Scroll LinkedIn and you'll find plenty of neat four-step diagrams: Idea. Prototype. Integrate. Deploy They look great, it's easy to look at, digest and believe however, just aren't how AI transformation actually happens. What actually stands between an idea and something in production isn't a step. It's four much harder, much less photogenic things. None of them fit neatly into a box, and none of them are optional. The part most AI projects skip Most AI projects start with a