Before You Plug in AI, Plug in Your Strategy

Everyone’s talking about AI right now—and for good reason. It’s powerful, fast-moving, and it’s already reshaping how we work. But if you’ve sat in enough leadership meetings, you know how these conversations usually go. The board wants to know where your AI play is. Someone saw a cool demo. A vendor promises you transformation in 30 days or less. And suddenly, there’s a sense that if you’re not doing something—anything—you’re falling behind.

That’s exactly how companies end up spending time and money on tools that solve the wrong problems.

We recently helped a team that was in this exact spot. They weren’t short on ideas or excitement. They had people experimenting with AI on their own, leaders asking big questions, and a real interest in moving fast. What they didn’t have was clarity. Everyone had a different idea of what success looked like. Some were focused on automating internal processes. Others wanted to enhance client services. There was no shared direction—just a sense that “we should be doing something.”

That’s where we hit pause and zoomed out. Because before you invest in models, tools, or platforms, you need something more important: a shared understanding of where you’re going and why.

Start with your vision.
Not your tech vision—your business vision. What are you actually trying to become as an organization? If that’s not clear, it’s too easy to get pulled into flashy capabilities that don’t really move the business forward. At Trew, it wasn’t about being the most automated shop in their space—it was about becoming a more proactive, insight-driven partner to their clients. That distinction changed the entire conversation.

Once you know where you’re headed, it’s time to define your business drivers. Not vague goals like “increase efficiency” or “get smarter with data.” Real, measurable drivers. Things like improving team utilization by cutting down on time spent looking for documents. Or reducing onboarding time by automating knowledge transfer. These are the kinds of drivers that keep you focused when every vendor pitch sounds amazing.

Then you need to agree on how you’re going to operate. These are your guiding principles—the boundaries that make sure your team is building the right things for the right reasons. Trew didn’t want AI to replace human expertise; they wanted it to make their experts more effective. That became a core principle: augment, don’t replace. Others followed—like prioritizing transparency with clients, and making sure internal data was used responsibly.

With those three things in place—vision, drivers, and principles—you can finally move with confidence. Now when someone brings up a tool or suggests a new use case, you’ve got a filter. Does it support the vision? Does it tie back to a driver? Does it stay within the lines we’ve drawn? If not, it’s a distraction. If it checks the boxes, it’s worth exploring.

AI doesn’t need hype. It needs leadership.

And leadership means being willing to slow down just long enough to get aligned—so you can speed up in the right direction. If you're feeling that urgency to do something with AI but haven’t had the conversation about where you're actually trying to go, start there. That’s not a delay. That’s how you win.

Mach One Digital can help you lead that conversation. From vision setting to use case selection, we help organizations build an AI strategy that’s grounded in purpose, not just technology. If you’re ready to move forward—on purpose, with purpose let’s talk.

Stay tuned for our upcoming blog series, where we’ll break down the key components of a modern AI strategy, one step at a time.