Over the past year, many organizations have invested in Artificial Intelligence. Some purchased ChatGPT Enterprise. Others deployed Microsoft Copilot. Some experimented with Claude or Gemini. Nearly everybody I've spoken with agrees that AI will change the way we work.

Buying AI is the easy part. The difficult part is figuring out how it actually fits into your business.

Too often, organizations expect employees to simply "start using AI." A few people embrace it. Most don't. Months later, leadership wonders why adoption stalled and whether the investment was worthwhile.

In my experience, the issue usually isn't the technology. It's the absence of a strategy.

Successful AI adoption starts by answering a few practical questions:

• Which departments will benefit first?
• Which repetitive tasks consume the most time?
• What information should AI be allowed to access?
• How should AI be governed?
• Which tool is the best fit for each job?
• How will we measure success?

Those are business questions, not technology questions.

I've also become convinced that there isn't a single AI platform that solves every problem. Organizations may find value in ChatGPT for research and brainstorming, while Microsoft Copilot shines inside Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel, SharePoint, and OneDrive. The right answer often depends on the workflow, not the product.

At Frankel Technology, we also offer HATZ, an enterprise AI platform that provides access to more than 60 leading language models through a single interface. For many organizations, HATZ offers the flexibility to evaluate and use different models without committing to a single AI provider.

Ultimately, though, I don't think the conversation should start with choosing a platform. It should start with understanding the business problem you're trying to solve.

Rather than asking,

"Which AI should we buy?"

Ask,

"How do we use AI to improve the way our organization works?"

That shift in thinking changes the conversation from software to strategy.

One approach I've come to appreciate is treating AI adoption like any other strategic initiative. Start with leadership. Identify measurable business outcomes. Run a focused pilot. Learn what works. Establish governance. Then expand deliberately instead of trying to transform the entire organization overnight.

The organizations seeing the greatest return on AI aren't necessarily the ones with the most licenses. They're the ones with a plan.

That's why we've begun helping organizations with AI Adoption & Transformation Pilots—engagements designed to evaluate existing AI investments, identify practical use cases, establish governance, and build a roadmap for future automation.

If your organization has invested in AI but is still asking, "Now what?", it may be time to step back and develop a strategy before making the next investment.

How is your organization approaching AI adoption? Have you moved beyond experimentation, or are you still working to determine where AI fits into your day-to-day operations?