I think Board of Innovation’s latest report gets at a key reason AI transformation efforts aren’t translating into P&L impact.
We’re giving people new capabilities without changing the conditions they work in.
In Hard-Wired, Laura Stevens, PhD, uses neuroscience and behavioral science to explain why organizations keep returning to familiar ways of working. If our processes, incentives, and approval structures still favor the old behavior, better tools will only take us so far.
What I find insightful is how Laura connects three areas leaders need to rethink together:
- How the company creates competitive advantage, including assumptions that past success has reinforced.
- How work gets done, accounting for the habits, built-in ways of working, and cognitive load that shape people’s behavior.
- How the organization operates, with ownership, funding, and governance that support the changes we’re asking teams to make.
For me, this raises a practical question for our growth plans: what are we expecting AI to change to enable new growth horizons, and what are we changing in the business to make that possible?
I’d make time to read Hard-Wired this week, especially as you work through your 2027 plans.
From the portfolio
Hard-Wired is Board of Innovation’s client work written down. The three tracks in the report are the three things BOI gets hired to do: find where AI is changing what customers value, redesign how the work gets done, and rebuild the operating model so the change holds.
The results are on BOI’s own case pages. At Walmart, BOI built an agentic system that spots trends, designs products and sends tech packs straight to factories, cutting 18 weeks from trend to factory. At Chiesi, an AI-native engine took concept development from five days to one hour, and what began as a pilot in two therapeutic domains now informs the company’s R&D bets.
BOI runs a half-day session with executive teams built around one question: how would a 50-person AI-native competitor beat you? If you’d like to put your 2027 plan through it, reply and I’ll connect you with their team.
What are you expecting AI to change next year, and what are you changing in the business to make that possible?
P.S. What would change in your 2027 plan if you could spot emerging demand earlier, keep research running continuously, or develop and test ideas faster? Meet the HauerX companies making that possible and explore what they’re helping enterprise teams accomplish.
