Vol.042 — If Your Goal Is “AI Usage,” You’ve Already Lost.

Date: 2026-06-09 | Newsletter

---

Key Summary

In Vol.042, Zenta dismantles the most common mistake he sees managers make with AI: setting “usage” itself as the goal. He opens with a 2005 thought experiment — no one ever ordered a team to become “Excel-Macro Native,” yet macros spread anyway because they closed the books faster. Usage was the residue of a real outcome, never the target. Two decades later, managers have simply swapped “macro” for “AI.” Drawing on a stack of candid posts — teams tracking adoption in standups until agents quietly burned through 30% of the budget; three mandated tools failing while one unmandated tool spread on its own — Zenta argues that adoption is a side effect, not a goal. Even “buying literacy” must be named as a measurable outcome. He warns of an ASEAN tax: SMEs without a change-management layer pay twice for a mis-set goal. Do it simple. Set the outcome, not the usage – adoption is a side effect, never a target.

---