5 Things Managers Said about AI This Week (Aug 10, 2026)
Fun fact: People love to talk about AI. Every chat I had this week ran over its alloted 30 minute meeting time. People have opinions. All the conversations are a mix of hot takes, wins, complaints, and advice.
So I present this week's roundup:
"They told us to use this in-house tool a team built but none of us know what to do with it."
Classic AI roll out mistake. Leadership appointed a small team to create a meta-tool. Then they announced a new, custom AI tool that has access to most of the companies systems. The announcement came with no documentation, no tutorials, no information on the data that it's connected to, and no direction on how to use it.
Let this be your reminder that AI tool roll outs need clear, documented use cases (answering the most obviously question "how should we use this tool?"), documentation, and training sessions where people can ask questions.
"We can't measure quality the same across the whole organization."
Measuring AI success beyond the usual metrics of monitoring how many people are using AI, is still tricky. Leadership wants ROI on AI investments, and metrics are necessarily in evaluating investments. A big sticking point is that AI is not used the same across the company. Marketing teams that use AI to save on ad spend shouldn't be measured the same as compliance who uses AI to speed up review processes, as product teams using AI to prototype features in real time.
Different teams should have different AI metrics, just as different teams have different deliverables. And not all of them will be saving the company money or time.
"Our IT needs exploded after everyone started using AI."
One manager at a smaller company noted that increased AI use led to an overwhelming amount of questions, troubleshooting, and new AI tool access requests. They went on to say that they don't have the resources to currently to deal with the influx, particularly when something goes wrong with AI, and are now considering hiring someone specifically to deal with it.
"Our CEO is so blindly pro AI that I don't think anyone trusts him now"
In this context, the CEO is perceived to be relying on AI so much that employees (including other leadership) are questioning his judgement. They noted that seemed unaware that employees did not use AI the same way as he did.
I'm curious if there's more data on this, as it's something that I've heard annecdotely, often as a throw away comment, on the way to a bigger convesration about AI and leadership.
"I made my first AI agent and my boss doesn't care."
This person worked a place with no AI initiatives. They're excited about the possibilities but get little support from their managers. And now, they're job searching because they've read that AI skills command a salary premimum. Naturally, I agreed with the choice.
And that's the wrap. Contact us if you want to share your perspective as a manager who is wrangling AI. We accept the good, the bad, and the wtf equally.
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