Understanding AI Maturity: Part 4 – Stage 3: Programmatic Use

Over the past few weeks, we’ve explored the evolving journey of generative AI adoption through the lens of Professor Melissa Valentine’s AI Maturity Model. From individual experimentation to team-level pilots, each stage has revealed new leadership challenges and opportunities for transformation.

• In Stage 1: Ad Hoc Use, curiosity sparked innovation, but also introduced risks like shadow IT and inconsistent norms.
• In Stage 2: Localized Projects, pilots took root, internal champions emerged, and agentic systems began to surface in isolated workflows.

This week, we move into Stage 3: Programmatic Use—where GenAI adoption becomes coordinated across departments, and the foundation for enterprise-scale transformation begins to take shape.

What Programmatic Use Looks Like

Stage 3 is marked by a shift from experimentation to intentional deployment. Organizations begin to:

• Establish cross-functional governance frameworks
• Build strategic portfolios of GenAI use cases
• Introduce change management practices to support adoption at scale

This is where GenAI stops being a novelty and starts becoming a capability. Leaders begin to ask:

Which use cases are worth scaling?

What infrastructure do we need?

How do we evaluate success across teams?

Agentic systems evolve from mono-agent pilots into collaborative workflows, where multiple agents interact across departments. For example, a GenAI-powered help desk agent might now integrate with HR, IT, and compliance systems requiring shared data standards, permissions, and audit trails.

Leadership in the Programmatic Phase

Stage 3 demands a new kind of leadership, one that balances structure with agility. Leaders must:

• Coordinate across silos to align goals, tools, and data
• Standardize evaluation using shared metrics and feedback loops
• Support change management through training, documentation, and cultural readiness
• Track agentic behavior to prevent breakdowns and ensure ethical use

Professor Valentine emphasizes that this phase is not just technical, it’s deeply organizational. Success depends on how well leaders can build trust, foster collaboration, and create systems that support continuous learning.

One example she shares is Salesforce’s Help page, a deceptively simple interface powered by a mature, agentic backend. It’s a reminder that GenAI excellence often looks quiet on the surface, but is built on robust architecture and intentional design.

Risks to Watch For

Even with governance in place, Stage 3 carries its own risks:

• Over-standardization that stifles innovation
• Fragmented portfolios that lack strategic alignment
• Agentic breakdowns when systems interact without clear handoffs or accountability

Leaders must remain vigilant, continuously evaluating not just performance, but interoperability, ethics, and user experience.

What’s Next: Enterprise Ecosystems

In next week’s post, we’ll explore Stage 4: Enterprise Ecosystems, where GenAI becomes a core capability and agentic systems operate across the organization. We’ll look at how companies are building AI-native cultures, designing agent ecosystems, and leading with ethical foresight.

Until then, we invite you to reflect:

• What governance practices are emerging in your organization?
• Where are agentic systems beginning to collaborate and what challenges are surfacing?

Let’s keep learning together.

This post is part of a series. View the full series Understanding AI Maturity.

This article was created in collaboration with GenAI and shaped by intentional human insight.

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Amie Harpe Founder and Principal Consultant

Amie Harpe is a strategic consultant, IT leader, and founder of Sakara Digital, with 20+ years of experience delivering global quality, compliance, and digital transformation initiatives across pharma, biotech, medical device, and consumer health. She specializes in GxP compliance, AI governance and adoption, document management systems (including Veeva QMS), program management, and operational optimization — with a proven track record of leading complex, high-impact initiatives (often with budgets exceeding $40M) and managing cross-functional, multicultural teams. Through Sakara Digital, Amie helps organizations navigate digital transformation with clarity, flexibility, and purpose, delivering senior-level fractional consulting directly to clients and through strategic partnerships with consulting firms and software providers. She currently serves as Strategic Partner to IntuitionLabs on GxP compliance and AI-enabled transformation for pharmaceutical and life sciences clients. Amie is also the founder of Peacefully Proven (peacefullyproven.com), a wellness brand focused on intentional, peaceful living.

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