Here's your plan to commission an AI rollout.
Step 1: Name the executive sponsor and write down what they're accountable for.
Outcome, not budget. The clearest sponsors can finish this sentence: "By [date], this work will have changed [thing] for [team], measured by [signal]." If the sentence comes together easily, everything downstream gets easier.
Step 2: Write the success criteria you'd want leadership to set.
Three to five outcomes, dated and measurable. Hand them up as a working draft. Setting expectations on something this new is genuinely hard from above. A draft from closer to the work gives leadership something to react to, which is faster than a blank page.
Step 3: Map the workflow you're going to change.
The version that actually runs, not the version on the org chart. A week of shadowing usually surfaces three or four things the documented process misses. Those are the points where AI will actually plug in or trip up. The map becomes the brief for everything downstream, from vendor selection to change management.
Step 4: Identify the three roles that change most, and write their new job descriptions.
AI reshapes roles more than it replaces them. The new shape tends to be less time on the routine 70 percent, more time on the judgement 30 percent. Writing the new descriptions in advance tells the team what's coming. That's the difference between cautious enthusiasm and quiet resistance.
Step 5: Audit the data the system needs.
For each input the system depends on, answer three questions. Where does it live, who owns its quality, and what state is it in today. The audit usually surfaces one or two surprises. Surfacing these in week zero turns them into scoping items rather than mid-pilot crises.
Step 6: Decide what governance looks like before you need it.
A useful starting set: who approves new use cases, who handles incidents, what gets logged, what gets reviewed quarterly. Even a rough version on a single page is enough for a first pilot. The governance can grow as the programme does. The work is naming the people accountable, not writing the policy.
Step 7: Pick a visible change you can make in 90 days.
Visible matters more than big. A small change that people notice tells the wider organisation that the programme is real. Choose something where the win is observable to people outside the pilot team, not just inside it.
Step 8: Get the sponsor to communicate the plan, not you.
When the sponsor presents the plan in their own words, two things happen. The plan inherits their authority, and they become invested in defending it. A 15-minute prep session is usually enough to make that conversation theirs rather than yours.
Most of this plan is unglamorous. Mapping workflows, writing job descriptions, auditing data. The interesting work, the AI itself, comes after. That sequence is on purpose. The pilots that hold together tend to be the ones that did this groundwork first.