Aug 26, 2025 | Issue 14
AI transformation is like baking bread. AI is the yeast. Business pressure is the heat. Neither makes bread on its own.
The baker’s job is to focus on the bread itself— not the yeast packet, not the oven dial, not the recipe book.
And that’s what the successful 5% are doing.
📡 In this week’s Signals & Subtractions let’s look at the reported 95% failure rate on AI pilots, why it echoes past digital transformation missteps, and how to do things differently.
Hint: AI isn’t the bread. It’s the leavening agent that helps your business culture rise!
🔭 Signal: 5% Success
You’ve likely seen the headline: MIT’s State of AI in Business 2025 reports that 95% of organizations are getting zero return from GenAI.
For those of us in the organizational transformation space, it’s déjà vu. Back in 2018, Tony Saldana’s Why Digital Transformations Fail found nearly identical odds: “90% of success is determined by change management or culture… only 10% by the technology.”
🧠 Strategic (Human) Prompt: Alignment Under Pressure
So why do we keep running (and failing) the same experiment? Here are some questions to reveal your organization’s own unique answer:
What structures in your organization actually facilitate re-alignment when the heat rises?
or..
What warning signals are currently too easy for your team to ignore?
➖ Subtraction: Prune Pilots Pronto
It’s an especially good time to demonstrate your own value by proactively cutting AI pilots, test cases, POCs, and experiments. Assume only 1 in 10 pilots will deliver direct results the business values. Treat the rest as compost, but not garbage.
Don’t just prune. Document learnings in one page before cutting. How can you redirect resources so that the remaining bud you’re betting on not only grows faster but blooms into stronger returns?
🍞 Analogy: Yeast vs. Bread
AI Transformation is like baking bread. AI is the yeast. Business pressure is the heat. Neither makes bread on its own. Too much or too little of either, and what comes out of the oven isn’t edible. That memorable aroma and taste of fresh-baked bread? It’s mostly all the other things that we enjoy.
The baker’s job is to focus on the bread itself, not the yeast packet, not the oven dial, not the beautiful recipe book.
♬ Closing Notes
The 5% who succeed don’t treat technology as transformation. They treat it like a leavening agent that helps our business culture rise.
Most of the others are still mistaking yeast for bread.
How about you? Is your organization making bread, or just stockpiling yeast?
👉 If you want to join the 5%, grab a slot here.
Until next week,
Sam Rogers
AI Master Chef
Snap Synapse – tools and thinking partners to fuel your AI transformation