# 91% Using AI. 11% Shipping. Which Are You? — Pilot to Production

> Four stages of AI adoption: Experimenting, Piloting, Shipping, Compounding. A quick assessment to find where you are and what it takes to move forward.

Canonical: https://thegrowthproject.com/podcast/ai-shipping-assessment/

*Pilot to Production*, the Growth Project podcast — hosted by Sam and Maya.

- Listen: https://thegrowthproject.com/podcast/ai-shipping-assessment/
- Read the article: https://thegrowthproject.com/blog/ai-shipping-assessment/
- Audio: https://thegrowthproject.com/audio/podcast/ai-shipping-assessment.m4a?v=372d248a

## Transcript

**Sam:** Ninety-one percent of mid-market companies say they're using AI. Eleven percent have anything in production.

**Maya:** So most of that "we're using AI" crowd just has a ChatGPT subscription. Not a system.

**Sam:** Welcome to Pilot to Production, from the Growth Project. I'm Sam.

**Maya:** And I'm Maya. Today: the gap between using AI and shipping AI, and the four stages that tell you exactly where you're stuck.

**Sam:** Four stages. Walk me through it, because everyone I talk to says the same two words: "we're using it."

**Maya:** Right, and using isn't binary. It's a spectrum. Experimenting, then Piloting, then Shipping, then Compounding.

**Sam:** Stage one, Experimenting. What does that actually look like?

**Maya:** The marketing person drafts emails in ChatGPT. The developer runs Copilot for autocomplete. The CEO summarizes documents in Claude. Everyone's exploring. Nobody's coordinating.

**Sam:** That's most of the ninety-one percent, isn't it.

**Maya:** It is. And here's the hard part. That's not adoption. That's a curiosity, not a capability.

**Sam:** Okay, so how do you climb out of experimenting?

**Maya:** Three moves. Pick one use case. Assign an owner. Define what success looks like. That's it. That gets you to Piloting.

**Sam:** Piloting sounds like progress. One to three projects, real scope, a name on it.

**Maya:** It is progress. But this is where people fool themselves. The thing is impressive in demos. It handles the happy path.

**Sam:** And then?

**Maya:** And then it needs the person who built it to run it. Edge cases break it. No monitoring. No documentation. You have a demo, not a system.

**Sam:** Ouch. That line's going to sting a few people. So what's the bridge from a demo to a real system?

**Maya:** The production-ready checklist. Five words. Reliability. Observability. Security. Maintainability. Independence. If you can't tick most of those boxes, you're not ready to ship.

**Sam:** Independence is the one that gets me. The builder stepping back.

**Maya:** That's the tell. In Shipping, the system runs in production, it handles real workloads without constant supervision, and your team can operate it without vendor support.

**Sam:** And when it fails?

**Maya:** When it fails, alerts fire. When it needs updating, there's a process. And the value is measurable. Time saved, errors reduced, throughput up.

**Sam:** You said this is where most companies want to be.

**Maya:** Want to be, yes. Few get here. That's the eleven percent. They've crossed a real threshold.

**Sam:** So if Shipping is the goal, what's Compounding even for?

**Maya:** Compounding is when each project makes the next one easier. Templates. Patterns. Documented approaches. New person joins, they're productive fast. New use case shows up, the team knows how to evaluate it.

**Sam:** That's not a tool anymore. That's a muscle.

**Maya:** Exactly. It's organizational capability, not just technology. And very few companies reach it. The ones that do have a massive, lasting advantage.

**Sam:** Here's my sharp question. People hear four stages and want to leapfrog. Experimenting straight to Shipping.

**Maya:** You can't. Wherever you scored, the path is the same. One stage at a time.

**Sam:** So give me the first thing Monday. Someone listening knows they're stuck in Piloting. What do they do?

**Maya:** Open the production-ready checklist and be honest about the five. Then four concrete moves. Build monitoring before you need it. Document while you build, not after. And plan for the builder to step back.

**Sam:** Document while you build, not after. That's the one nobody does.

**Maya:** Because after never comes. And the difference between the eleven percent and everyone else isn't technology. It's discipline.

**Sam:** Experimenting is easy. Piloting is harder. Shipping is where most fail. Compounding is rare.

**Maya:** So the only question that matters is, which stage are you actually in, and what would it take to move up one.

**Sam:** This has been Pilot to Production, from the Growth Project. If you're in the ninety-one percent using AI but not the eleven percent shipping it, that's the gap we close, at thegrowthproject.com.

**Maya:** Thanks for listening. See you next time.