The AI transformation RFP that assumed the hard part away

I saw the RFP and knew immediately: I need to team up with Hans-Peter.

Only a few weeks ago, a client was looking for an AI Transformation Lead/interim COO: a cross-functional role responsible for redesigning processes across sales, service, product and finance, connecting multiple enterprise systems, introducing AI agents, accelerating revenue growth, lowering cost-to-serve and driving adoption across the organization.

The ambition was impressive.

But much of the RFP assumed that the hardest problems had already been solved: that AI agents could be deployed reliably across the organization, that data could move safely between systems, that legal and compliance risks could be dealt with later, that employees would cooperate with processes that would get them fired, and that adoption and governance could be managed during implementation.

AI urgency, ambition, and optimism: none of these are unusual among business leaders. Companies now understand that AI has, or will have, a major impact on revenue, costs and competitiveness. Far fewer have a realistic view of what the technology can do today, where AI genuinely creates value and what must change first before that value can be realized.

That is where Hans-Peter and I see the opportunity to be of unique help.

Companies do not only need people who can talk about AI, or people who can build products and tools. They need a small senior team that understands the strategic and operational opportunities, decides what to (not), what to do first, designs and builds working solutions, and manages the change required to make those solutions stick. Thanks to AI, a small team can now deliver quickly, broadly and at, relatively, very low cost.

Ambition is necessary. But ambition without technical realism, legal awareness and attention to the human consequences is not transformation. It is unmanaged risk.

That is why we started BrA1n.