AI by Committee

The lines under "How it sounds" are typical phrasing we wrote, not quotes from clients or interviews.

How it sounds

• “We set up an AI working group, and it meets every other Thursday.”
• “Each department picked its own tool, and we'll compare notes.”
• “We're waiting on the committee's recommendation.”

What it looks like

A group with one person from each department gives AI a couple of hours a week. Say 6 people meet for 2 hours: that's 6 × 2 = 12 hours of company time, or 12 ÷ 8 = 1.5 eight-hour days, in one meeting (an illustration, not a sourced figure). Then everyone goes back to the day job with a list of to-dos and works them piecemeal between other work. If the next meeting is weeks away, the list waits and gets done in a rush right before it. The meetings produce lists, demos and small pilots. The decisions that cost something, like which tools, what data stays out and which work changes first, get pushed to the next meeting. Each member reports back to their own boss, so each department's view wins inside its own area.

Why it happens

A committee feels fair and safe. Nobody has to give one person authority over other people's departments, and nobody carries the blame alone if it goes wrong. Each member's first team is their department, so the committee works for the departments and nobody works for the whole business. Our view, which no study measures directly, is that committees also tend to settle on what nobody objects to, and the options that matter most are often the ones somebody objects to.

What it costs

• Staff time, as an example. Five people giving AI 2 hours a week: 5 × 2 × 48 weeks × $37.64 an hour = $18,067 a year. The $37.64 is total compensation per hour worked at private-industry worksites with 1 to 49 workers, the lowest of the four size bands (BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026, Table 6). A bigger worksite costs more per hour. Five people, two hours and 48 working weeks are our assumptions, so owners should use their own.
• Fragmented work. In SAS and IDC's survey of 1,600 small and mid-sized companies, 44.8% had "no structured view of their AI use cases, with activities remaining fragmented across teams and functions," and only 12.5% managed them as a portfolio "with clear owners, success metrics, and regular review and prioritization."
• We searched for a study showing that committee-run AI fails more often and didn't find a credible one, so that claim stays our reasoning.

First move

Keep the group as a sounding board and name one owner with the time and authority to decide. Write down the three kinds of decisions the owner makes alone and the ones that come back to the leadership team.

The fifteen patterns, with what each one costs and a first move, are in The AI anti-pattern field guide.

Someone should own AI at your company.

An AI strategy decides who owns the work, which tools stay, and what changes first.

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