Four Moves to Make Now
Build AI fluency, not adoption. Experiment without abandoning what works. Preserve what gets more valuable. Measure your market, not the hype curve.
← All Frameworks
What should leaders do first in an AI transformation?
Four Moves to Make Now is a short operating plan for leaders whose AI activity is not yet adding up to change. Build AI fluency, not just adoption. Experiment with new models without abandoning the one that pays the bills. Preserve the assets that get more valuable as AI spreads. Measure your own market, not the hype curve.
The gap it addresses is measurable. Forrester found 68% of organizations running generative AI in production applications, while only 16% of workers reached high AI readiness in 2025, up from 12% in 2024. Deployment is running ahead of capability. The market is moving too: 94% of B2B buyers now use large language models in their purchasing process, according to the 6sense 2025 Buyer Experience Report. It is just not moving on the same timeline as the technology.
The lesson comes from print to digital. Media companies that moved early on websites and newsletters but kept print-era revenue logic were early on the technology and late on the business model. Activity looked like progress. Motion is not transformation.
How to use it
- Build fluency in two or three workflows.
Pick workflows you can measure, name an owner for each, and track output quality and time to completion, not usage logs.
- Fund experiments at the margin.
Run the core revenue model efficiently and put real money behind a small number of new-model experiments, without starving what works.
- Protect what gains value.
Editorial voice, expertise, earned audience relationships and in-person community get scarcer as AI content multiplies. Treat them as assets, not legacy.
- Measure your market, not the hype.
Trust your own open rates, pipeline conversion, event attendance and content performance over industry forecasts.
Questions
What are the four moves?
Build AI fluency, not just adoption; experiment without abandoning what works; preserve what gets more valuable; and measure your market instead of the hype curve.
What is the difference between AI adoption and AI fluency?
Adoption counts who has access to the tools. Fluency shows up in the work: people using AI in ways that measurably improve the quality and speed of a workflow.
Who is it for?
Leadership teams whose AI activity is not yet producing change in how the business runs or makes money.
Related: Two Clocks, Not One · The ADAC Stages · The Durability Test
Four Moves to Make Now is an Uphoff Advisory Framework created by Tony Uphoff, five-time B2B CEO and founder of Uphoff Advisory, first published in Uphoff on Media on August 17, 2026. Read the full piece: Motion Is Not Transformation