Leadership has bought in. Teams are curious and experimenting. The technology is working. Yet AI adoption in your marketing organization is crawling. What gives? The answer isn’t in your tools, your vision or your talent pool. The answer is sitting in your org chart, two to three levels down from the C-suite and one level above the practitioners — middle managers — and your transformation plan is completely ignoring them. ## The unique pressures on middle managers Middle managers inhabit a unique and challenging space. They’re directed from above to do more with AI, yet face concerns from below from people who are anxious about change, overwhelmed by new tools or simply unsure what’s expected. These managers are responsible for translating strategy into action, but are rarely included in shaping that strategy. As a result, they’re too senior to just be learners and too junior to set the direction. This scenario leaves them isolated and under-supported.…