Practical AI adoption: what actually works in real systems
A lot of AI “adoption” discussions stay at the mindset level. Useful, but I’ve found progress usually comes from much more boring mechanics. What’s worked best for me so far: 1. Pick a task with a small blast radius.Summarisation, classification, first-draft support. If it fails, it’s annoying — not dangerous. 2. Define “good enough” upfront.Not “be smart”, but constraints like: cite the source, ask clarifying questions when unsure, and never take actions without human confirmation. 3. Design for being wrong.Assume the model will misunderstand. Make uncertainty visible, log failures, and do a quick weekly “what broke?” review. 4. Only then scale.If one narrow use case isn’t reliable and repeatable, adding more prompts/agents just multiplies confusion. Confidence with AI has come less from mindset shifts and more from seeing the same small workflow work 10 times in a row without surprises. Curious what others here consider a “safe first win” use case — especially ones that still hold up after the novelty wears off.