The AI Divorce

What’s the state of your marriage?

I ask because last week, three different healthcare executives unknowingly described the same problem: one had fifty data scientists but 'no real business impact.' Another described strategic and technical teams 'occupying different universes.' The third confessed to AI initiatives running parallel to, rather than integrated with, their business priorities.

Interestingly, how each described the relationship between their AI and strategy teams mirrored a marital relationship on the verge of a divorce.

They had all the ingredients of troubled marriages:

• Teams living separate lives under the same roof (i.e. silos).

• Teams speaking different languages (i.e. technical jargon versus business speech).

• Teams maintaining separate bank accounts (i.e. budgets).

What started as good intentions had over time devolved into polite but distant coexistence.

And the outcome isn’t good:

A BCG report revealed that only 25% of AI initiatives deliver actual business value, despite 85% of them achieving technical success.

So divorce isn't happening due to technical failure.

It's happening due to a disconnect between technical achievement and strategic business value.

Why These Marriages Fail

The pattern is familiar to anyone who’s experienced relationship breakdown. Initial excitement over combined strengths - strategic thinking and technology - dissolves into frustration over different styles and misaligned expectations.

Strategic leaders, under pressure to "do something with AI", bring in technical talent with initial enthusiasm.

Then reality sets in.

Strategic leaders craft plans using traditional approaches, occasionally asking technical leaders to "add some AI" to already-baked solutions. Technical leaders, meanwhile, build sophisticated tools for problems nobody prioritized.

And like most divorces, it often comes down to money. As one technology executive confided, “The minute you make something a product instead of a service, the revenue shifts to a different business unit.”

Who gets custody of the revenue?

Today’s Marital States

Through conversations, I've observed interesting approaches companies are taking to “save their marriage”.

1. The Modern Arrangement

The most common model – it adds a “technology wrapper” around existing processes. Like scheduled date nights without fundamentally changing how you live, companies maintain separate teams with forced interactions. One pharma company added an AI layer for trial site selection to their portfolio review process. The result? Sophisticated analytics that rarely influenced actual strategic choices.

2. The Full Integration

The boldest approach – this tears down walls between living spaces to create a truly shared home. A Boston-based biotech did exactly this: commercial teams and data scientists physically co-located, with shared meetings and common metrics. Their market sizing now combines traditional analysis with real-time claims data, creating a more dynamic view of opportunities. The downside? Maximum disruption. “Not just a capability change, but an organizational transformation”, as a technology leader put it. New teams, new workflows, new revenue recognition - essentially rewriting the entire operating model

3. The Open Relationship

For large companies, this approach leverages capabilities across healthcare sectors. Like some relationships that acknowledge no single partner can meet all their needs, companies create networks of strategic and technical partnerships around industry-agnostic opportunities. These companies build ecosystems of complementary capabilities. While flexible and scalable for some, these arrangements (like open marriages) are complex to manage, bringing several challenges of a legal, organizational and competitive nature along the way.

4. The Trial Separation

Perhaps the most interesting approach: explicitly acknowledging fundamental differences through intentional boundaries. Unlike the Modern Arrangement's forced interactions, Trial Separation creates value through clear interfaces and specialized excellence. Think of it as consciously choosing to live separately but co-parent effectively. This 'centers of excellence' approach trades some integration for clarity and specialization. Many companies have been adopting this model recently.

What Makes It Work

Really understanding the rare successes among these different models reveals something fascinating. The companies making these relationships work share traits that any marriage counselor would recognize.

• First, they've learned to speak each other's languages. As one global technology firm is trying to do now, the “strategists” have learned enough about data science to propose realistic technical approaches, while their technical teams can articulate business value without using technical jargon. They're not becoming experts in each other's domains - they've adopted “T-shaped” skills, learning enough to have meaningful conversations with a broader audience.

• Second, they plan their future together. Strategic planning sessions include technical leaders from day one, not as an afterthought. Technical roadmaps are built around strategic priorities, not just technological possibilities. One pharmaceutical company is making this explicit by requiring each business priority to have joint business and technical sponsors who share accountability for outcomes.

• Third, they measure success as a unit. The most successful organizations have eliminated separate metrics for strategic and technical success. Instead of measuring strategic impact or technical excellence independently, they focus on shared outcomes.

• Fourth, they create safe spaces for experimentation or innovation – or "couples therapy." These companies carve out protected environments where strategic and technical teams can try new approaches without fear of failure. Called "fusion teams", groups with mixed expertise tackle challenging problems together, learning to collaborate before scaling.

The Marital Outlook

It's clear AI will transform how we approach strategy in healthcare. But the winners won't let these seemingly disparate domains live apart as either the best strategic plans or the most advanced AI capabilities. They will take meaningful steps to repair these relationships and make the marriage work.

Here's where you can start tomorrow:

• First Date: schedule a joint lunch between your strategy and AI teams

• Couples Therapy: ask each side to explain their biggest frustrations and hopes

• Joint Activity: identify one project where both groups' success metrics could align

• Relationship Check-in: create a 90-day plan to tackle it together, with regular assessments and planning next steps

Because in an industry racing to transform itself, the biggest competitive advantage might just be having a happy home.

So, what’s the state of your marriage?