AI Is Not Failing. What Executives Need To Know About AI Workflows.

InnovationAIAI Is Not Failing. What Executives Need To Know About AI Workflows.ByLutz Finger,Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. AI leader & Cornell faculty; serial entrepreneur; ex-Google/LinkedInFollow AuthorApr 26, 2026, 11:59am EDT--:-- / --:--This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.AI Agents might sounds simple... but they fail often in enterprise settings. gettyIn April, Deloitte found that only 6% of enterprises see their AI investments pay back in under a year, with most waiting two to four years. Also this year, PwC reported only 20% of organizations have actually moved AI experiments into production at scale. Sounds like AI is not yet ready for the enterprise segment? The reason is not that the technology is failing. The reason is that most companies bolt AI onto human workflows, and the tools for proper controls are not there yet.Workflows Need More ContextWorkflows are human made. Often companies have SOPs, Standard Operating Procedures. The most naive approach to agentic design is to cut those SOPs into a chain of prompts and feed them to an LLM. That will fail, because many SOPs assume context the AI does not have.In 1987, Denver International Airport rolled out a new automated baggage handling system. It failed almost immediately. Not because the technology was wrong, but because the designers had applied old human-based workflows to a new technology. Humans would routinely ignore half of the written procedures: when a bag fell off the belt, workers would pick it up and throw it back on. That was not in any procedure manual. It was common knowledge. The new system did not account for common knowledge, and so it broke.Context Costs Money and TimeHold on, you will probably say that LLMs are all about context and context windows. We just need to tell the model. Right? Theoretically that is correct. But more context leads to a higher chance...