The Museum of Solutions Seeking Problems

Holly Joint has a great phrase she uses regularly: "The Museum of Solutions Seeking Problems." She reaches for it when talking about technology deployed for the sake of technology.

This is how she has described a lot of the AI proof of concepts that have been running inside companies, particularly over the last year or so.

Over that time, the technology itself has definitely improved. The difference in capability over just the last year is staggering. However, I'm still hearing colleagues across the industry tell stories of current POCs that are nothing short of astonishing, and not in a good way.

The gap is not a technology gap any more. The models are extraordinary and getting better every few months. The gap is that a great many organisations started with the tool and went looking for something to point it at, rather than starting with a problem that costs them real money and asking whether this technology moves it.

A proof of concept that proves the technology works is not a proof of concept. Everyone already knows the technology works. The thing worth proving is that it changes an outcome your business cares about, at a cost you can defend, in a way you can run safely at scale.

That is the conversation Holly and I keep coming back to, and it is the one we opened the Working On It podcast with.