Related question
Should we wait until AI matures before we commit?
Short answer
There is never a perfect time, and waiting for certainty usually means waiting past the opportunity. There is never enough data to be certain, and by the time there is, competitors have generally taken the high ground. The advantage goes to leaders willing to act on sufficient rather than complete information.
In 1983 I bought my first computer system. It cost about $10,000, and $8,000 of that came from a bank loan.
The second sentence is the part worth pausing on. In 1983, an individual walking into a bank and asking to borrow money for computer equipment was essentially unheard of. There was no established category for the request, nothing comparable on file, and no way for the bank to know what the equipment would be worth in three years. I got the loan because one banker was willing to make a judgment ahead of his own institution's evidence. That was rare then, and that kind of banker is rare now.
That loan is a large part of why I have the career I have. Not because the machine itself was remarkable, but because owning one early meant I spent the following years learning something most of my peers would not touch for another decade. The educational leap compounded. The software business, the systems work, and eventually this work with AI all trace back to a decision someone made on incomplete information.
Which is the honest answer to the question. Waiting for certainty usually means waiting past the opportunity, because there is never enough data to be certain and by the time there is, someone else has taken the ground. In the early days of personal computing the debate was about the killer app, and it turned out to be spreadsheets and word processing. With AI we are still looking for that, and nobody honestly knows what it will be.
What I do know is that uncertainty is the constant and clarity plus execution is the advantage. Many executives freeze. Some chase every new thing. A few focus, move deliberately, and win. You know more about your customers and your business than any vendor does, and applied deliberately that is worth more than waiting for the market to settle.
It is worth noticing that the position you are in right now, deciding about AI without enough information, is the same position that banker was in. He decided anyway, and he was right.