Why I started The Boring AI Runbook.
Scroll LinkedIn for ten minutes and AI adoption looks impossibly hard. Twelve-layer frameworks. Maturity models with five stages and a heat map. Threads that end with "comment AI and I will send you my 40-page playbook."
Most of it adds complexity to something that is already hard enough. It is written to look smart, not to be used on a Tuesday.
So I started The Boring AI Runbook. It is a free newsletter that does the opposite: it makes AI rollouts simpler.
Who it is for
It is for the person who got handed AI and owns whether anything changes. Often that person runs operations, finance, support or compliance at a regulated company. They did not ask for the job. They do not write code. And they cannot afford to get it wrong in front of an auditor.
If that is you, this is written for you.
The same problems keep showing up
The companies are different. The problems are not. Almost every AI rollout I see in a regulated company gets stuck in one of four places:
- Stalled in review. Pilots sit in security review for months, because there is no policy an auditor would accept.
- Shadow AI. Staff paste customer data into tools nobody approved.
- Approved, then ignored. Licenses get bought, then most people quietly stop using them.
- No proof it works. Nobody can tell the board who uses it, what it saved, or why people quit.
None of these need a new framework. They need a clear next step.
Why "boring"
The parts of AI adoption that actually work are boring. A short policy people can read. A list of approved tools. Rules about what data goes where. Training that fits the team. A champion in each team. Office hours. A simple report on who uses what.
None of that makes for a viral post. All of it is what gets AI approved by security and then used by real people. Boring is the point.
What each issue looks like
- One problem at a time. Each issue picks one common problem and stays on it.
- Plain language. Written for people who run a business function, not people who write code.
- A runbook, not a think piece. Steps you can take with your team, in order.
- Honest about risk. I have spent 20 years in security. I will tell you where the real risk is, and where it is not.
Why I am writing it
I lead AI adoption inside a regulated fintech. I see the same questions again and again, and most of the answers are simpler than they look. I can only work with a few companies at a time. A newsletter lets me help a much wider group of people with the problems they all share.
It is free. If it helps, forward it to the person at your company who just got handed AI.
Want help with your own rollout? See how the advisory work runs.