by Amanda Van Den Elzen – Founder & Facilitator, BetterWork Training, and presenter at the AI Business Summit on Nov. 3. Register for the Summit on Nov. 3 here.
During a diagnostic call with an Exec recently, I uncovered a new employee that had been receiving paychecks but hadn’t been assigned any work since they were hired MONTHS ago. No onboarding. No manager. No tasks. Just a paycheck going out routinely for work nobody had defined (or even seen.)
Except this wasn’t a person. It was Microsoft Copilot Premium licenses, purchased for a sizeable chunk of this company’s workforce months before we spoke.
Employees at this organization received no formal training. There was no rollout plan. Leadership sent an email saying “hey, Copilot’s in your M365 apps now” (and yes, I’m paraphrasing, but you get the idea.)
And here’s the thing: I don’t think this situation is all that unusual. I think it’s happening at a lot of organizations right now.
Companies are pouring money into AI tools because they know there’s value in there somewhere. They can feel it. Everyone’s talking about it, competitors are adopting it, the case for buying seems obvious. So they buy the licenses, but then nothing happens.
AI isn’t autonomous. It doesn’t unlock its own value. It only does what the people using it know how to point it at.
Buying the tool is half the investment. The other half is the people who are supposed to use it. Do they know how? Do they know why? Is anyone making sure it actually gets applied to real work? Skip that half and it doesn’t matter how good the tool is. The value just sits there, unclaimed, same as a salary going out to an employee nobody gave a job to.
Tech and people aren’t two separate investments. They’re one investment with two parts. You can’t fund one and skip the other and expect the value to show up on its own.
Which side is your organization underinvesting in right now: the tech, or the people who are supposed to use it?