--- title: The Five Questions source: https://steadman.ai/newsletters/david/five-questions.html published: 2026-07-18 summary: Five questions that give the second phase of AI transformation a clear structure and put each part of the work in its right court. --- # The Five Questions *The simplest model I can find for the second phase of AI transformation* Published 18th July 2026. Most firms have done some parts of AI well, and most are struggling with the rest. The first phase was adoption: put the tools in people's hands, get the firm using them. The second phase is different work: the firm changes how it operates around the tools. This is the simplest model I can come up with, based on the firms I work with. It starts from the questions the second phase must answer. There are five. Answer them in order and the structure follows. ## 1 · Strategy and vision **Is the strategy clear and well communicated?** The role AI plays in how we work (automation or augmentation), and the economic goal (efficiency or growth). Decided, written down, and communicated until nobody can miss it. **Whose court:** the board. ## 2 · Tools: available, set up well **Does everyone have the current generation, set up well and properly funded, and is the next generation in pilot?** Available is the easy half. Set up well is the real test: the current generation in everyone's hands, configured properly, with the budget to use it fully. And the next generation in pilot, so that by the time it becomes the current generation the firm already knows how to use it. **Whose court:** the AI team for experiments and pilots; IT for everything in production, run as products. ## 3 · Tools: used, widely and well **Are the tools used, and are there enough power users, amplified?** Two measures, applied at every level. Breadth: the whole firm using the tools. Depth: enough power users, found, named and amplified so that their impact and methods spread. Both need materials, content and dashboards in the hands of the people who own the outcome. And both carry a bar, set by level: a director's bar differs from a graduate's. Miss the minimum for your level and that is a tough conversation, held within your level. The bar cuts both ways: each level needs enough power users, amplified, freed up to use their skills properly, and given the budget to do so. **Whose court:** the business units, given materials, content and dashboards by the enablement capability. ## 4 · Work redesigned around AI **Has the shape of the work changed: processes, team structures, roles, training?** The tools pay back when the work itself changes. The route is experiments. Every week should produce or update two lists: things we learned that should be rolled out, and things we should test next. **Whose court:** the business units. They run the experiments and keep the record. ## 5 · New products and services **Are we changing what we sell?** More experiments: the same muscle, pointed at revenue. A technology that changes how the work is done will change what customers buy: new offers, new service lines, new ways of delivering existing work. Each test ends in a decision: scale it or drop it. **Whose court:** the business units. ## The structure the questions imply Answer the five questions and the organisation chart draws itself. Three parts, no more. ### Diagram: five questions, three owners The diagram maps each question to its owner and verb. Question one, strategy and vision, maps to **the board: decide**. Question two, tools available and set up well, maps to **the AI enablement capability: equip**. Questions three, four and five, covering tool use, work redesign, and new products and services, map to **the business units: execute**. A quiet supporting connection from the AI enablement capability to the business units shows that it equips them with what they need to execute. ### The board (Question one). Writes and communicates the strategy. Sets the bars by level and holds them. ### The AI enablement capability (Question two, supporting three to five). Two halves: the AI team owns experiments and pilots; IT owns everything in production, run as products. Together they equip the firm with materials, content, dashboards and support. ### The business units (Questions three to five). Own usage, the tough conversations, the experiments that redesign the work, and the new products and services. Execution and its consequences live where the profit and loss lives. None of this is exotic; each part is already working somewhere. The second phase is answering all five at once, each in its right court. --- *Saturday AI Thoughts, by David Boyle. This is an artefact created for David's weekly email: [see the others here](https://steadman.ai/newsletters/david/).*