOCOL READINESS IS NOT THE SAME AS CONSUMER ADOPTION. Trust compounds slowly, through repeated low-stakes successes. My adorable mom is not delegating her grocery order to an agent next year. However, and this is the part the cautious camp misses, the infrastructure being built right now (ACP, UCP, Agent Pay, what platforms like Mirakl are doing on the inventory side) is what determines who is positioned when behavior catches up. The aspirational (searching for my new Porsche Cars North America) and the actualized (buying a Honda) have far different data value so don't discount AI for eventually getting in on that sweet sweet transaction. For retail media specifically, this means the next few years are about building toward agent-readability: structured product data, machine-readable pricing and fulfillment, and partnerships with the payment-data layer that will increasingly inform what agents recommend and how those agents are secured. The networks that do this work now will be in da club and the ones that don't may be bypassed. That said, bypass isn't the only outcome. Retail media can and will adapt: advertising upstream in agent recommendations, ranking influence via structured data, or retailers becoming the agents themselves. Watch this space for the reshaping. McKinsey & Company report here: https://shorturl.at/jI6j7 CC Sarah Marzano Collin Colburn Andrew Lipsman Jacqueline Karlin Amelia Van Camp Scott Collins Ryan Verklin Nate Elliott Debra Aho Williamson Invite any hole poking here. Learning all the time. Curiosity in motion. #ai #commerce #retailmedia