---
title: "Stop guessing which process to automate first"
description: "5 source-backed AI claims from Stop guessing which process to automate first, with key statistics, context, and the original AI Adopters Club source."
url: "https://kbanc.com/claims-library/stop-guessing-which-process-to-automate-first"
source: "https://aiadopters.club/p/which-process-to-automate"
date: "2026-03-16"
topics: ["strategy", "implementation", "business"]
generated: "2026-08-31"
---

# Stop guessing which process to automate first

By Kamil Banc | March 16, 2026

## Claims

1. **McKinsey Pilot Failure Rate** (source summary): A McKinsey survey from 2024 found 74% of companies struggle to move AI pilots into production.
2. **Blockers Are Strategic, Not Technical** (source summary): The McKinsey report identifies unclear business cases and misaligned priorities as top blockers, not technical complexity.
3. **Four-Criteria Process Scoring** (source summary): Prompt 2 scores every candidate process across AI readiness, pain level, strategic impact, and ease.
4. **Complete Plan in One Session** (source summary): The 5-prompt chain produces a transformation plan with named owners, KPI tables, and phased timelines.
5. **Built-In Stress Test** (source summary): Prompt 5 stress-tests the transformation guide for weak spots and provides a same-week quick win.

## Evidence

### Quote
> "The failure mode is selection, not execution." - Kamil Banc

### Key Statistics
- **74%**: Percentage of companies that struggle to move AI pilots into production, per a 2024 McKinsey survey cited in the article
- **5 prompts**: Number of prompts in the chain that takes users from a vague AI idea to a finished transformation plan in one session
- **12 questions**: Length of the business profile diagnostic in Prompt 1 that collects company information before scoring
- **Top 5 processes**: Number of ranked candidate processes Prompt 2 outputs in a transparent scoring table

## Context
The article argues that small and mid-size companies most often fail at AI adoption because they select the wrong process to automate, not because the technology underperforms. The author's methodology replaces intuition-based selection with a structured scoring system evaluating AI readiness, pain level, strategic impact, and ease of implementation. The 5-prompt chain is designed to run in a single sitting in any major AI tool, including ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok. Practitioners can apply the output directly as a working document with owners, KPIs, and phased timelines, and consultants can repackage the same chain as a paid client deliverable. The approach targets the documented gap between AI pilots and production deployment by forcing evaluation criteria to be applied consistently before any build commitment.

## Source
- Original: [Stop guessing which process to automate first](https://aiadopters.club/p/which-process-to-automate)
- Cite: kbanc.com/claims-library/stop-guessing-which-process-to-automate-first