Why Most AI Transformations Fail, Featuring Ali & Juliane on AppTalk

Digital transformation has never been more ambitious, or more fragile.

Organizations are investing heavily in AI, new tools, and new operating models. Yet despite budgets, roadmaps, and executive buy-in, adoption stalls. Engagement drops. Teams comply, but don’t commit. The technology works, but the transformation doesn’t.

In a recent AppTalk podcast, Appverticals spoke with Ali and Juliane, co-founders of It’s Not About The Name, a human-centric coaching and transformation company. Before starting their own firm, both spent over a decade inside large corporate environments, working directly on transformation initiatives that looked successful on paper but quietly failed in practice.

As Ali put it early in the conversation:

“Every time we identified something missing in the process, it wasn’t a system flaw, it was the absence of the right human role behind it.” — Ali Cengiz, co-founder of It’s Not About The Name

That absence, they argue, is the single biggest reason why AI adoption and organizational transformation so often fail.

The transformation mistake companies keep repeating

Over the past ten years, Ali and Juliane were involved in multiple large-scale transformation programs: digital, operational, and cultural. Different companies, different industries, same pattern.

Processes were redesigned.
Tools were rolled out.
KPIs were updated.

But the human experience of change was treated as an afterthought.

Juliane described the environment in which many organizations operate today:

Layoffs, reorganizations, leadership churn, and constant uncertainty have created workplaces where fear is already high. Yet most transformation programs respond by pushing harder on efficiency and delivery, widening the emotional gap between leadership and teams.

That gap is where disengagement begins.

AI doesn’t fail technically; it fails emotionally!

When the conversation turned to AI adoption, the founders were clear: most organizations are solving the wrong problem.

AI initiatives are typically framed as technical challenges: governance, infrastructure, compliance, and model performance. All of that matters. But resistance rarely starts there.

Juliane explained the real blocker:

“When people fear AI, when they fear losing their jobs, it becomes nearly impossible for them to see AI as an opportunity.”— Juliane Neitzke on AppTalk

Fear shuts down curiosity. And without curiosity, experimentation never happens.

Ali added that companies often skip the most important step entirely:

“But what about the part before? How do we get people AI-mind-ready?”

This reframes AI adoption away from tools and training sessions, and toward emotional readiness, something most enterprise AI roadmaps don’t even attempt to measure.

How Appverticals Sees This Playing Out in Real AI Projects

From Appverticals’ experience building and scaling AI-driven products, this pattern shows up consistently, even when the technology itself is solid.

As Rayaz, Chief Delivery Officer of Appverticals, shared during the discussion:

“We’ve seen teams invest heavily in AI systems that technically work, but struggle to gain real adoption because users were never prepared for how AI would change their roles. If you don’t bring people into the journey early, AI feels like something that’s being done to them, not built for them.”

This mirrors what Ali and Juliane emphasized throughout the conversation: successful AI adoption isn’t just about deployment speed or technical accuracy. It’s about whether people feel safe enough to engage, experiment, and adapt.

From a delivery standpoint, this is why Appverticals increasingly treats AI initiatives as organizational change programs, not just software builds, combining technical execution with enablement, readiness, and long-term adoption planning.

Why leaders move ahead, and teams fall behind

One of the most revealing insights from the podcast was the emotional gap between leadership and employees during transformation.

Executives often process change months, sometimes years, before the rest of the organization. They’ve accepted the future state and are already operating from it.

Ali described it like this:

That resistance isn’t about capability or mindset. It’s about identity, safety, and loss.

And those aren’t problems that can be solved with roadmaps or town halls.

Why It’s Not About The Name is more than a brand

The philosophy behind their work is embedded directly in the company’s name.

As Juliane explained:

“It doesn’t matter where you sit in the hierarchy, what your title is, or where you come from. This isn’t about the name, it’s about you.”

Titles, hierarchy, and seniority don’t change the fact that people share the same fundamental needs to feel seen, safe, and valued.

Ali reinforced this principle:

“If the answer to whatever we do is for people, not for politics, not for systems, not for agendas, then it’s probably the right approach.”

Even the name It’s Not About The Name reflects their belief that transformation doesn’t start with structure or labels, it starts with human behavior.

The personality behind their work

When asked to describe the “personality” of their company, Ali’s answer was telling:

“It’s a kind of human who walks into a room and the people immediately feel, ‘Okay, we can be honest here.’”

Not because the conversation will be easy, but because it will be real.

“They ask questions that land like, sometimes, a gentle punch.”

That balance is intentional: challenging deeply held patterns without stripping people of dignity.

Ali summarized it in four traits:

The quiet crisis most organizations underestimate

The moment that pushed Ali and Juliane to start their own company came from a realization they could no longer ignore:

“How many brilliant, deeply capable people are slowly disappearing inside successful companies.”

Not because they lack talent, but because the environment drains them.

Ali shared what he kept hearing from leaders and high performers:

“I’m paid well, but I feel that I’m not really part of this. I stopped a long time ago. I do my job and I leave my soul at the door.” — Ali Cengiz on AppTalk

Change doesn’t happen in workshops; it happens over time

Another core belief the founders emphasized is their rejection of quick fixes.

Juliane explained:

“We believe that change needs time. We need to change behaviors… especially the mindset of the people.”

That’s why their work focuses on:

• Long-term transformation journeys
• Leadership and team coaching
• Individual transition and life coaching

Not one-off workshops or motivational sessions, but sustained behavioral change.

What this means for companies adopting AI today

For organizations investing in AI, the takeaway is uncomfortable, but clear.

AI doesn’t replace human systems.
It amplifies them.

Fear scales.
Mistrust spreads.
Disengagement accelerates.

But so do curiosity, ownership, and innovation, when the environment allows it.

As Ali put it:

“We shouldn’t see this as something being taken away, but as something that helps us focus on higher-value work.”

Successful enterprise AI adoption requires two engines running together:

• Technical excellence
• Human readiness

Ignore either, and the initiative stalls, regardless of how advanced the technology is.

Final thought

The most important insight from this conversation wasn’t about AI tools or transformation frameworks.

It was this:

That’s why conversations like this, and work like It’s Not About The Name, matter now more than ever.

To hear these insights directly from Ali and Juliane, watch the full AppTalk conversation below:

If this perspective on AI and human-centered transformation resonated, the full conversation goes deeper into the realities leaders and teams are navigating right now.

From AI anxiety and adoption challenges to leadership, trust, and change, the AppTalk episode with Ali and Juliana explores what transformation actually looks like when people are brought into the process, not pushed through it.

Because the future of AI isn’t just being built.

It’s being led.