Finish one AI job before the next

Don't start a second AI project until the first one runs without you.

The average company scraps 46% of its AI pilots before they're ever used on real work. That's from S&P Global's 2025 survey of more than a thousand people at companies in North America and Europe.

A pilot is a small test, and small tests are easy to start and just as easy to drop. Nobody notices when one quietly stops.

I meet owners with five half-built AI ideas and nothing that saves them a single hour.

So I take one job at a time, from start to finish, before anything else gets touched. And I only call it finished when it passes three tests.

First, it runs on real work every week, with real customers and real deadlines.

Second, someone other than you can run it, because the steps are written down.

Third, you've timed it, so you know what it saves.

Until it passes all three, it's still a test, however good the demo looked.

The second job goes much faster. By then you already know how to brief AI and check its work. Most of the effort in the first job was learning that, and you only pay for it once.

If you've got several half-built ideas on the go right now, pick the one closest to running on real work and park the rest. Parked ideas will still be there when the first one is finished.

Pick your one job this week, and don't start another until it passes all three tests.