Agree on the evidence before debating the number.

Most AI arguments aren’t about the number. They’re about the standard: what counts, measured how, compared to what. Settle that after the numbers arrive, and everyone argues backward from the answer they want.

Self-grading makes it worse. KPMG and the University of Melbourne found 57 percent of workers hide their AI use. What leadership hears is not what’s happening.

So: before any disputed number is pulled, agree in writing which sources count, how each measure is defined, and what result triggers which decision. One meeting. One page. Signed.