Treat market context as infrastructure, not a point purchase.
Ask in your next leadership meetingWho else in the company would benefit from the market view this team just bought on its own?
What leaders do first
Most enterprises are investing in AI. The difference is whether they fix the foundation first.
That means governing the data, clarifying the rules, agreeing on the account, and then automating the work.
Six moves, in order
The order that makes AI useful
Govern the data before scaling automation.
Ask in your next leadership meetingIf an agent acted on our account data tomorrow, whose version would it use?
Clarify the rules for fit, priority, coverage, timing, and ownership.
Ask in your next leadership meetingWhere is our definition of a good-fit account written down in a form a system can apply?
Agree on the account across systems, teams, and partners.
Ask in your next leadership meetingCan we produce one agreed hierarchy for our top twenty customers this week?
Redesign the workflow before inserting an agent.
Ask in your next leadership meetingAre we automating the work, or automating the workaround?
Give one executive authority to resolve cross-functional decisions.
Ask in your next leadership meetingWho can settle a disagreement between two functions about the same account — without escalating to the CEO?
None of these moves require a new technology category. All of them require executive authority that reaches across functions.
Independent research
The evidence points in the same direction.
Independent research increasingly connects AI value to the work around the technology: data foundations, governance, workflow redesign, leadership sponsorship, and operating-model change. Technology alone does not create coordinated execution.
Next
Start with your own accounts and market
A practical first step, an anonymized customer story, and two ways to begin.