AI Magazine January 2026 | Page 33

WPP One Southwark Bridge Campus
Four things signal AI adoption will fail. First, organisations that have never built and scaled software will struggle because AI operates like software but proves more complicated.“ It’ s not a magic wand you can just deploy and hopefully it works. The reality is much more complicated than software,” Daniel says.
Second is talent. Everyone has rebranded as an AI expert over three years, but building differentiated solutions requires differentiated talent. Satalia has 250 to 300 deep experts at WPP, and attracting world-class talent demands ecosystems where people develop careers and learn from each other. Without this, they build models, get stuck maintaining them and leave.
Third, don’ t wait for data to be sorted.“ We’ ve all been told for the past 15 years to build data lakes and get our data in order. The data is still not in order. Your data will never be in order,” Daniel says. Start with the problem and work backwards, joining up data over time as more problems get solved.
Fourth, quick wins rarely differentiate.“ Everybody wants to do AI right now and the reality is that quick wins and lowhanging fruit are most likely not going to differentiate your business,” he adds. Organisations should focus on applying AI to separate from competitors, accepting that meaningful work takes time. aimagazine. com 33