From AI Prototype to Production
A 90-Day Playbook for Shipping Enterprise AI
About the Book
Most organizations are not failing at AI because they lack ideas or technology. They are failing because they have no operational path from prototype to production. This book explains the pattern: why Proof-of-Concept prison happens, what keeps organizations stuck, and how to escape in 90 days. It covers the structural causes (organizational, political, cultural, technical), introduces the escape framework (paved road, tiger team, lighthouse use cases, governance), and walks through a day-by-day execution model that has been tested in real enterprise environments. This is not theory. It is a playbook.
What you will learn
The Proof-of-Concept Prison Pattern
How organizations end up with dozens of AI demos and zero production systems. Recognizing the pattern and understanding why it persists.
Root Causes: Why Organizations Get Stuck
The four structural causes, organizational, political, cultural, and technical, and how they compound to create a self-reinforcing trap.
The Escape Framework
Introducing the key concepts: paved road, tiger team, lighthouse use cases, governance framework, and the 90-day model.
Days 0–30: Build the Paved Road
Assessment, portfolio diagnostic, infrastructure foundations, and forming the tiger team. Getting the basics right before executing.
Days 30–60: Productize Lighthouse Use Cases
Selecting the right first use cases, applying the production readiness scorecard, and delivering real results that prove the model works.
Days 60–90: Scale, Standardize, Hand Over
Scaling what works, building repeatable processes, establishing governance, and transitioning from project to capability.
After 90 Days: Sustaining the Escape
What ongoing operational AI capability looks like, and how to prevent regression back into Proof-of-Concept prison.
Most organizations do not have an AI problem, but a delivery problem. They can prove that AI works in prototypes; they just cannot get it to run in production. That is why so many initiatives stay stuck in the Proof-of-Concept phase: visible enough to create excitement, but not operational enough to create real value.
This book provides a structured path out of that cycle: a practical way to move from prototypes to production and make AI part of how work actually gets done.
The book is built for leaders and practitioners who need a clear method for turning experimentation into execution.
If you need to apply it immediately in your own organization, the Escape Proof-of-Concept Prison toolkit provides the operational layer: concrete structures, templates, and step-by-step guidance built on top of the book.
The approach presented in this book proposes a structured ninety-day execution model designed to establish the capability to deliver AI reliably.
Rather than treating AI as a series of disconnected initiatives, the model organizes delivery into a focused transformation cycle that builds both working systems and the foundations required to sustain them.
The ninety-day model unfolds in three phases:
Days 0–30: Build the operational foundation
Establish the infrastructure, governance, accountability, and delivery patterns that make production the default path rather than the exception.
Days 30–60: Deliver lighthouse projects
Select a small number of lighthouse use cases and build them inside real workflows with production constraints, governance, and operational accountability.
Days 60–90: Scale and institutionalize
Stabilize the wins, document the operating model, and create the repeatable conditions for the next round of production delivery.
Part of a broader body of work
This book is not abstract strategy. It gives you concrete frameworks, decision criteria, and step-by-step guidance for each phase of the ninety-day path. You will finish it knowing what to do and in what order.
The Escape Proof-of-Concept Prison Self-Run Toolkit takes that a step further: it turns the book's frameworks into ready-to-use templates, scorecards, assessment tools, and governance structures you can apply directly inside your organization. Where the book explains why and how, the toolkit gives you the operational artifacts to actually execute.
You can read the book on its own and get real value from it. You can use the toolkit on its own and make progress. But they are designed to work together: the book builds the understanding, and the toolkit puts it into practice.
The book
The full explanation of the Proof-of-Concept prison pattern, root causes, and the 90-day escape path. Published and available now.
Production toolkit
Execution model, governance frameworks, readiness scorecards, and operational templates. Ready to use.
Guided support
Hands-on 90-day programs with expert guidance to move a real use case into production.
Partner ecosystem
Licensed consultant toolkits and content designed for partners who deliver the framework to their clients.
Available now
Get the book
The book is published and ready to read. Use the framework to move from AI prototypes to production systems.