Despite massive enterprise investment, 95% of conversational AI projects fail to show measurable ROI and get stuck in “pilot purgatory”. Failures often arise not from the model itself but from unclear business goals, poor data integration, inadequate change management, and treating the project as a one-time effort. This article outlines a five-stage framework focused on governance, continuous optimization, and connecting the AI to real ROI metrics to build a system that moves past the pilot stage.
