"Yet across sectors, many organizations are reaching the same conclusion. Adoption is proving harder than invention, especially for general-purpose technologies, as it once was for electricity. As a result, AI adoption remains on the sidelines. Systems exist, but changing how work actually gets done is far more difficult. The constraint is no longer technological capability. It is whether institutions and organizations are prepared to absorb AI."
"Germany pioneered the chemical industry, but the United States diffused it by embedding chemistry into manufacturing and everyday commerce. Productivity followed only after institutions evolved and organizations redesigned workflows. The United States also created the discipline of chemical engineering and applied it across sectors such as food and automobiles, drawing on its long-standing ability to attract the best and brightest talent globally and turn invention into industrial scale."
Adoption of AI and other general-purpose technologies is lagging because changing work processes is harder than creating systems. Technological capability is no longer the main constraint; institutional rules, incentives, standards, and accountability structures determine whether organizations can safely trust and absorb new systems. Organizations must operate within these institutions and redesign workflows to realize productivity gains. Historical diffusion of chemistry into manufacturing and commerce increased productivity only after institutions evolved and organizations applied engineering disciplines, attracted talent, and scaled inventions. Economic advantage depends less on first invention and more on the capacity to diffuse, absorb, and deploy technology at scale.
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