The cost of waiting belongs in every AI decision.

AI decisions arrive with one side priced: the cost of acting. The cost of waiting shows up blank. So committees pick the blank.

Waiting costs two ways. Value you don’t scale where something works. And damage you don’t manage where it doesn’t: BetterUp Labs and Stanford found 40 percent of full-time US employees received AI “workslop” in a month, at about two hours to untangle each time.

A waiting estimate is honest when you can argue with it: how many people, how much time, what an hour costs, and how much saved time turns into anything real.

So: make every AI decision paper price both sides. A committee comparing two prices decides. A committee comparing a price to a blank just avoids the risk it can see.