Why AI Adoption Keeps Failing Despite Leadership Priority

Despite AI being CEOs’ top priority, 56% of companies report zero revenue benefit and 95% of pilots fail to impact P&L. Rob Saltrese, who spent 20 years in recruitment before co-founding AI consultancy Lyra Labs, reveals why the technology isn’t the problem—the leadership-workforce gap is. Learn the workflow redesign most skip, why 12-month AI strategies backfire, and how shadow AI creates governance blind spots that sabotage enterprise adoption.

PwC surveyed 4,454 CEOs across 95 countries. AI is the number one boardroom priority. Yet 56% of companies report zero revenue or cost benefit from AI. MIT found 95% of pilots deliver no measurable P&L impact. And worker confidence in AI is collapsing even as adoption surges.

The technology is not the problem. The gap between leadership and the workforce is.

In this episode, host Paul Brzozowski sits down with Rob Saltrese, Co-Founder of Lyra Labs, to unpack why AI adoption keeps failing and what it actually takes to fix it. Rob spent over 20 years in recruitment and talent acquisition, giving him a front-row seat to how organizations actually work, hire, and resist change. He then pivoted into AI consulting and co-founded Lyra Labs to help enterprises bridge the gap between AI ambition and real business impact.

Originally published on Future of Agentic.