JJ de la Torre Joins IAB Conecta AI Panel: Why Most AI Deployments Fail

At IAB Conecta, one of the most important gatherings of digital marketing and technology leaders in Latin America, JJ de la Torre joined a high-profile panel discussion on artificial intelligence, organizational readiness, and the widening gap between AI ambition and AI execution.

The panel, held on May 30, brought together practitioners and strategists from across the region to examine a question that has become increasingly urgent in boardrooms and strategy offsites alike: why do so many AI initiatives fail to deliver?

JJ's answer was characteristically direct. "Most AI deployments fail not because of the technology — but because of the organization," he told the audience. "You cannot bolt AI onto a structure that was designed for a different era and expect transformative results. The architecture has to change first."

Drawing on the XFORM framework, JJ outlined the five organizational design patterns that either enable or derail AI adoption. He described what he calls the 'AI-ready organization' — one characterized by clear data ownership, cross-functional decision authority, and a culture that treats experimentation as a discipline rather than a risk.

The panel generated significant engagement, with audience members from consumer brands, financial institutions, and media companies pressing the panelists on practical first steps. JJ emphasized starting with high-signal, low-risk use cases that build organizational confidence before scaling to more complex applications.

For JJ, IAB Conecta represented another opportunity to bring the design-first perspective on transformation to a community that is actively navigating AI adoption — and to make the case that the hardest part of artificial intelligence is deeply human.