Quick answer: When a pilot "succeeds," someone measured whether the AI works. Almost nobody measured what it costs to run at real volume over 18 months. And "90% accurate"? That’s the best case on the clean, hand-picked demo data, your live data looks like a toddler’s lunch, so the real number is lower, and nobody told you by how much. The pattern is showing up in the stats: AI project abandonment jumped to 42% in 2025 from 17%, with nearly half of pilots scrapped before production. One question protects you: ask for the fully-loaded 18-month cost per unit of output, not the build quote.
If they can’t give you the run cost, the pilot didn’t finish
It stopped at the fun part and called it a win.
Demo accuracy is not your accuracy
Clean data flatters everyone. Production data tells the truth, quietly, after the contract is signed.
Upkeep is the company car that looked free
Right up until the first service bill – except this one recurs monthly and nobody budgeted it.
Why we know
70% of our Managed AI clients keep us in the loop past year one, because drift, cost, and integration debt aren’t a launch event – they’re a subscription.
FAQ
Adapted from a LinkedIn post by Vadim Govzich, Digital Transformation Advisor at Azati – read the original. Stat: S&P Global Market Intelligence, Voice of the Enterprise 2025.
