The Moment I Realized “AI-First” Was the Wrong Starting Point

Diederik Martens | I recently came back from a conference where one message dominated every conversation: businesses want to become “AI-first.” It left me both inspired and concerned. Inspired, because the ambition is genuine. Concerned, because I have seen many organizations attempt this shift and struggle.

Not because AI fails. But because it is often expected to repair processes it does not truly understand. The actual way work flows inside an organization is rarely as clear as it appears on slides or in strategy decks.

There is a common belief that AI will somehow fix inefficient processes. Yet when you look closely, you often discover that the process you intended to automate should not exist at all. Or it exists differently than assumed. Or it lives in the daily routines of employees in ways that never made it into documentation.

The key lesson for me has been straightforward: before adopting AI or deploying agents at scale, teams need something more fundamental. A clear and honest view of how work really happens today. The visible steps, the hidden shortcuts, the “we’ve always done it like this” habits. That insight became the starting point for building a very different kind of automation roadmap.

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