The fastest way to kill GenAI value is to treat it like a feature. The winners are treating it like an operating layer - an “answer supply chain” that runs end-to-end: connect sources, enforce access, assemble context, validate outputs, and deliver the result inside the systems people already use.

That is the missing layer most pilots never build. Not because teams lack talent, but because the work is unglamorous and cross-functional. It spans security, retrieval, governance, runtime behavior, and scale economics. When any one of those breaks, the experience breaks - and adoption quietly resets to email threads and tribal knowledge.