Congrats, Your AI Pilot Works. Can You Feed It for a Year?

Vadim Govzich

Digital Transformation Advisor, Azati

Quick answer: Every CIO I talk to eventually asks the same thing in their own words: "How do I know it’ll still work in a year?" Two years ago the question was "can AI do this?" – settled. The new one is "can we operate it?" – and most vendors are still proudly answering the old one, like a waiter reciting yesterday’s specials. The gap is real: MIT found only about 5% of enterprise GenAI pilots reach production with measurable value. So if you’re buying, ask for a pilot that proves it can be run, not just that it works, because operability is what Managed AI protects.

A demo proving it works is a magician’s rabbit

Cute. Now feed it, monitor it, and keep it alive through drift and cost for eighteen months.

Make "can we operate it" the pass/fail

A pilot that only proves capability hasn’t proven anything you can safely fund.

The vendor who survives that one question is the one to hire

Most pilots die after launch, not before – because they were built to impress, not to run.

What "runs" looks like

Read the case study

Azati’s banking payments platform has had zero production rollbacks since launch, across multiple jurisdictions. Boring, on purpose.

FAQ

What should I ask an AI vendor before buying?

Prove it can be operated – monitoring, drift, cost, support – not just that it works in a demo.

Why do AI pilots fail after launch?

They were built to prove capability, not to run in production; MIT puts the production-with-value rate near 5%. We close that gap with Managed AI and a production-first approach.

Buying AI that has to still work next year?

Let’s pressure-test operability

Adapted from a LinkedIn post by Vadim Govzich, Digital Transformation Advisor at Azati – read the original. Stat: MIT NANDA, State of AI in Business 2025.