Steam powered AI, anyone?

Most businesses using AI haven't actually adopted AI properly (yet). Metaphorically speaking, they've bought an electric motor and attached it to a steam-powered factory.

Let me explain, because a similar tale of latent adoption happened in the late 1800s, and as we know, history teaches us a great deal about the present day.

So back in the 1800s, factories were generally powered by one enormous steam engine. That engine turned a complicated network of shafts, pulleys and leather belts, which carried power to every machine in the building, so the whole factory had to be designed around it.

As a result, buildings went upwards rather than outwards, work moved wherever the belts allowed it to move, and if the central engine stopped, everybody stopped. Imagine Dave from IT, except twelve tonnes heavier, covered in soot and requiring several men with shovels to keep him functioning with sarnies.

Then… electricity arrived.

Factory owners marvelled at this astonishing new technology and did the obvious thing: they removed the steam engine, and installed one large electric motor in exactly the same place, and connected it to exactly the same shafts, pulleys and belts.

Same factory. Same layout. Same workflow. Same bottlenecks. Just a shinier engine, a little cleaner and cheaper to run. It needed less maintenance, but there was only a slight improvement.

Sound familiar? Because this is precisely what most businesses are doing with AI.

Give the team ChatGPT or Copilot and they’ll use it to write the same emails, but a bit faster. They’ll ask it to summarise the same boring meeting nobody needed to attend. They’ll use it to create another report, which somebody will copy into a spreadsheet, email to six people and save in a folder called FINAL_v7_USE_THIS_ONE.

The work is done slightly quicker. But the systems haven’t changed.

Back to our history lesson briefly to see what happens next... when a new generation of factory owners realised something rather important. You didn't need one giant motor in the middle. You could put small electric motors on every machine and not where the power source dictated. Factories could now be redesigned around the flow of the work. Eureka!

The dynamo didn't merely replace the steam engine, it made the old factory design unnecessary. And that is where we are getting to now with AI.

The question is not: “How can AI help us do this task faster?” The better question is: "If we designed this business today, would this task, hand-off or approval exist at all?"

- Would a new enquiry sit in an inbox until somebody remembered it on Monday morning?

- Would a salesperson type the same notes into two different systems?

- Would your best people spend Friday afternoon compiling a report from information the business already owns but is scattered all over the place?

- Would every customer get the same follow-up regardless of what they asked, bought or did next?

- Would Dave still be allowed to call a folder "Misc_Stuff"?

I think we all know the answer to the last one.

True AI adoption is not about sprinkling chatbots over a bad process and hoping for some magic. It is about redesigning the processes around what is now possible.

If you're still using AI as a faster typewriter, have a look at my new Success Formula Club website https://www.successformula.club/ and see what’s possible with the right direction and guidance.

PS: All 166 blog posts are now also on my site under weekly musings with a search feature, so you can find any relevant articles by keyword… for example, if you type ‘Nige’ (Nige), you’ll find 5 articles where I mention you.