PROVIDE APPROVED TOOLS AND ACCEPTABLE USE
There’s a concept called shadow AI that occurs when programs heavily restrict AI use, prompting staff to use unauthorized tools outside their official environment, often on personal devices. Concerns about
compliance and risk increase
when this happens. Kolbet observes, “If we block everything, they’re going to find a way to use it.” Conversely, as Atwood has seen, “If you put a tool out there that people know they can use safely, and it’s supported, it’s going to have everybody look for ways to solve problems differently.”
Start by creating an acceptable-use
policy and providing some vetted tools or platforms. As leaders, we have the opportunity to make the safe choice the easy choice.
MAP END-TO-END IMPACT
Kolbet said, “We are not trying to solve yesterday’s problems with AI. We are creating new solutions with tools that did not exist before.” This forward- looking perspective involves system requirements that most programs underestimate. AI rarely improves a process in isolation.
Take predictive analytics on patient demand, for example. An AI model can identify patterns in flight volume by hour, day, and season, which is useful for adjusting shift times or expanding coverage. While the operational plan seems logical on paper,
in practice it
relies on hiring, training, and onboarding new pilots, clinicians, and dispatchers, processes that can take months. Therefore, AI detects patterns faster than the operations team can respond. This also highlights why the teams using the tool need to be involved in its development.
ANTICIPATE SECOND-ORDER EFFECTS
While AI can improve efficiency in our daily work, the supporting data infrastructure usually needs to scale up as well, and the costs increase accordingly. So, even if an automation project costing $180,000 is considered high-value for the organization, you might discover you need a vendor for data integration, leading to thousands of dollars in monthly support fees. “So, all of a sudden, you have data fees that you never had before,” Kolbet notes.
In another example, Kolbet’s team at Life Link III has been using ambient AI in the clinical setting to streamline documentation. The technology works for documentation, but the audio capture overlaps with what the FOQA system considers flight-quality data, raising a governance issue that spans both clinical and operational areas. Leaders should anticipate these types of second-order effects.
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We are not trying to solve yesterday’s problems with AI. We are creating new solutions with tools that did not exist before.
- Kolby Kolbet May/June 2026
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