What Our Cancelled AI Study Reveals About Regional Business Readiness

"Promises & Risks," our year-long study revealed something we didn't expect to find.

June 1st, 2025. Four days before our scheduled focus shop in Buncombe County. Tina & Alan stared at the registration dashboard showing two signups—one of whom hadn't responded to any of our follow-up communications.

There was a bigger decision to make - this decision carried a weight to it.

After investing a year in studying human readiness for AI across our region, we discovered something that should matter to every business leader in Central and Western North Carolina: when business leaders had limited engagement with conversations about preparing for AI disruption, it revealed a critical gap in regional readiness.

Regardless of the reasons - competing priorities, timing, or the abstract nature of the challenge - if leaders aren't part of these conversations now, they may find themselves unprepared when transformation arrives at their door. And when we're unprepared, we tend to operate from fear and scarcity rather than courage and strategic clarity. We react rather than respond.

This isn't about technology adoption. It's about leadership readiness for the most significant workplace disruption in centuries.

A Comprehensive Regional Investment

Our journey began in Spring 2024 with an ambitious vision: conduct the first comprehensive SWOT analysis of human readiness for AI across North Carolina businesses, resulting in a strategic whitepaper that would bolster support within our regional business ecosystem and strengthen our economic competitiveness.

The scope of partnerships we assembled reflected the significance of what we were attempting. We built relationships with the Chamber of Catawba County, the Economic Development Corporation, Lenoir-Rhyne School of Business, Appalachian State's Walker College of Business, and the Manufacturing Solution Center. These weren't casual collaborations - these institutions invested their credibility and relationships in what we were building together. The individuals we worked with were true collaborators, providing invaluable feedback and strategic guidance, helping shape the study design and participant experience, and actively supporting our recruitment efforts. They are exceptional people, and we’re so grateful for their partnership.

We designed what we called a "focus shop" - a two-hour hybrid experience that was part focus group for data collection and part workshop for immediate value. Our promise to participants was concrete: walk away with three powerful questions to ask their teams and advisors about organizational readiness for the third wave of AI.

To reach the 30 businesses needed for statistical significance, we launched a comprehensive marketing effort that included digital advertising across 5,000 business owners in Catawba County, organic social media campaigns, personal introductions through our institutional partners, and direct outreach. We sponsored events and delivered AI talks at chambers, rotary clubs, and leadership forums with specific calls to action. We wanted to ensure that lack of awareness wasn't the barrier - and it wasn't.

The investment was significant, and intentional. We wanted to lead with value for our regional business community before ever considering our own commercial interests.

What We Actually Discovered

In Fall 2024, our initial session revealed something significant: when business leaders DO engage with conversations about AI readiness, they surface complex, legitimate business challenges that demand strategic thinking and collaborative problem-solving.

Eight leaders from across industries - financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, real estate, construction, and retail - spent two hours wrestling with concerns that many organizations are avoiding. This cross-industry diversity created what we intended. When you bring together leaders who don't normally work together, the sparks of strategic genius emerge naturally.

The challenges they surfaced were both complex and universal:

The Knowledge Retention Crisis: Leaders expressed deep anxiety about aging workforce departure timing coinciding with AI transformation. How do you capture decades of institutional knowledge while simultaneously preparing for AI partnership? Surprisingly, the newest workforce generation - whom leaders expected to embrace AI most readily - showed significant resistance, possibly influenced by academic institutions that discouraged generative AI use during their education. These challenges echo broader patterns we’ve heard about how AI is reshaping talent strategies and workplace dynamics.

Change Management Under Pressure: The elephant in the room was employee fear about job displacement. Leaders acknowledged that asking people to help implement technology they believe might eliminate their roles creates fundamental resistance.

The Trust Deficit: Leaders recognized that promises about job security carry less weight in today's economic climate. Given recent layoff trends across industries, employees have legitimate skepticism about leadership assurances. This creates a complex dynamic where organizational transformation requires trust that may not currently exist.

Strategic Thinking Transition: Perhaps the most challenging concern involved shifting people from task execution to strategic thinking roles. Leaders understood that AI partnership creates opportunities for employees to focus on higher-value work, but acknowledged the investment required to develop strategic and system-thinking capabilities across their organizations. This transition becomes more complex as organizations prepare to work alongside AI agents as digital colleagues, requiring new frameworks for collaboration and governance.

What made the focus shop conversations remarkable was watching leaders work through them together. One particularly forward-thinking leader shared approaches her organization was already implementing: company-wide "Sparkathons" - a spin on hackathons that engaged all business functions, not just engineers, to pitch creative ideas for business improvement to senior leadership - alongside customer-centric transformation strategies that were already showing results.

These discussions demonstrated what becomes possible when leaders create space for strategic dialogue about complex challenges. The quality of thinking, collaborative problem-solving, and the emergence of practical solutions showed the power of bringing experienced leaders together around difficult topics.

After this first session, we took a strategic pause to assess. Two insights emerged: First, even though our comprehensive surveys covered infrastructure, compliance, and technical readiness across over 50 dimensions, leaders consistently gravitated toward human-centric concerns in their discussions. "Human Readiness for AI" was at the core. For us and our collaborative partners, this early indicator confirmed the conversation driven by our study needed to happen.

Second, we assessed the reality of our recruitment efforts. Between our Liberated Leaders team and our collaborators, the level of investment required to bring together eight participants was substantial. While the results were exceptional, the recruitment intensity raised questions about sustainability.

Despite sustainability concerns, we remained committed to the study's value and pushed forward. In early 2025, we recruited for a next focus shop session in Catawba. But our efforts resulted in just one business leader participating. We then shifted to Buncombe County, hypothesizing that a larger, more tech-forward market might generate stronger interest.

Just two registrations; one of which was unresponsive.

After a year of comprehensive effort, of actively monitoring and adjusting to participation trends, we made the challenging decision to discontinue the study. We carefully considered our collaborators and participants who embarked on this journey with us, realizing they may feel disappointed. We regrounded. While we desired data-driven whitepaper, even minimal participation was telling us something about regional readiness - and that insight itself has value.

Mixed Feeling and Perspectives

The decision to cancel our study brought up feelings I know intimately - that weight of responsibility when you feel you've failed the people who trusted your vision. I've carried the accountability for decisions affecting hundreds of livelihoods, and while this felt lighter by comparison, those feelings of letting down Alan, our collaborators, and participants were still very real. It's the same burden I've sat with countless CEOs and business owners in private moments when they're grappling with outcomes that didn't meet expectations.
So I did what I guided them to do: I asked myself the hard questions.
- Was there anything about our original intent I'd change?
- Given the information we had, could our decision-making process have been different?
- What can we learn and who really controls these outcomes?
These aren't just advising frameworks - they're the questions that help leaders move from the sting of disappointment to the clarity and intentional presence needed to show up for themselves and their teams in the way they truly want to.
The process of authoring this article with Tina was a remarkable opportunity for me to reflect after our difficult decision. Through this reflection, I've come to see our experience as what pioneering research often looks like - adaptive, insightful, and ultimately revealing.
When I assess my feelings honestly, I recognize that my disappointment stems from attaching to an expectation; an outcome. As I ground in the study’s original intent - to be curious, to make meaningful connections, and to contribute to this important regional conversation - I feel genuinely energized because we achieved all of those things.
I realized we didn't just facilitate conversations with nine business leaders. Through speaking engagements, collaborative discussions with our institutional partners, and the hundreds of leaders we engaged across forums, we demonstrated what we set out to do: contribute meaningfully to the conversation and build regional awareness about human readiness for AI. That work took different shapes than originally planned, and it created momentum that I'm proud of.
This experience reinforced my belief that expertise isn't about avoiding unexpected outcomes; it's about interpreting them and staying true to the mission. We gathered valuable insights that became the foundation for continuing to serve our region and advance this crucial conversation. And I’m proud of our work.

Through writing this article, we learned that the burden of making the decision to stop Promises & Risks landed differently on each of us. We are sharing our differing points of view because it is illustrative of the deep work required in true transformation as a collective.

What This Reveals About Regional Readiness

While business leaders across our region acknowledge that AI transformation is happening, there's clearly limited engagement with the deeper conversation about human readiness. This gap between awareness and preparation represents a critical vulnerability.

When leaders don't invest time in understanding how AI disruption will affect their people, their culture, and their decision-making processes, they're essentially choosing to address these challenges reactively rather than proactively. The risk isn't just operational inefficiency - it's that reactive responses to disruption tend to emerge from fear and scarcity rather than strategic thinking and clarity. Understanding where our organizations sit on the AI adoption curve becomes critical for regional competitiveness.

Organizations that begin building human readiness for AI partnership now will have significant advantages over those that wait until disruption forces their hand. They'll lead with curiosity instead of fear. They'll make strategic choices instead of reactive ones. They'll see opportunities where others see threats.

The businesses and regions that thrive through AI transformation won't be those with the most sophisticated technology - they'll be those with the most prepared humans.

Leading Through Mindset, Not Just Technology

Our experience with limited study participation actually generated insights that shaped our next phase of work. Rather than viewing this as a setback, we recognized it as data about where leaders are in their readiness journey.

We developed Crossing the AI Chasm, a 4-hour workshop focused specifically on the courageous leadership required to navigate AI transformation. Instead of starting with technology capabilities, we begin with the mindsets that either enable or hinder effective AI partnership.

We've identified three critical mindset shifts that determine how successfully organizations integrate AI: moving from control to collaboration, from perfection to experimentation, and from individual expertise to collective intelligence. These aren't abstract concepts - they're practical frameworks that help leaders recognize and address the human dimensions of AI transformation.

Our approach includes experiential learning where leadership teams work through realistic scenarios, confronting the mindset challenges that AI partnership creates. Participants don't just learn about these concepts; they practice applying them in simulated business environments where they can safely explore new ways of thinking and leading.

We also developed our Strategic Gen AI Integration, a 90-day engagement that works directly with executive teams to build strategic clarity around GenAI implementations. This program acknowledges the human readiness gaps we identified while ensuring measurable ROI through carefully designed initiatives.

The Readiness Imperative

The data from our cancelled study tells a story that our region needs to hear, even if it's uncomfortable. Business leaders who aren't yet engaged in conversations about human readiness for AI may find themselves unprepared for a transformation that's already underway.

At Liberated Leaders, we remain deeply committed to supporting North Carolina's business community through this transformation. The disruption is coming whether our region is ready or not. The question isn't whether AI will transform how we work - it's whether we'll lead that transformation from preparation and strategic thinking, or react to it from fear and urgency.

The businesses that begin building human readiness for AI partnership now will have significant advantages over those that wait. The time for curiosity and courage is not "someday" - it's today.

Because courage and preparation create possibilities that fear and reaction simply cannot.

Let's talk

About the Author

Tina Dao is founder and principal of Liberated Leaders, she partners with business owners and decision-makers to ease the burden of company leadership and embrace the discipline needed to create long-term value. With COO and fractional COO experience, Tina has a wealth of knowledge in technology, operations, strategy, and leadership development. She is a trusted advisor to multiple CEOs, helping them navigate challenges, optimize their businesses, and achieve sustainable growth. Find out more about Tina on our About page.

About the Author

As a Success Architect at Liberated Leaders, Alan leverages 20 years of experience in technology leadership and consulting to help businesses optimize their technology strategies, gain an edge, and scale their operations. He is a twice certified executive and leadership coach who firmly believes that true business transformation can only occur with mindful investment in people and technology. Find out more about Alan on our About page.

Note: This article was 85% human generated and 15% machine (AI) generated.

When Human Readiness for AI Reveals Regional Risk