Somewhere in your company there is an AI pilot that has been "going really well" for six months.
You know the one. It has a Slack channel with a rocket emoji. It gets a line in every monthly update. When someone senior asks how it is going, the answer is warm and general, and then the room gets very interested in its laptops.
If that pilot is yours, this issue is for you, and I want to say the uncomfortable part first. "Going really well" without a number is not a status. It is a hope with a project code. The reason nobody has pressed you on it is not that they believe you. It is that they have not needed to yet. Budget season fixes that.
The good news is that finding out the truth takes one afternoon, and the truth is useful whichever way it lands. Here is how I'd spend the afternoon, what I'd write down, and what I'd say upstairs if the number turns out to be bad.
