AI Pilot
A contained test of an AI solution before committing to full deployment — a small-scale trial to validate whether it actually works in your context. Valuable when done well; frequently misstructured in practice. Common mistakes: picking an easy use case that doesn't predict production performance, measuring the wrong things, not involving real end users, or running it too short to see the problems. A well-designed pilot tells you whether to proceed, not just whether the demo worked.
In practice
Before rolling Claude out to your whole customer support team, you run it with five agents for six weeks. You measure handle time, CSAT, and escalation rate. That controlled test is an AI pilot — you're proving value in a real environment before committing to a full rollout.
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