The Six Hidden Barriers Stopping Your Business From Deploying AI Successfully

According to the ONS (June 2025), just 1 in 5 UK businesses are using AI in their operations as of June 2025. 1 in 5.

Meanwhile, the technology is advancing at breakneck speed. And the companies that have actually cracked AI deployment? They're seeing genuinely transformative productivity gains.

So why the lag? After almost three years working with organisations of all sizes, I've identified six critical barriers holding businesses back.

The good news? They're all addressable.

1. The Sausage Blog Trap

Let me tell you a story that plays out with depressing regularity.

A board feels pressure to 'do' AI. The MD passes the task to marketing. Marketing uses ChatGPT to write a blog about their products (let's say they make sausages). The blog's mediocre.

Conclusion? "AI isn't very good."

Box ticked, AI removed from the agenda.

This is what I call the Sausage Blog conundrum. Companies judge AI based on how well it performs a task they're already brilliant at. When it fails to impress, they dismiss the whole thing. Meanwhile, they're missing where AI could genuinely transform their operations: automating repetitive processes, building custom workflows, or creating tools that solve real operational headaches.

2. The 'Posh Google' vs 'All-Powerful God' Misconception

Ask ten people what AI is, and you'll get wildly polarised answers.

Half will tell you it's just "posh Google". A glorified autocomplete. Nowt special.

The other half think it's an all-powerful digital god, capable of literally anything. They'll ask it to replace their entire finance team. (True story. Someone asked me that…I didn't take that gig on.)

The truth sits somewhere between the two. Without understanding the actual capabilities and limitations of today's tools, organisations are essentially flying blind. And that never ends well.

3. Lack of AI Skills (Especially at the Top)

Right, I would say this , wouldn’t I? But hear me out.

If you don't understand how to craft effective prompts, what features exist under the hood, and what's genuinely possible, you'll never get out of first gear with AI.

Here's what really matters: training has to start with the senior team.

When leadership has proper grounding in what these tools can actually do, organisations become strategically aligned on AI deployment.

Without that top-down understanding, AI remains a departmental experiment that never scales. With it, AI becomes a whole-organisation opportunity.

4. Lack of Imagination

Earlier this year, ChatGPT released major image generation updates. You could create almost any image you could imagine. Within reason.

And what did most people do? They copied the 'AI Action Figure' meme. Take a pre-written prompt, add your name and job title. Done. Zero imagination required. Frustrating, and massively telling.

The tools allow us to fundamentally change how we work. Build entirely new workflows. Transform the actual products and services we deliver. Yet this requires imagination. It requires thinking beyond "what can AI do for me today" to "what becomes possible when I really understand these tools?"

Creatives are phenomenally powerful here. But imagination isn't limited to the creative team. It's a mindset. And to me, it's essential for successful AI deployment.

5. The Curse of Shadow AI

Here's the uncomfortable truth: your staff are already using AI. They're just doing it under their desks, without your knowledge or governance.

And that's a data security nightmare.

Without proper governance and mandated enterprise-grade tools, people will use their own personal accounts. They'll upload proprietary company IP. They might even process customer data through a free AI account. Every bit of that information risks being used as training data for the AI makers.

Here's a key fact: there's a widespread misconception that ChatGPT isn't secure for enterprise use. This is a myth. ChatGPT Business or Enterprise accounts provide full GDPR compliance and data security. Your data is NOT used for training.

But free, unregulated accounts with ANY provider? That's a data disaster waiting to happen.

6. Fear Without Context

Management keeps talking about AI with vague references to "transforming how we work." But there's no training. No explanation of what the organisation is actually trying to achieve. No clarity on what this means for people's roles.

What do they think? "It's coming for our jobs."

The idea of AI replacing skilled workers is vastly overstated in the media. And when that messaging combines with organisational silence, you create fear.

Clarity comes when we talk honestly about AI plus subject experts creating improved ways of working. When we explain that we're freeing people from clunky processes so they can focus on higher-value work that requires their expertise and judgement.

So What Now?

These six barriers are real. But they're not insurmountable. The companies seeing genuine success with AI aren't necessarily more innovative or better resourced: they're just addressing these challenges head-on.

Start there, and you're already ahead of 80% of UK businesses.

…and if you’re in need of a quick summary of all of these points, in musical form….well, here you go:

If you're serious about getting ahead

If you're curious about AI and want practical help making it work for your business, why not talk to me about THE AI ADVANTAGE: a range of workshops and services designed to fit where you're at, whether that's leadership strategy, team training, solving a real-world business challenge, or getting ongoing guidance.

Or all of the above.

Clients have called my sessions "the best workshops I've ever been on" and they're designed to immerse you and your team in how to get the most out of the tools, and how they can fit into your day-to-day operations.

Interested? Let's have that chat, one-to-one.

Introducing: The AI Advantage - Next Level

I’m usually properly suspicious when people say something is “by popular demand”, but in this case it’s true...

I’ve been asked loads of times recently whether I’d run a follow-up to The AI Advantage…and enough of you have nudged me about it that I’ve finally caved in.

So, drum roll….on Wednesday 5th November 2025, I’ll be running the AI Advantage: Next Level Workshop at the RNCM in Manchester.

It’s a half-day session (1pm arrival, 1:30pm start, finish by 4:30pm) and it’s for those of you who have already been through my original AI Advantage training and want to see what’s new.

We'll dig into the very latest ChatGPT functionality: GPT-5, Deep Research, Agent, Connectors, updates to Canvas (inc basic app-building), and under the hood updates. There will also be time to share experiences and tips with peers from other AI champions like you. Expect demos, practical challenges, and plenty of discussion about what’s working (and what isn’t) in the real world.

Tickets are £150 + VAT per attendee. Places are limited and non-refundable, but substitutions are fine if you cannot make it. All you need is a laptop or tablet with a ChatGPT Plus (minimum) account, and to have completed the original AI Advantage workshop.

And yes, you will also get the brand-spankingly updated AI Advantage Course Workbook to take away.

Book now - see you there.

Stood still while AI races ahead? Join 80% of businesses doing exactly the same. (nowt)

According to the ONS, just 1 in 5 British companies were using any form of AI as of June 2025. Meanwhile, tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude are advancing at a frankly bonkers pace. And if you are using them - but only as a kind of posh Google - there’s a good chance you’ll soon be outpaced by a competitor who actually understands what these tools can do…

I took a bit of time off recently for a few family-related challenges, and, for the sake of my own sanity, stayed out of my regular feeds of AI updates.

As I started to ease my way back into the day job, I figured it was time to refresh myself on anything I might’ve missed in the time spent untethered from my desk.

And it made me realise something that’d been bubbling away at the back of my mind for months: that the rate of development in the generative AI space is rattling along at breakneck speeds, and even I feel like Indiana Jones in a mining cart, hanging on for dear life, braced for the latest developments as they hurtle towards me.

Racing towards the holy grail of AI

But for all the astonishing advances in model capability, most companies are - at best - stuck scratching the surface of what these products could do two years ago.

So what happened in the world of AI?

In the few short weeks since I’d been out of the AI bubble, OpenAI had released or scheduled at least four major new products - o3 Pro, Codex, Record and Agent - the kind of substantive updates we might have previously expected on a far slower schedule. Meanwhile, Google’s Gemini and Notebook products had also seen big releases, and Anthropic’s mighty Claude Opus had dropped.

Which is fascinating, albeit exhilarating, for someone giddily immersed in this stuff like me.

It’s my job to jump into the mine cart, whip on the fedora, speed towards the latest functionality drops and start to map what these might mean to the companies I work with, in the hope that we stumble on a couple of holy grails along the way. (Yeah, I know, I’m mixing up my franchise entries here…)

With Agent and Codex, the promise of true agentic workflows is finally here, across ‘lite’ business administration and coding tasks. Record lets us can capture and interrogate business conversations using the true power of a pro-grade LLM (as opposed to the recent slew of fancy note transcription services), and o3 Pro shows us that multi-stage reasoning models are being levelled up at an alarmingly rapid rate.

And if that last paragraph makes little or no sense, I’m imagine, like many of the businesses I talk to about generative AI, you’re at the Sausage Blogging stage.

AI adoption is lagging, productivity is in reverse, yet the tools are advancing exponentially

Here’s some sobering stats.

According to the Office for National Statistics, as of June 2025 just 1 in 5 British businesses are using some form of AI in their business.

1 in 5.

Again, from my experiences in working with businesses of all sizes, if you distilled that further into how many companies are 1) really digging deep on the capabilities of these models, and 2) starting to align their use of AI with achieving their strategic goals, I’d hazard that number starts to look far lower.

And yet, in the UK, we also have a productivity problem, which is showing little sign of uptick: in the first quarter of 2025, productivity dropped 0.2% on the same period in 2024.

Blimey.

Maybe I’m oversimplifying things, but surely the answer to improving the latter comes from increasing the former? If we invest in knowledge and training in using AI tools in enterprise, productivity gains inevitably come. And they’re often substantial…a recent client reported clawing back 7k+ person hours per annum following some hands-on training work.

So, why is business adoption OF AI so slow?

Companies face genuine barriers: lack of knowledge of what the tools are capable of, data protection concerns, endless procurement cycles, unclear ROI figures, and the understandable fear of ‘hallucinations’ or misinformation. The response? Painfully slow adoption. All of those concerns are absolutely addressable.

But meanwhile, staff are experimenting under their desks (oo-er), pasting sensitive questions into free accounts, staying under the radar. Leadership teams continue to deliberate, write policies, and wait.

Which side of the AI gap do you want to be on?

Here’s the challenge.

If I take a couple of weeks away from my desk, return, and feel overwhelmed by the bonkers volume of updates that have arrived whilst I looked the other way…what about those 80% of businesses that haven’t even dabbled with this stuff yet?

Because while adoption of AI crawls along at a glacial rate in the majority of businesses, there are some companies seeing huge gains by simply deploying some of the basics in a more strategic fashion.

And while adoption in most businesses is slow, or indeed non-existent, the rate of advancement of these tools is exponential and disruptive.

Will it be you, or one of your competitors that realises that first?

Ready to stop dabbling and start doing?

If you’re curious about AI, and want practical help making it work for your business, why not talk to me about THE AI ADVANTAGE: a range of workshops and services designed to fit where you’re at, whether that’s leadership strategy, team training, solving a real-world business challenge, or getting ongoing guidance. Or all of the above.

Clients have called my sessions "the best workshops I’ve ever been on” and they’re designed to immerse you and your team in how to get the most out of the tools, and how they can fit into your day-to-day operations.

Interested? Let’s have that chat, one-to-one.

The AI agent that cracks on with work (rather than JUST chatting about it)

ChatGPT’s Agent can take control of a virtual desktop window and take on some tasks for you…

ChatGPT Agent landed in my account late in July 2025, just a couple of days after OpenAI officially announced it. As ever, I wasted no time whatsoever before mucking around with the little blighter.

If you're not familiar with what Agent's all about, let me give you a bit of a low down.

Agent is a new bit of functionality in ChatGPT which is capable of undertaking work on your behalf. You feed it a well-written prompt, Agent fires open an onscreen virtual machine and cracks on with the task before your very eyes.

Essentially, ChatGPT Agent moves things beyond simply gathering intel and research by actually doing some of the work for you. It proactively chooses from a set of skills like navigating websites, running analysis, creating slide decks and spreadsheets, and securely handling logins when required.

So...first thing I did?

Channelled my inner narcissist and got Agent to pull together a spreadsheet of online mentions about me and Diagonal Thinking. An OK start...but no mention of a certain video I made with OpenAI. Colour me a big head.

Next: I uploaded flight tickets and accommodation details for an upcoming family holiday and asked Agent to knock up a relaxed day-by-day itinerary in a spreadsheet, complete with a deck to pitch the whole break to the family. And blimey, Agent did a decent job. Bonus is that you get to watch Agent getting on with its / your work via a visual of the browser window and terminal.

For someone like me, who regularly watches the robot vac clean around my feet, it's strangely captivating.

One really cool feature is that you can schedule Agent, something we caught a glimpse of when ChatGPT Tasks first appeared earlier this year. Therefore, once you're happy with how Agent's taking on a given activity for you, you can set it up to repeat them on a regular basis. Which kinda fries my mind with possibilities.

Imagine practical scenarios: businesses trawling regularly for tenders can now automate weekly searches across key sites, organise the results into a Google Sheet, and even have them ranked automatically according to how closely they match company credentials and past projects. Automating this kind of weekly grind could significantly reduce unnecessary busywork. And anyone who's attended my AI Advantage workshops knows that reducing churn is genuinely one of my favourite things. Unlike raindrops on roses...

I’ll report back on whether the family signs off on Agent’s holiday planner, or as is more likely, they roll their eyes with the usual level of indifference. Watch this space.

Anyhow, if you're curious about AI and want practical help making it work for your business, let's talk about THE AI ADVANTAGE. These tailored workshops and services are built exactly around your needs: leadership strategy, team training, real-world business solutions, or ongoing guidance. Or all of the above.

Clients call my sessions "the best workshops I've ever been on," designed to immerse your team in practical AI applications and day-to-day tools.

Interested? Let’s have that chat, one-to-one.