August is planning season. Q4 is the sprint to the finish line - and a chance to lock in momentum before January. If you’ve been “thinking about AI” all year, here’s how to stop thinking and start delivering before December closes.

1. Choose one problem: Is it excess inventory? Operational efficiency? Customer churn? Returns? Start there, not with the tech.

2. Identify a Narrow Use Case: E.g. Improve PDP conversion with AI-generated product descriptions.

3. Set clear KPIS within a time limited pilot window: Keep it tight. Use this to learn, not to perfect.

4. Pick a specialist partner: Use platforms, referrals and thought leaders to find partners.

5. Assign one owner: Innovation without accountability rarely delivers.

6. Quantify & share results internally: prove value, then scale.

By Christmas, you could either be showing the board a live AI project with real numbers or explaining why you’re still “researching options”. 

Which one’s it going to be?