Ask most business leaders whether AI matters and they will say yes immediately. Ask them what their AI strategy actually is and the room goes silent. That silence has a name, and naming it is the first step to closing it.
What the imagination gap is
The imagination gap is the distance between knowing AI matters and knowing what to do about it, inside your specific organization, in the right sequence, connected to real commercial outcomes. Most leaders are on the wrong side of it. They are overwhelmed with information rather than short of it, and almost none of it is structured around what to actually do inside a particular business in a particular industry.
The gap is a clarity problem
Leaders across Alberta are sharp and commercially experienced. The gap exists because AI keeps getting framed as a technology issue rather than a leadership one. It lands in the IT queue, or the innovation committee, or the strategic initiatives backlog, and it sits there while the business keeps running on yesterday’s operating model.
Most organizations that say they have an AI problem have a clarity problem, and clarity is a leadership responsibility.
Where initiatives stall
The gap is where AI budgets get spent without returns, where pilots multiply without ever reaching production, and where competitive windows close while everyone waits for certainty. The cost is rarely visible on a single quarter’s numbers, which is exactly why it compounds. Amii in Edmonton works with companies on applied machine learning, and Alberta Innovates backs applied research and commercialization, so the help exists. What is missing is a leader willing to pick a first use case.
Crossing it deliberately
Closing the gap requires four things working in the right order: a workforce with genuine fluency, data governed well enough to deploy responsibly, ethical guardrails that build confidence rather than paralysis, and infrastructure that can carry AI at real operational load. Those four pillars are the bridge. The leaders who cross deliberately end up with an advantage that late movers find very hard to copy.
Frequently asked questions
What is the imagination gap in AI?
It is the distance between knowing AI matters and knowing what to do about it inside your own organization, in the right sequence, tied to measurable outcomes. It is where most AI initiatives stall.
Why do AI initiatives fail to deliver returns?
Usually because the organization treats AI as a technology purchase rather than a leadership decision. Without clarity on priorities, sequence, and measurable outcomes, spending happens without strategy.
How do you close the imagination gap?
Build capability across four pillars in order: workforce fluency, data sovereignty, ethical guardrails, and scalable infrastructure, with every initiative tied to a specific business metric before it starts.
This piece is part of the Alberta Tribune series on applied AI in Alberta. See also AI Fluency, Not Literacy, Is Alberta’s Workforce Advantage and The First 90 Days: An AI Starting Plan for Alberta Leaders.
Related from Alberta Tribune: The First 90 Days of an AI Plan for Alberta Leaders
