I thought I had it all figured out.
Fresh off Google’s AI Leadership certification and Andrew Ng’s Transformation Playbook, I was armed with frameworks, buzzwords, and enough confidence to tackle any AI challenge. Then reality hit me in the face—in the form of two marketing ads that were so perfectly wrong, they taught me more than any course ever could.
The Email That Changed My Perspective
My inbox had become a graveyard of AI hype. But two ads stopped me cold. Not because they were good, but because they exposed something deeper about how the consulting industry profits from fear and dependency.
Ad #1: Fear as a Business Model
“You touch AI, you lose money!”
The headline practically screamed at me. The pitch? Most business owners fail with AI because they lack the “right mindset.” The solution? A free two-hour seminar revealing the “three fatal strategic mistakes” that are bleeding your company dry.
I’ll admit—it was tempting. Who wants to be the fool who wastes money on AI?
But then I remembered what Andrew Ng actually teaches: start with small pilots, prove value, learn from real results. Not “attend a seminar and let an expert fix you.”
The ad’s promise was backwards. It positioned strategy as day one, not as something you earn through experimentation. Worse, it created dependency. The consultant holds the answers; you just need to pay for access.
From a psychology standpoint, it’s brilliant marketing. From a transformation standpoint? It’s poison.
Ad #2: Poetry That Sounds Smart But Means Nothing
The second ad took a different approach—less fear, more inspiration:
“When the logic of the times changes, old models fade away.”
Poetic, right? It promised a “three-step path to the AI age”:
- Informationization – build data
- Digitalization – connect systems
- Intelligentization – make data accurate and adaptive
After one free Zoom call with a former tech-giant executive, you’d supposedly understand how to move from “tool digitalization” to “intelligent thinking.”
This one felt more visionary, more sophisticated. But it shared the same fatal flaw: it treated transformation like a linear staircase instead of a messy, iterative learning process.
In reality, every company’s AI journey looks different. Culture matters. Resources matter. Readiness matters. The idea that everyone can follow the same three steps is like saying everyone should use the same recipe regardless of what ingredients they have.
What the Frameworks Actually Teach (And Why It Matters)
Here’s what both Google and Andrew Ng get right, and what those ads completely miss:
You don’t start with strategy. You start with learning.
Ng’s approach is beautifully simple:
- Bottom-up first → Run small experiments, gather proof, build skills
- Then top-down → Use those lessons to shape company direction
- Repeat forever → Let each cycle refine your strategy
It’s not a straight line. It’s a spiral. Learning creates strategy; strategy guides the next round of learning.
When you jump straight to “strategy,” you’re drawing a map before exploring the territory. You’re guessing. And expensive guesses are how 90% of AI projects fail.
The Real Reason AI Projects Fail (And It’s Not What You Think)
A recent MIT study found that over 90% of enterprise AI projects never show measurable profit.
The culprit? Not bad algorithms. Not insufficient funding.
Flawed integration and missing feedback loops.
Translation: Companies treated AI like a top-down mandate instead of an organizational learning system.
When goals only flow downward, frontline teams become button-pushers, not problem-solvers. They might follow the plan perfectly, but they miss the subtle realities—the places where AI could actually help, the data quality issues, the cultural friction points.
The result? Pretty dashboards. Zero impact.
Real transformation requires information flowing both ways. Leaders provide vision and resources. Teams provide evidence and insight. That’s where magic happens.
What These Ads Reveal About the Consulting Industry
I don’t think these ads are evil. They’re just… predictable.
The consulting industry sustains itself by making transformation sound mysterious or dangerous. External experts position themselves as essential guides. Dependency becomes the business model.
But here’s what I’ve learned from the best consultants I’ve met: They measure success by how quickly you don’t need them anymore.
They transfer capability, not control. They teach you to fish, not sell you fish subscriptions.
If I Could Rewrite Those Ads
Forget the fear-mongering. Forget the three-step miracles. Here’s what an honest AI transformation message would say:
“Start small.
Build a team that learns.
Let success show you what strategy should be.”
No grand promises. No urgency tricks. Just an invitation to get smarter through doing.
Because AI transformation isn’t about buying wisdom from consultants. It’s about cultivating it inside your organization—one pilot, one mistake, one insight at a time.
The Unexpected Lesson: AI and Ancient Wisdom
After months deep in frameworks and case studies, something strange happened. I started hearing echoes of the Diamond Sutra in everything I learned about AI leadership.
The Sutra teaches that even the teachings themselves are just tools—useful rafts, not ultimate truths. “Let the mind arise without clinging anywhere.”
Isn’t that the essence of adaptive leadership too?
Hold no strategy so tightly that it blinds you to new evidence. Act, observe, adjust, release. The guru, the consultant, the algorithm—they can point the way, but understanding must come from within.
In both AI transformation and spiritual practice, progress begins when dependency ends.
The Bottom Line
Those two ads taught me more than they intended. They showed me how easy it is to package fear and sell it as wisdom. How tempting it is to promise shortcuts when the real work is iterative and humble.
The truth about AI transformation isn’t sexy:
- Start with experiments, not strategy
- Build feedback loops, not command chains
- Transfer capability, not create dependency
- Measure learning, not just ROI
And maybe most importantly: Stop looking for the guru with all the answers. Your organization already has them. They’re just buried under layers of hierarchy and fear.
The real transformation begins when you stop importing wisdom and start discovering it.
Transparency Note: This article was co-created with AI assistance (ChatGPT & Claude) to refine structure, enhance readability, and optimize for SEO while preserving the authentic insights and experiences of the author.