Nội dung
- AI should not be pushed “into the corner” of business strategy
- The gap between “implemented” and “delivering results” remains huge
- “Readiness assessment” is becoming a new need for SMEs
- “Pilot purgatory”: when companies have dozens of experiments but no project ever gets to the finish line
- AI is only sustainable when technology and people evolve together
- A perspective for the Vietnamese market
- References
AI is being seen by many businesses as a “must-have lever,” but a series of recent international stories shows the issue is not whether to use AI, but where to use it, who is accountable, and how ready the organization really is. For Vietnamese marketers, this is the time to view AI as a business and operational capability, rather than just a content-generation tool or a technology experiment.
- Key points:
- Many organizations are still stuck in the AI experimentation stage without tying it to specific business goals.
- AI pilots are easy to fail when there is no strategy, no value measurement, and they are handed off to a single isolated team.
- All sources emphasize the company’s “readiness,” from processes and data to people.
- For the Vietnamese market, AI only delivers results when paired with operational capability, training, and change management.
AI should not be pushed “into the corner” of business strategy
An article from Ingka Group highlights a very common situation: AI is often passed back and forth between the CTO, consultants, and executive meetings, rather than being placed in the right position within the business strategy. According to the expert quoted in the article, AI is not a separate “branch” detached from business goals; it must directly serve growth, margins, customer experience, or competitiveness.
The notable point is that the problem is not a lack of tools, but the way the question is framed before work begins. If an AI project is not tied to a clear strategic priority, it is highly likely to become a polished experiment on paper that is difficult to turn into real impact. This is an important reminder for marketing teams: do not start with technology; start with the business problem that needs solving.
Source: Ingka Group, “Why nobody should put AI in the corner”.
The gap between “implemented” and “delivering results” remains huge
Although the Yahoo Finance source in the original data does not show the full content, the article title reflects a familiar paradox in the AI wave: adoption is rising quickly, but real-world results are not keeping pace with expectations. This is also a story many businesses around the world are facing as AI is introduced into workflows without clearly improving productivity or revenue.
For marketers, this situation often appears when using AI to generate content at scale, automate customer care, or analyze campaign data, but without a clear measurement framework. If KPIs are not defined in advance, AI can easily become a layer of “technology decoration” rather than a tool that creates competitive advantage. So accelerating adoption is only the first step; the more important step is proving performance.
Source: Yahoo Finance, “AI Adoption Accelerating While Performance Stalls”.
“Readiness assessment” is becoming a new need for SMEs
VTNH Consulting Partners launched an AI Readiness Assessment tool in response to the reality that many businesses are rushing into AI too quickly without checking the foundation underneath. The message of this initiative is quite clear: before deploying any AI project, businesses need to assess whether they are ready in terms of data, processes, people, and intended use cases.
This is a practical approach, especially suitable for small and medium-sized businesses that often lack the resources to fail repeatedly. For marketers, the lesson here is not to treat AI as a “plugin bundle” that works as soon as it is installed. It is necessary to review customer data, content quality, approval workflows, and the ability to coordinate between marketing, sales, customer service, and IT before scaling adoption.
Source: IssueWire, “VTNH Consulting Partners Launches New AI Readiness Assessment…”.
“Pilot purgatory”: when companies have dozens of experiments but no project ever gets to the finish line
The Medium article has a sarcastic tone, but it captures a worrying reality: many organizations are entering “pilot purgatory” — the stage stuck between experimentation and real deployment. The familiar approach is to buy a platform before there is a problem to solve, build something that could have been bought off the shelf, or run so many pilots that none of them is large enough to be judged a failure.
What is worth thinking about is that when AI is turned into a formality race, businesses may accumulate many slides and demos but very little real value. For marketing teams, a similar risk arises when too many AI tools are tested at once without an owner, without a decision-making process, and without milestones to measure effectiveness. The lesson here is: choose fewer use cases, but make sure they have a clear path to execution.
Source: Medium, “The Pilot Purgatory: A Leadership Manual”.
AI is only sustainable when technology and people evolve together
A Forbes article emphasizes an important principle: AI transformation succeeds only when human capability and technology advance in parallel. In other words, businesses cannot expect AI to automatically create transformation if the team is not trained, roles are not redesigned, and the working culture does not change accordingly.
This perspective is especially useful for marketers because marketing is where creativity, data, technology, and customer experience intersect. If you only buy AI tools without upgrading analytical skills, experimental thinking, brief-writing ability, and quality control, the results will be very limited. The more powerful AI becomes, the greater the need for people who know how to ask the right questions.
Source: Forbes, “Why AI Transformation Succeeds Only When Talent And Technology Evolve Together”.
A perspective for the Vietnamese market
For Vietnamese businesses, especially marketing departments, these 5 stories point to one common theme: AI should not be deployed as a hunt for the newest tool. Instead, businesses need to clearly define the business problem, check internal readiness, and invest in training people so AI can truly create value.
In a context where resources are still limited, a more suitable approach is to choose a few use cases with clear impact, such as customer care, campaign data analysis, content creation support, or experience personalization, and then measure the results seriously. AI is not scarce, but maturity in how AI is used is the real competitive advantage.
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This article focuses on AI in business with a perspective for the Vietnamese market.
References
- Ingka Group — Why nobody should put AI in the corner
- Yahoo Finance — AI Adoption Accelerating While Performance Stalls
- Issuewire — VTNH Consulting Partners Launches New AI Readiness Assessment To Help Businesses Avoid The “95% Ai Pilot Failure Rate”
- Medium — The Pilot Purgatory: A Leadership Manual | by Adnan Masood, PhD. | Jul, 2026
- Forbes — Why AI Transformation Succeeds Only When Talent And Technology Evolve Together
