AI Theatre: Why Enterprise AI Projects Keep Failing

Petri Dish

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Is your organization building real business value with AI or just putting on a show?

In this episode of Petri Dish, Russell Smith speaks with Troy Norcross, Founder of SER Team, Fractional COO and AI Governance Advisor, about why so many enterprise AI projects fail to deliver meaningful results. Instead of starting with a clear business problem, many organizations begin with the assumption that “AI is the answer” and then look for somewhere to apply it.

Troy explains why this leads to AI sprawl, shadow AI, wasted experimentation, and disappointing ROI. He also breaks down what companies need to become genuinely AI-ready and governance that acts as guardrails rather than handcuffs.

The discussion also covers why AI adoption is as much a cultural and business transformation challenge as it is a technical one, how token costs could reshape enterprise AI strategy, and why IT teams need to think carefully about data access, AI gateways, and efficient AI application design.

If you’re an IT leader, admin, architect, or decision-maker this conversation will help you understand where organizations are getting AI wrong and what they should do instead!

This episode is Sponsored by Cayosoft!

Russell Smith

Russell Smith, the Editorial Director at Petri IT Knowledgebase, has over two decades of hands-on experience in IT, in both small business settings and government IT infrastructure projects. Russell started writing for Windows IT Pro Magazine in the early 2000s. Since then, he has contributed insights to various IT publications, including Petri and CDW. His authoritative voice has resonated across industry blogs, where he dissects complex topics into an ‘easy read’. Russell has authored over a thousand articles, each a testament to his depth of knowledge. His expertise doesn’t stop there: he wrote a book on Privilege Management and co-authored another for Microsoft’s MOAC series. Moreover, Russell’s commitment to education shines through in the courses he crafted for Pluralsight. He is also presenter on his own YouTube channel, This Week in IT, and the current presenter of Petri Dish.