I’ve been blogging here for nearly 20 years (don’t go digging — I’ve learned a lot about writing and MarTech since my tech consulting infancy), yet I’ve never before posted a book review. And with this precedent comes a major disclaimer: Vincent Yates and Jason Goth, the authors, are leaders within my employer, the global consultancy Credera. So this could smell of log rolling, or worse. But I’ve always posted what I sincerely thought at the time. Conversely, I’m not stupid. If they had conceived a truly ugly baby I may be whispering that opinion to my colleagues, but certainly not posting it here. What follows are the objective reasons you should buy and read this book. It’s both excellent and timely.
Enterprise leaders are hungry for information on how they can adopt artificial intelligence (AI). They are also, if they’ve earned their positions in the C-suite, allergic to glowing citations of easy success. I’ve read lesser business books that suffer from something called survivorship bias — the tendency to elevate success stories while diminishing the more frequent failures. David Ogilvy put it well when he talked about the need for perseverance, but especially also caution, when running a business. He was reported to have said, “The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces—and strewn with the bodies of pioneers.”
The authors address this head-on, by describing attempts at investing in AI that failed to take into account all the elements needed for success. One example: I was thrilled to see a section about the need to incorporate design thinking. Nothing kills a new technology more surely than workers who are overlooked in its design and roll-out, who then quietly circument or sabotage that investment.
I also found it refreshing that they mentioned Gartner’s hype cycle, where inflated expectations by an enterprise inevitably lead to a trough of disillusionment.
Practical Advice for Avoiding Regret
I should mention, since I focus on MarTech on this blog site, that the most successful implementations of AI aren’t related to marketing at all, unless you count customer service in that category. In my own experience, and within the pages of the book, it’s primarily the many back office processes that AI can profitably automate. These aren’t necessarily the most sexy applications. But they tend to make the greatest impact on an enterprise’s bottom line.
Speaking of the bottom line, I loved the list of the many often unanticipated costs of owning and operating an AI solution. Headlines everywhere talk about the easy path to positive ROI (see above: survivorship bias), but data hygiene, ongoing model improvements and smart governance — to name just three — come with ongoing costs that need to be considered up front.
AI is not set-and-forget.
Speaking of governance, I loved seeing the section on AI safety. The book talks about how AI is basically “a brain in a jar” (ick), but with this power comes risks of unintended consequences. Guardrails are essential. I recently wrote in my personal blog how important this is overall, especially at a nation state level.
I need to also call out the clarity of the writing. This book excels at bringing a blindingly complicated technology within the grasp of the enterprise leader. It was an actual pleasure to read.
One Small Quibble
It’s a truly small knock on the book, but the quote that begins it, one in praise of learning from the wisdom of others via books — ostensibly by Socrates — is most certainly a fabrication, like the many howlers attributed to Albert Einstein or Ghandi. A quick search for the origin of the quote using Copilot (thank you, AI) indicated there is zero evidence of this sentiment in the writings of Plato, Xenophon, or other contemporaries of his. What’s more, although he certainly valued learning from others, he preferred the Socratic method (speaking of log rolling!).
In fact, Plato wrote that Socrates thought writing things down instead of memorizing them led to a lazy or weakened mind, particularly in terms of memory and genuine understanding. As a relatively new technology, he was suspicious of writing.
“Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings, so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.” — Almost certainly not Socrates
Like I said, a small quibble. As a leader, you will “improve yourself greatly” by reading it and taking heed of its advice. Unlike that fallacious quote, The Intelligent Enterprise is the opposite of AI slop.
It’s hard to imaging myself being one of those poor office clerks who added figures in his head all day, back in the so-called Age of Enlightenment. What I can be pretty sure of is this: A machine that does adding for you must have initially seemed far-fetched; even comical. How on earth could a machine do the work of the human brain? There must be some sort of catch.