The Hidden Cost of Standing Still: Making the Business Case for AI Investment
Session Overview: You’ve heard the AI pitch a hundred times. This isn’t that. This session flips the conversation and asks a question most organizations haven’t sat with long enough: what is it actually costing you not to adopt AI? We’ll walk through the opportunity cost framework that has sparked genuine urgency in boardrooms — quantifying the competitive risk, operational drag, and talent friction that accumulates while organizations stay on the sideline. Whether you’re trying to get budget approved, align a skeptical leadership team, or just sharpen your own thinking, this session will give you the language and the logic to make standing still feel a lot more expensive than moving forward.
Learning Objectives:
- How to quantify the opportunity cost of AI inaction in terms your CFO will respond to
- The competitive, operational, and talent risks that compound when AI adoption stalls
- A framework for modeling ‘cost of delay’ alongside traditional ROI in AI investment cases & How to turn AI skeptics into sponsors by reframing the risk conversation entirely
Speakers: Kari Reynolds, Jim Bretschneider
Recorded at: Community Summit NA 2026
Type: Education Session
Ability Level: 201 – Intermediate
Primary Product: Agents & Copilot
Tracks: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Management & Leadership
Terms: All rights reserved by the speaker, Community Summit NA, and Dynamic Communities and cannot be reproduced or distributed without express written consent by the speaker and Dynamic Communities.
