IT Managers at Mid-Market Companies - Small AI Wins

Two weeks ago, I started a series on real AI adoption. The idea was simple: skip the hype, find companies actually getting value from AI, and share what’s working. Turns out, finding those companies is harder than I expected. Even my little army of AI agents couldn’t find many. Mostly press releases, paid surveys, and old failures wearing a fresh AI hat. 😅 And that actually taught me something: Real AI adoption is probably much less exciting than we think. I’ve started thinking about AI like electricity. Copilot can bring the power to the house. Great. But if there’s no wiring, no sockets, no appliances… nothing really happens. And nobody celebrates installing a power socket. You need the cable. Then the wiring. Then the socket. Then, eventually, the toaster. Each step is small. Boring, even. But put them together, and suddenly the whole house works differently. That’s what real AI adoption looks like. Not one magical “AI transformation” moment. Hundreds of small, measurable, slightly boring wins that actually change how people work. So maybe I’m looking in the wrong place. Instead of asking for the big AI success story, I want to hear about the smallest real win. #AIAdoption #FutureOfWork #RealTalk