How do you increase the likelihood that an AI deployment in your enterprise will succeed? This seems to be one of the fundamental challenges that IT professionals struggle with as they deploy the technology and try to demonstrate its value. One clue may come from this article from CX Dive, which suggests that end users are less vexed by the how of AI than the why.

Users don’t necessarily see how AI can help them, and enterprises are still failing to use change management strategies alongside their technology rollouts to help people get value from the new capabilities. The article quotes Patricia Camden, managing director and Americas loyalty leader for consulting firm EY: “The challenge is that tools don’t change behavior.”

“Organizations are adopting AI technically, but they’re not enabling it culturally,” Camden told CX Dive. “They roll out these systems, but they don’t create the time, space or the emotional permission for their people to learn, practice and build trust in this new way of working.”

So how much can IT really do to help with this change management and trust-building? There are definitely ways your organization can play a key role throughout the process, and we’ll be exploring this aspect of AI deployment at Enterprise Connect 2026.

One of the conference sessions I’m most excited about is called, Forget the Moonshot: Build Your AI Strategy One Micro Win at a Time, and it’s being presented by Sinead Aylward of Johnson Controls, a member EC’s enterprise advisory board and super-smart IT/CX leader. As the title suggests, Sinead is going to focus on how scoping your projects and focusing on quick wins can help you build the trust in AI systems that should encourage your users to see the benefits of moving from one success to another, without thinking AI is a failure if it doesn’t completely transform their processes or metrics right out of the gate. As Sinead put it in the session abstract, the point is to, “Think big, start small, win fast.”

As an enterprise-wide strategy, user adoption and change management remain critical, and we’ll be helping you with these challenges as well. Analyst Blair Pleasant will lead a discussion entitled, Reaching AI’s Full Potential with Training, User Adoption, & Skilling. Again, the emphasis is on building the foundation within the user base to support broader AI success.

In the era of AI, there’s almost no point in talking about technology for technology’s sake. There may be some exceptions – keeping the network up and running for example, and we’ve got some great sessions planned for that as well. But for better or worse, most IT leaders need a deeper appreciation of the business and end users' needs in order to do their jobs. I hope you can join us in Las Vegas March 10 – 12 as we delve into these challenges and work toward solutions.

One final note: This newsletter will not publish the next two weeks. All of us at Enterprise Connect hope you have a wonderful holiday season and a Happy New Year – see you in 2026!

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