A few years ago, a global manufacturing company invested millions in an AI platform designed to optimize its operations. The technology worked exactly as promised. Processes improved. Data flowed. Efficiency numbers looked great on paper. And then the first major disruption hit, a supply chain crisis that no algorithm had been trained to handle. The technology stalled. The people who kept the organization moving were the ones who could read a situation, improvise under pressure, and bring their teams along with them.

As artificial intelligence reshapes the economy, the organizations pulling ahead are not the ones with the most sophisticated