Jeremy Korst co-authored the piece with Stefano Puntoni and Prasanna "Sonny" Tambe, both professors at The Wharton School and Faculty Co-Directors of Wharton Human-AI Research.
The authors start from a now-familiar place: most large organizations have crossed the AI commitment threshold, and the question has shifted from whether to when. So why do executives and the managers under them report such different results?
Korst, Puntoni, and Tambe argue the blocker sits in the middle. The managers responsible for making AI work see a different reality than the executives who fund it. Leaders read progress where managers read friction. Wharton-GBK 2025: 45% of VP+ versus 27% of mid-managers say their company's AI ROI is significantly positive, an 18-point gap (n=372/429). That is a disagreement about whether the thing is working at all.
It maps straight to our Leadership Reality Check: an organization that scores its readiness from the top floor is grading the optimistic version.
So what: Measure the gap between your executives and your managers before you trust any AI-readiness number. The mirror lies.