Focus on Now, Not Next.

Risk. It’s one of the most important factors in business. Everything from weighing up the risk of purchasing office space without knowing if you will be able to utilise it, to risking your reputation by endorsing a particular product.

It can lead to overthinking every tiny decision in your every day to the point of overwhelming paralysis. It can stifle innovation and experimentation. It can go the other way too. It can lead to over-extending and investing everywhere feeling that the “risk” is being left behind if you don’t. It can create a scattergun approach that is too broad to be effective.

So, what’s the right approach? In a world where technology is adapting and evolving at an incredible rate, what’s the sense in a 5-year plan? Rather than spending time trying to predict the future you can instead re-focus on what’s important and what is now.

Instead of trying to boil the ocean with a multi-year AI roadmap based on where you think the tech will be, why not start smaller and sooner? The companies and teams that are beginning to experiment today, even in small, low-stakes ways, are the ones who’ll have the experience and confidence to scale later. They’re learning by doing. And crucially, they’re learning what works for them.

You don’t need a battalion of consultants to figure out how to start. You need a pain point. Something repetitive. Something annoying. Something that eats time or energy unnecessarily. That’s the opening.

That one manual spreadsheet? Automate it.

That slow, bloated process? Map it out and identify one thing to trim.

That idea that just won’t leave you alone? Build it and don’t spend another day wondering “what if?”

Once you’ve done that, you’ll have more than a proof of concept, you’ll have momentum.

Too often automation and AI adoption is viewed as a top-down transformation. A “big bang” moment. But in reality, it’s more like looking after a garden. You plant something small, learn what thrives in your environment, adapt, and grow. Just like the grapes above I found quietly getting on with the business of growth while the nearby South Circular - one of the busiest roads in London - kept up its cacophony of distraction, advertising, commuters and chaos.

Don’t ask “How do we implement AI across the business?”

Try re-focussing and ask “What slows us down every week?” or “What are people copying and pasting?”

Then fix that. Solve the problem that exists now, not the one you might have in 2028.

The early adopters are the mid-term experts. By the time others are still writing RFPs and waiting for someone to validate their strategy, the ones who started small will have already built the internal muscle memory and confidence to go bigger.

So yes, take risk seriously. But don’t let it stop you from moving. The real risk is waiting until it’s “safe” to start. By focussing on what’s possible you can start changing “what could be” into “what is”.