Most AI failures inside large organizations don't start with the technology. They start in the executive committee. The CEO has one vision for AI. The CFO sees a cost play. The CTO is thinking infrastructure. Legal is thinking liability. And the board is asking questions nobody in the room can answer consistently.
This isn't a training problem. It's a governance problem. Until the leadership team can articulate a shared institutional logic for why AI is being deployed and what success actually means across the organization, every dollar spent on tools is a bet without a thesis.
Alignment at the top isn't a soft skill. It's a strategic prerequisite.
