Core question
My team says they use AI every day and love it. How do I know if that is true?
Short answer
Daily use is not competence. Ask what their repeatable process is for getting good output. In workshop after workshop, every executive in the room has used an AI tool and almost none can describe a framework for prompting one. Usage tells you nothing about capability.
At a training workshop in New Mexico, we had exactly this experience. A seasoned executive was a self-proclaimed AI advocate, using it daily and promoting its value to colleagues. He tried the tool we recommended and fifteen minutes later he was frustrated. His complaint: "It keeps waffling. When I point out an omission, it says, good catch, I had not factored that in."
Ashley Canada reviewed his conversation and the problem was immediately obvious. His original prompt asked the tool to compare five competitor websites to his company's site. That was it. No context. No instructions. Just compare.
Ashley rewrote it, defining the tool's role, the task, and the goal, then instructed it to ask clarifying questions until it was confident it understood the assignment. More than twenty questions followed. He answered every one. The output was unrecognizable: a structured analysis with logical sections, benchmarked strengths and weaknesses, and a summary table that brought everything into focus immediately. He stared at the screen and said one word. "Oh."
Widespread use does not mean literacy. A company can have universal adoption and near-zero competence at the same time, and no usage dashboard will tell you which one you have.