As a non-technical owner, how do I run a quarterly review with my department leaders to track AI adoption and process automation without getting buried in technical jargon?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Do not let your managers turn AI discussions into technical presentations. Treat AI adoption strictly as an operational efficiency initiative. You do not need to understand code, vector databases, or model weights. You need to understand hours saved, capacity created, and error rates reduced.

Structure your review around the seats on your Accountability Chart. Require each department leader to present their automation pipeline using three plain metrics:

- The specific, cumbersome manual process targeted, measured in monthly hours spent.
- The operational replacement or speed improvement achieved, verified by direct supervisor auditing.
- The net capacity liberated, expressed as redeployed human hours or avoided payroll headcount.

Demand demonstrations of live workflows rather than slide decks. If an operations manager claims an AI system speeds up intake processing, have them process five live client files right in front of you. Observe the steps. Ask where human review sits, how exceptions are handled, and who owns the output when the tool fails.

If a leader speaks in technical buzzwords or promises hypothetical downstream value, pull the conversation back to the EOS Process Component. Which documented Core Process did this improve? Did it move a Scorecard measurable? If they cannot demonstrate a direct link to operational throughput or margin expansion, kill the project and reassign their focus to existing Rocks.