AI Adoption: It’s Like the Wild, Wild West Out There

Jul 12

What this covers: Why the absence of an AI adoption strategy isn't a neutral, wait-and-see position, and what the research on unsanctioned AI use at work shows.

Who it's for: Leaders and managers who assume AI adoption is a decision they haven't made yet.

Key takeaway: A missing AI adoption strategy doesn't mean AI is missing from your company. It means nobody's in charge of it yet.

Time to read: About 5 minutes.

‍The Gold Rush of AI ‍

In the summer of 1859, thousands of prospectors poured into the mountains west of Denver chasing gold. The land was technically Kansas Territory, but Kansas's government was late to the party. In camps along Clear Creek, miners held meetings, elected their own officers, and wrote their own laws.

By 1860, the Denver area had three separate governments trying to rule the same area of the west. When no one’s around to write the rules, the rules get written by whoever shows up first. It got messy fast, and Congress stepped in to create the Colorado Territory in February of 1861.

Now, all these years later, AI has its own set of prospectors.

The Adoption Gap

For the majority of companies in the U.S., there has been no formal rollout of AI, no task-level training, and, in many cases, no approved tool. Company leaders are still deciding how they want to jump on the AI bandwagon, if at all.

Many employees aren’t waiting around for a decision to be made. The stats paint an interesting picture:

Data collected between December 2025 and May 2026 puts real, in-production AI use at 17% to 20% of businesses. (U.S. Census Bureau)
Close to 90% of organizations report their employees are using AI tools regardless of what's officially sanctioned. (ISACA's 2026 AI Pulse Poll)‍ ‍
More than three in four workers say they found and signed up for AI tools themselves, rather than waiting for something the employer provided. (Resume Now Report)
Nearly a quarter of organizations have no AI policy of any kind. (ISACA's 2026 AI Pulse Poll)

The contradiction in these numbers is obvious. A company can say it hasn’t adopted AI at all while most of its workforce is using AI every day.

Consequences of Unmanaged AI Adoption

The Wild, Wild West of AI Adoption isn’t as dramatic as prospecting for gold more than 165 years ago. In fact, it looks pretty innocent on the surface. But when you dig a little deeper, you’ll see five people solving the same content problem five different ways. You’ll notice your brand voice changes depending on who wrote the draft with what tool. Over time, inconsistencies compound, voice drifts toward the generic, and clients begin to notice. ‍

I’ve talked before about how 95% of AI pilots fail, but having no strategy is actually worse than having a bad strategy. With a failed AI pilot, at least someone made a decision to try something. Unmanaged AI adoption happens further upstream than that.

Pikes Peak or Bust

‍Leaders who haven’t officially rolled out AI are like the east coasters from the 1860s who feared that they wouldn’t survive the journey. Their reluctance didn’t change the fact that there was gold to be found. History lesson aside, leaders today who think they’re dodging a bullet by avoiding the chaos of AI are really just putting off the inevitable.

AI Adoption Strategy Isn’t as Complicated as It Sounds

An AI adoption strategy in content development doesn't need to be huge. You can get started with just four things:

A short list of approved or reviewed tools.
A plain-language policy on what can and can't be entered into those tools.
An owner of that policy.
A solid review cycle to keep the policy updated.

Once that’s in place, teams can evaluate where AI fits into their process and where it doesn’t.

Colorado ran itself for almost two years before Washington made it official. Your company doesn't get two years. A client will ask what your AI policy is. A vendor will require one for a contract. A mistake will get made publicly enough to force the question. Whoever already wrote the rules, officially or not, is running things until then. The only choice is whether that's you.

FAQs on AI Adoption

What is an AI adoption strategy?

An AI adoption strategy is a company's plan for how AI gets used, including what tools are approved, what data can and can't be shared with them, who owns the decision, and how the plan gets revisited over time. It's different from simply allowing AI or telling employees to use it. It's the structure around that use.

How many companies don't have an AI policy?
Estimates vary by survey, but recent research puts the number of organizations with no AI policy at all somewhere between one in four and nearly one in three. Only about a third to two-fifths of companies report having a formal, comprehensive policy in place.

Are employees using AI without their employer's approval?
Yes, and at a much higher rate than most companies have an official AI presence. Multiple surveys put unsanctioned AI use at roughly a third to half of workers, with a majority saying they've sought out and adopted tools on their own rather than waiting for something sanctioned.

What's the difference between a failed AI pilot and no AI strategy at all?
A failed pilot means an organization tried something and the effort broke down somewhere in the process, often because the workflow wasn't mapped before the tool was introduced. Having no AI strategy is a step earlier than that. There was no attempt, no decision, and no owner. Employees fill that gap on their own, whether or not leadership realizes it.

What should an AI usage policy include?
At minimum, a usage policy should name which tools are approved or under review, spell out what kind of information can and can't be entered into them, assign ownership of the policy to a specific person or role, and set a cadence for revisiting it as tools and risks change.

At Evergreen Content Ops, we help organizations implement human-led, AI-assisted content processes. Check out our full suite of AI-enabled content services and get in touch.

More info on AI Adoption:

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Kristen Kent