Experts Urge Companies to Limit AI Budgets to 1 or 2 High-Impact Use Cases

10 articles · Updated · IT Brew · May 26

McKinsey and enterprise AI advisers said companies should avoid broad AI spending and instead fund one or two workflows tied directly to growth, productivity or new business creation.
Basel Kayyali warned that letting "one thousand flowers bloom" often traps firms in "pilot purgatory," making clear business goals the first step in setting AI budgets.
Jonathan Kleiman of StackAI said budgeting should start with use cases that are cheap to build, quick to deploy and able to either lift revenue or cut major process costs.
Brightwave CEO Mike Conover added that staff education is part of the budget equation, arguing teams that do not understand AI's strengths and limits waste money elsewhere.
Kayyali said AI budgeting should not fall solely on CIOs or IT teams, framing it as a broader business responsibility as companies face pressure to adopt AI with constrained spending.

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