The Adoption Gap Is Widening — And the Big Four Confirmed It

Unknown Speaker (0:00): Welcome to Pivoting to Technology Adoption. I'm your host, Donna P. Mitchell, the transformation authority. Every week, I sit down with executives, strategists, and innovators to tackle the one problem no one's solving. Why 70% of technology transformations fail?

Unknown Speaker (0:18): Let's pivot. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Welcome to pivoting to technology adoption.

Donna P. Mitchell (0:23): This is Donna Mitchell, the transformation authority, and I wanted to cover on the adoption gap that's getting wider and wider and wider. Now I said in 2025 that the adoption gap crisis would not be just a technology problem, it would be a people problem. And that 70% of the transformation failure rate would continue, Not just because the models are weak, but because leaders were treating the tool like rollouts of transformation. I said training is what you pay for and adoption is what you get. Six months later, in 2026, the big four have confirmed what I had been saying.

Unknown Speaker (0:58): And today I wanna walk you through three things that you need to know about. The original call, the failure is human, not technological. I have been saying this since the early 2020s, and I formalized it in the 2025 writing of my 2026 book, pivoting to technology Mind the Gap, the majority of the transformation initiatives failed because the human system around the technology, not the technology itself. People, processes, politics, organizational design. Those determine the adoption, not the quality of the tool.

Donna P. Mitchell (1:31): The original call, number two, the adoption gap is the real crisis. My book named the adoption gap as the central crisis. Investment without adoption is wasted capital. Pilots without scaling our expensive experiments and deployments without user engagement or abandoned projects with better marketing. And lastly, the original third call training is what you pay for adoption is what you get across forty eight years, five industries, telecommunications, aviation, airline operations, health care, pharmaceuticals, and the emerging technology today.

Donna P. Mitchell (2:06): I pretty much watch leaders confuse training completion with actual adoption, and it's not that. Training is what you pay for. Adoption is what you get or you don't get. And right now, a lot of organizations are not getting the adoption piece. The organizations that make attendance reports, the change reports are paying twice, once for training, and again for the transformation that never happened.

Donna P. Mitchell (2:31): Only 5% of integrated AI pilots were extracting meaningful value. The source once again is MIT NADA initiative, the Gen AI divide state of AI business 2025. Let that 95% land on you. Now AI transformations are failing faster than the broader transformation baseline because Gen AI accelerates the human gap rather than bridging it. 70% over two decades, 95% in a single year of generative AI.

Donna P. Mitchell (3:03): That is not a contradiction. That is an acceleration. So that is what has been confirmed. Now here are three patterns I'm naming for the next twelve months. I'm naming patterns.

Donna P. Mitchell (3:14): I'm not teaching the how on this podcast. Here's what I'm watching. The governance gap will separate scalers from stallers. Organizations that solve AI accountability first will scale, the rest will restructure. BCG's 2026 data tells us 72% of CEOs are now the main decision maker on AI.

Donna P. Mitchell (3:34): But naming the decision maker is not the same as building the governance system that supports decisions. Decision rights without operating governance is a press release, not a transformation. The market is about to sort into two camps, those with executive ownership and clear operating governance underneath and those still negotiating on who owns what. The second group will spend 2026 going in circles. The measurement crisis will force a reckoning.

Donna P. Mitchell (4:03): Companies are investing in AI faster than they are measuring it. The BCG reports 94% of companies say they will continue investing even if AI does not pay off in 2020 Well, that's remarkable confidence. It's also unsustainable confidence. When the MIT data shows 95% of Gen AI pilots delivering no measurable profit and loss and 94% of the companies continue to invest anyway, a correction is coming. Boards will start asking for a ROI evidence that current measurement systems cannot produce.

Donna P. Mitchell (4:38): The companies that build measurement discipline now will survive that correction. The one still operating on faith will be restructuring probably around mid twenty twenty seven. So now when we talk about Gartner in July 2024, Gartner predicted that at least 30% of the generative AI products would be abandoned after proof of concept by the 2025. The reasons poor data quality, inadequate risk controls, escalating costs and unclear business value. By January 2026, Gartner published an update.

Donna P. Mitchell (5:10): The actual number had risen to more than 50% abandoned after proof of concept. Gartner predicted 30%. The reality came in at over 50%. BCG AI Radar 2026, the CEO accountability ship. In January 2026, Boston Consulting Group released the BCG AI Radar 2026.

Donna P. Mitchell (5:33): As AI investment surge, CEOs take the lead. The methodology, a survey of 2,360 executives across 16 markets, nine industries, including 640 CEOs. Three findings that matter for this conversation. 72% of the CEOs now say they are the main decision maker on AI in their organization, Twice the share from one year. 50% of the CEOs believe their job stability depends on getting AI strategy right in 2026.

Donna P. Mitchell (6:05): And 94% of the organizations plan to continue investing in AI even if current initiatives do not produce desired financial returns in the next twelve months. Source, BCG AI Radar 2026. As AI investment serves, CEOs take the lead. Read those numbers together. CEOs have personally taken ownership.

Donna P. Mitchell (6:28): CEOs believe their jobs depend on it. And companies will keep spending even when AI does not pay off. That is not a technology problem. That is a leadership accountability moment. All transformations are failing faster than the broader transformation baseline because Gen AI accelerates the human gap rather than bridging it.

Donna P. Mitchell (6:49): So what's the third call? Trust becomes the adoption currency. Adoption requires trust. Trust requires evidence. Evidence requires measurement.

Donna P. Mitchell (6:59): Without all three, you have deployment without adoption. BCG's data shows 50% of CEOs believe their job depends on AI strategy, and that is personal stakes. But the workforce data tells a different story. Workers want human review of AI outputs. Many do not trust AI outputs without verification.

Donna P. Mitchell (7:22): That trust gap between executive bet and workforce reality will determine which transformations actually scale. The organizations that figure it out how to build trust alongside capacity will adopt. The organizations that force adoption without addressing trust will keep paying for pilots that do not scale. If you an executive listening to this and something I named resonated, here is what I want you to know. I've been doing this work.

Donna P. Mitchell (7:50): I've been navigating change in technology for over forty eight years across five industries. I've watched the same patterns repeat throughout deregulation, divestiture, digital transformation, and now emerging technology. The names change, the patterns do not. Here's the pattern I watch longer than ever. Organizations measure what people attend.

Donna P. Mitchell (8:13): I'll say it again. They measure what people attend. They do not measure what people do six months later. Until that changes, the 70% failure rate will not change. It's the people.

Donna P. Mitchell (8:25): You gotta work with the people. People matter. And generative AI will keep failing faster than the baseline because it accelerates the human gap rather than bridging it. My book, Pivoting to Technology Adoption, Mind the Gap, is available on Amazon and Kindle, paperback, and hardcover. If you want to go deeper on the patterns I named today, the book is Where the Foundation Lives, my advisory practice, The transformation authority works with organizations that are ready to address the human side of adoption.

Donna P. Mitchell (8:53): If you want to talk about how these patterns are showing up in your organization, you can reach me through the pivotingportal.com or the transformation brief newsletter. Subscribe and keep up. But if you'd like to chat, pivotingportal.com. I welcome the conversation. Thanks for listening.

Donna P. Mitchell (9:10): I'm Donna P. Mitchell, member of Forbes Business Council, transformation authority, and I look forward to talking to you. And until then, until next Tuesday, I have a fabulous episode that's going to be different, unique, and informative for episode 116. Thank you for listening to pivoting to technology adoption, shaping tomorrow together. Thank you for listening to pivoting to technology adoption.

Unknown Speaker (9:35): If this episode gave you something to think about, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a colleague who needs to hear it. My new book, Pivoting to Technology Adoption, Mind the Gap, is available now on Amazon. Visit pivotingportal.com to work with me directly. I'm Donna P. Mitchell, the Transformation Authority.

Unknown Speaker (9:57): Until next time, Mind the Gap.