2026: AI Adoption - Grip It and Rip It

Dylan Lee

2025 gave everyone a chance to make a start with AI.  It was a year of dabbling and seeing how this AI thing pans out.  We were AI-this and AI-that.  We trained a few people, went to the conferences.  AI had arrived, and we... used it.

Copilot, Gemini, and Claude now produce streams of business benefits from text prompts while you sleep. AI-Enabled businesses are outcompeting, disrupting sectors, reshaping industries.  AI Leaders are emerging, making competitors irrelevant as they topple yesterday's monopolies. This is really happening, right now.

What has come of AI in your business?  2026 marks the year businesses have no choice but to grip it and rip it.

Game plan for 2026

AI isn't a tech team thing. It's not an operations thing. It's not an HR thing. Of course everyone has a role, but we're talking an all-of-business offensive.   What held many back in 2025 was thinking AI was "someone's", with predictable results.  AI adoption is top-down, bottom-up, middle-out.  Here's your 2026 quarter-by-quarter playbook (patent not pending):

  1. Q1 2026 - Everyone trained
    Do it in tranches, do it at once. Train everyone, you have until Tuesday March 31.  Culture teams get across it. Tech and data teams, prime yourself to enable.

  2. Q2 2026 - Push play
    All in: everyone in your business does AI.     Ride the wave. Fuel the good, extinguish the bad, cherry-pick the remarkable.  Foster your culture of competence.

  3. Q3 2026 - Scale & Pivot
    Culture of competence becomes culture of continuous gains. Systematically capitalise on optimisations and innovations, big and small.

  4. Q4 2026 - Disrupt & Reload
    Time to double down. Lean all AI priority toward your "one big thing" and concentrate gains there, setting the stage for 2027.

If this is too slow for you then speed it up. If this is too much then chunk it down.  Already part way there?  Start where you are.  It's that simple.    AI isn't magic. The AI myths slowed many of us down in 2025.  But 2026 dawns. Achieve effective adoption and amplify your business.

2026.  Grip it and rip it.

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