Kavita Ganesan, the AI consultant behind Opinosis Analytics, spends her time working with businesses trying to figure out where AI genuinely fits into their operations, and over time she keeps finding the same problem. Leaders wanted the results without having spent any real time in the tools themselves.
"When you don't know what it is, then your expectations from it is going to be very unrealistic."
That gap is exactly why Kavita built her own readiness assessment, the Aura Scorecard, which tells a leader whether they're actually prepared to start the AI journey before they spend a dollar on it. It exists because so many leaders skip straight to outcomes without ever touching the tools, and that gap between expectation and experience is exactly what turns confidence into disappointment once a project is underway.
The deeper issue, though, isn't just tool literacy. It's scope.
"Before jumping in, they definitely need to know the opportunity landscape and the benefits and the potential ROI that comes with each of those projects."
Without a clearly defined scope, leaders aren't planning an AI initiative, they're guessing at one and that is a big part of why so many projects stall before they deliver anything.
Kavita's fix for that isn't to slow everything down and overthink it. It's the opposite - go after one or two pilots that can genuinely move the needle for the business, rather than trying to transform everything at once. Small and focused beats big and vague, every time.
Melissa’s Take:
I've watched business owners feel like they're already behind because everyone else is talking about AI, but rushing in without a plan is exactly how you end up as another failure statistic. My advice? Before you spend a cent, get honest about what you're actually trying to achieve and start with one pilot you can measure. The leaders who win this cycle won’t be the ones who moved fastest. They’ll be the ones who moved on purpose.
Quick Gut Check: Are You Actually Ready?
Before you greenlight anything, ask yourself:
Have I personally used the tool I’m considering, or am I only going off what I’ve heard?
Can I name the specific ROI I expect from this one pilot?
Is this scoped small enough to measure in 90 days?
If you can’t answer all three, you’re not ready to spend the money yet.
This is just a piece of the full conversation. In the episode, Kavita and Melissa go deeper into what AI readiness actually looks like at the leadership level, why she believes leaders need to have used the tools themselves before they can set realistic expectations for their teams, and what it actually takes to turn one successful pilot into something bigger.
Want the rest? The Full Executive Brief delivers the complete conversation straight to your inbox every month, along with access to the Maverick Test, a quick quiz that reveals your Maverick Archetype and how you lead through change.