AI Death At Pilot Program Phase
- Untapped Energy
- Jul 15
- 3 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
Through the rising popularity of "AI ", businesses are now looking at every process, product, and customer touch‑point for automation potential. This has led to many AI pilot projects, many of which have yielded promising results. However, when moving beyond the pilot project, there is often no additional funding or budget available. The initial budget would only cover equipment or personnel but often does not address subsequent integration, training, and retrofitting costs. As such, initiatives stall after pilot phases because ongoing costs typically fall into operating budgets instead of capital expenditure.
To ensure that your company's AI strategy does not suffer "Death At Pilot", it needs to manage 2 things:
Have a plan for key AI initiative sponsors and personnel that championed the pilot, who often rotate out once the pilot concludes, leaving successors to inherit risks without corresponding enthusiasm, clarity around the initiative’s original vision or the AI skills needed to scale the pilot project.
Have a reporting process in place that ensures that Return on Investment (ROI) is not lost in translation, one that clearly describes the tangible benefits essential for scaling so that the initiative survives beyond the pilot phase and into capital allocation discussions. Technical improvements proposed by engineers must translate into clear cash-flow projections. Consequently, potential operational expenditures must be explicitly justified by cash-flow benefits rather than abstract metrics.
AI Literacy is key to overcoming these barriers to AI Adoption. AI fluency helps identify where there are skills gaps that prevent the scaling of AI pilot projects, while empowering key decision makers with the language to better understand the full range of benefits from enterprise AI Adoption.
This is why the Government of Alberta, with support from the Federal Government, has selected Untapped Energy as the lead nonprofit organization to design and deliver an AI Literacy Program aimed directly for employers. A series of online and in-person sessions provide the necessary tools to help your organization:
• Build AI Fundamentals and Data Fluency
• Achieve Critical Thinking and Fact Checking skills
• To implement AI responsibly and ethically
• Effectively plan for the future of your organization's workforce & required AI competencies
All participants will be provided with a Strategic AI Adoption roadmap and complete an AI Organizational Skills maturity assessment, a key foundation for your organization to prepare for its future workforce and talent strategy.
Effective AI adoption and implementation is not an isolated effort. Being able to rely on trusted ecosystem partners is the key to a successful AI adoption in your organization. Untapped Energy is pleased to showcase Deliver Digital Inc. as a trusted ecosystem partner you can count on for your AI adoption.
Deliver Digital Inc.. has been helping organizations turn ambition into action, from imagining a better customer experience, to tackling outdated systems, or simply making smarter technology investments. Bold ideas and visions about how technology can move the business forward are grounded into a clear strategy, aligning leadership, mapping to existing systems, and identifying the blind spots that are often missed. It's about making Smart Decisions, especially in the area of AI. And when it’s time to make it real, Deliver Digital not only supports implementation, but through long-term governance frameworks, vendor accountability, and systems that actually stick to make this a sustainable winning outcome.
Register today at early bird pricing: $499 (prices go up to $599 on August 15). Or, connect with Keith Daser (keith@deliverdigital.ca) to learn more about how they are helping others with their AI implementation. They have a discount code that will give you 25% off access to this AI Literacy Program.
