It has to be coming from above. This is what McKinsey thinks and I think I agree. AI adoption required company transformation. This can't be done from the bottom - you will face severe resistance as this threatens people jobs/positions. Question is - how much you can extract from operational activity that can be automated reliably with AI. The more you can transform your company/operations in a way to maximize the AI automation - the bigger competitive advantage you get.

The problem companies are facing - is the lack of expertise. CEOs / Investors hear the rumors, AI can generate asymmetrical advantage - but no one knows HOW? And there are no AI transformation leaders on the market atm. So companies would try just to do something to be able to claim - we are on the road of AI adoption.

Using Claude Code for coding is a typical first move. Does it create a competitive advantage? It depends if company can ship features faster or cheaper. Otherwise it doesn't.

I have not heard of success stories about successful operational transformation based on AI. But I see a lot of nano-size startups popping up which build products on AI and embed AI into operations since the very early stage.