Just a decade ago, only 3 of the 10 of the most valuable publicly traded companies were in technology – Google, Microsoft, and Apple. Today that has been flipped on its head; only 3 of the 10 most valuable companies in the world aren’t pure tech companies. Meanwhile every other industry is scrambling to keep up with integrating new tools and ways of working to stay relevant.

Over more than 20 years of driving innovation within large corporations, I’ve seen firsthand how they often fall into a self-destructive—and entirely avoidable—pattern when it comes to tech adoption: When confronted with learning the nuances of some new technology —whether it’s blockchain, cloud computing, or Generative AI—they create an “island of experts” on that particular technology.

The rationale is that this kind of dedicated team will ensure focus and cohesion that will help the broader company incorporate the new technology. But in reality, these teams often wind up being disconnected from the rest of the business. The result is yet another siloed unit, detached from the broader business value chain.

There’s a better way for companies to adopt new technology—more on that below.

I’ve seen this same movie play out over and over again in my career. Because they can’t train everyone in the new technology at the outset, companies handpick a small team to evaluate and implement it—a SWAT team of sorts. The team of experts often works on potential applications separately—to avoid disrupting business-as-usual (BAU) activities.

But they quickly become isolated from daily business operations (which shouldn’t come as a surprise, as that was the original intent!). This separation not only increases costs but also raises expectations. The rest of the organization hears about the high costs and becomes skeptical, questioning the business knowledge of the SWAT team members, and inevitably, the value of the new technology itself.

The Brewing Storm

This resistance brews over time, much like the buildup before a hurricane. Just as residents prepare for a hurricane, employees start to erect barriers against the impending change. They prefer to stay in their familiar routines rather than embrace the uncertainty of the new technology.

The leaders of the business units and product teams are naturally protective over their systems and processes. After all, not only do they know their jobs better than anyone else, they also know their livelihood is closely tied to them. If they feel out of the loop or excluded from work that impacts them, they are naturally going to see this new “island of experts” as a red flag.

Multi-Connected Islands

We need a paradigm shift when incorporating new technology—to what I call “multi-connected islands.” Just as you can easily take a ferry, bridge, or subway between the islands of New York City, we need to ensure that these pockets of experts are deeply connected within the broader ecosystem of the organization. This isn’t a theoretical idea: I’ve led the adoption of AI in this fashion at large companies like xxx and xxx, with compelling results.

Rather than creating a single isolated team of tech gurus, we engineered a hub-and-spoke model. We borrowed talent from existing business units for the SWAT team, so they could become both connectors and advocates. They are committed to being the bridge between today and tomorrow, and they are visible and transparent about the possibilities of what will it take to evolve. These connectors created multiple smaller use cases within their respective business units.

In parallel, rather than having the SWAT team become the gatekeeper of information, we mandated comprehensive training for all employees across the organization on the new technology. We treat AI just as we would compliance coursework – that is, important for all employees to ensure a common foundational understanding.

This approach emphasizes the interconnectedness of innovation efforts across departments and encourages collaboration and alignment with organizational goals.

I have been in several organizations that launched innovation arms, led by newly hired teams, with budgets of tens of millions of dollars and dedicated resources. Their task was to develop new technologies.

Meanwhile, I took a different approach. My division embedded “architects” from across business units to make sure that whatever we did would be useful for them. We had to consider the impact on the bottom line and the top line. We worked directly with the internal (and external) stakeholders to understand their challenges and identify opportunities where AI could simplify their existing workflows without overhauling them completely.

We mapped out every step of the user journey and identified common steps across departments that could be streamlined using AI. Within nine months, these teams were using AI at scale, significantly reducing their mundane workload and improving their quality of output. This collaborative approach required no additional budget, yet it delivered results that were rapidly adopted company-wide.

By contrast, the isolated innovation teams in these same companies developed products over several years. Despite their potential, the products often failed to gain traction because they required significant changes to existing workflows, which the already overburdened teams were unwilling to adopt. Eventually, the isolated innovation efforts were dissolved, or spun out, but most importantly, resulted in ROI that was difficult to measure.

Connecting Teams to Drive Innovation

Outside of extraordinary circumstances, the days of teams within companies hoarding information among a small, handpicked group of people should largely be over. A more holistic approach—where the entire organization embarks on the technological journey together—offers a more sustainable path to innovation. We don’t have just a handful of people who know the internet in our companies, or just a handful that use email. Everyone leverages these, quite basic, functionalities. It will be the same with AI.

About the author:

Dr. Henna Karna is a globally recognized tech entrepreneur with a proven expertise in patented product design, development, and launch with profitable gains. Dr. Karna brings more than 25 years of experience leading innovation leveraging digital/data/analytics in High-Tech, CPG, Risk Management, and Regulated Industries, including Capital Markets, Payments, and Insurance. She has led businesses and advised Fortune 50 companies on digital innovation and disruption and has designed and developed patent-pending technology and applications in the field of genetic algorithms, behavioral analytics, deep neural nets, & digital-data technologies. Most recently, she led GOOGLE’s Global Industry Solutions for Insurance & RIsk and collaborated with over 600 companies worldwide. Dr. Karna is an MIT graduate and currently working on her Harvard Fellowship on AI & People impact on society and corporations.

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