AI Scaling Needs a Decision Gate Before Build

Enterprise AI pilots often stall because organisations commit build budgets before validating use cases, data readiness and governance. The report explains the gap between AI adoption claims and measurable EBIT impact, then maps three failure loops: unclear strategy, legacy-data-talent constraints and governance arriving too late. It compares UK and DACH entry points and shows how insurance, media, finance and energy expose the same scaling problem through different operational risks. Leaders should treat AI investment as a staged decision, with use-case economics and readiness assessed before production funding.