95% of Corporate AI Projects Are Failing. The 5% That Work Do One Thing Differently. In 1987, U.S. companies spent $14B on computers. By 1992, productivity was flat. Same movie today, just a different technology. MIT tracked 300 enterprise AI deployments: $40B spent, 95% show zero P&L impact. But the 5% that work? They don’t have smarter engineers or better models. They just buy instead of build. (Shocking, I know) The numbers: Purchased AI: 67% success rate (I know all the Protect vendors are smiling) Built in-house: 33% success rate (Maybe these companies suck at building AI tools?) Shadow AI by employees: 90% of companies Official subscriptions: 40% Your people are already using ChatGPT for leasing emails. They just don’t tell IT. Meanwhile, you’re burning six figures building a “proprietary tenant portal with AI features” no one wants. Pattern is clear: Winners: pick a REAL problem, buy a tool, let line managers drive adoption. Losers: build labs, force rollouts, wonder why staff use free tools instead. For real estate, the biggest ROI isn’t shiny dashboards—it’s back-office drudgery: lease processing, maintenance workflows, vendor management. Stop building. Start buying. Reality check: ROI is messy. Install an AI bot for missed leasing calls? Great. But how do you know those four leases last month weren’t coming anyway? How do you separate bot value from pricing, staff skill, or property location? You don’t most of the time! That’s why small pilots matter: Start with a REAL problem. Define it clearly - map out the process for all to see! Check your current vendor—feature might already exist. Make sure it's a software issue and not a people issue (Training, lack of people, or just the wrong person in the role) Ask: Can a smarter process fix this before AI? Feedback from all people who interact with or are affected by AI tech Red Teams are critical - have a group whose job is to find issues and concerns with AI tech. Clear Metrics to determine success or failure Chasing shiny tech without hard metrics isn’t innovation—it’s self-deception dressed up as progress. https://lnkd.in/e7ZE5EJn