AI initiatives don’t fail because of bad models. They fail because objectives, data, and business processes aren’t clearly understood first. In this thought-leadership piece, Sesame Software CEO Rick Banister explains why AI should be treated as a tool, not a goal, and how examining data quality and workflows during the discovery phase often delivers more value than deploying AI itself.

It’s been three years since ChatGPT’s public debut—a milestone that seemed to bring the Turing Test within reach. Yet, rather than fearing a Skynet-style future, most of us are grappling with a more mundane problem: what exactly to do with this new toolset.