02Case anatomy
Analyses
Anonymized case anatomies from both ends of the scale — the teaching layer. Every piece ends the same way: what would have worked instead. For the named, sourced companies behind these patterns, see Case Files (overheated) and The Freeze (frozen).
The pilot graveyard
A company can run forty AI pilots and still have no AI capability. Anatomy of the most common overheating pattern of all — activity mistaken for progress.
Good automation, bad automation
The same technology compounds in one workflow and corrodes in the next. Five tests separate them — none require understanding the models.
The 90-day headcount experiment
A mid-market insurer replaced most of its service team with a bot in one quarter. The rehiring cost more than the software saved — a pattern the market keeps rerunning.
Waiting for the fad to pass
A regional engineering firm decided AI was noise. Two years later the firm was quieter too — anatomy of the frozen pattern, where nothing dramatic happens, and that is the problem.
The AI-washing premium
Relabeling the product bought a valuation bump and eighteen months of borrowed time. Anatomy of the label premium — and what happens when it reverses.
The quiet capability gap
Between “all in” and “all out,” most firms have simply not started. The gap doesn’t announce itself — it books later, as lost optionality.