The Builder's Chair: What C-Suite Misses About AI Adoption

70% of technology transformations fail. Not because of the technology, but because of the gap between what leaders buy and how people actually use it. In this episode, host Donna P. Mitchell turns the lens to the builder's side. Instead of a product leader on the people side of adoption, she sits down with Maulik Bhatt, Tech Lead for Amazon Quick at AWS, who builds the core infrastructure behind Amazon's enterprise generative-AI assistant. He speaks the engineering; Donna translates it into what leaders and frontline teams actually live. Together they unpack why enterprises buy subscriptions before they have a use case, how AI earns trust in healthcare through human-in-the-loop and a 99% confidence bar, and how to tell a system problem from a people problem. It was never the technology. It was the gap. TOPICS COVERED: - Why enterprises buy AI subscriptions before they have a use case - How NIST, IEEE, and White House standards actually get made - Why healthcare and finance adopt AI slowly, and should - The human-in-the-loop model and the 99% accuracy threshold - How to tell a system problem from a technical problem from a people problem - Why "just buying subscriptions won't help" TIMESTAMPS: (0:00) Cold Open (0:28) Turning the lens to the builder (1:19) Inside Amazon Quick and the generative AI platform (2:39) How NIST, IEEE, and the White House shape AI standards (5:05) Why enterprises arrive without a use case (7:36) AI in healthcare: accuracy and the 99% threshold (12:44) Human-in-the-loop: why healthcare adopts slowly (14:00) The C-suite mistake: buying subscriptions isn't adoption (19:06) System problem, technical problem, or people problem? (25:29) Security and governance built into every release (28:02) What keeps builders up at night: outages and resilience (33:06) Embrace the technology: AI as companion, not enemy (35:10) Close IN THE GUEST'S WORDS: "Understand your organization's use case. Just buying subscriptions won't help." On healthcare and trust: "In healthcare it will only give the final decision if it's confident about 99 percent. Otherwise it works with the medical staff." ABOUT THE GUEST: Maulik Bhatt is Tech Lead for the Conversation Agentic Service on Amazon Quick at AWS, where he builds the core infrastructure behind Amazon's enterprise generative-AI assistant. With nearly a decade in large-scale cloud systems, he serves on the IEEE-USA AI Policy Committee and the NIST Agentic AI Subcommittee, helping shape national AI governance frameworks. LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/maulik-bhatt ABOUT DONNA P. MITCHELL: Founder of The Transformation Authority™ and CEO of Mitchell Universal Network, LLC. Forbes Business Council Member and Senior Executive Healthcare Think Tank Member. 49 years across five regulated industries — telecommunications, aviation, airline management, healthcare and pharmaceutical, and emerging technologies — enabling 150,000+ professionals. Author of Pivoting to Technology Adoption: Mind the Gap and host of the IAB-certified podcast of the same name, 120+ episodes reaching 64 countries. WORK WITH DONNA — THE ADOPTION ASSESSMENT: pivotingportal.com/advisory New episodes every Tuesday. Forbes Business Council Member.