An SOP, or Standard Operating Procedure, is essentially a repeatable process or set of steps that you follow because it has been determined to be the most effective way to achieve a task. It's important in the context of AI implementation because AI tools are often integrated into existing workflows and processes. If the underlying SOP is broken or inefficient, simply adding AI to it will likely expose those flaws rather than fix them. AI works best when integrated into well-defined and functional processes.

Current AI rollouts often fail because organizations are treating AI as a "silver bullet" to fix existing problems without addressing the underlying issues in their Standard Operating Procedures and workflows. People are "duct-taping LLMs into workflows they do not trust." This lack of process and guidance on how to properly use AI within the organizational structure leads to issues like degraded information, inconsistent results, and a lack of scalability and repeatability.

Shadow AI refers to individuals within an organization using AI tools independently, outside of established team workflows, SOPs, or organizational guidance. This is often done to increase personal efficiency in response to increased demands. However, it's a concern because it creates inconsistency in how tasks are performed, leads to different outcomes on shared projects due to varied prompting and data inputs, and creates an "efficiency gap" where individual productivity increases but team or organizational scalability and repeatability suffer.

AI usage can lead to degraded information and project failures, especially in iterative processes involving multiple AI touches. If information is summarized or distilled by AI multiple times without human oversight, important details, nuances, or specific asks can be lost or subtly altered. This degraded information can lead to missed deadlines, incorrect deliverables, and projects that do not meet stakeholder expectations, as the final output may be significantly different from the initial request.