AI FOMO is not a trivial dynamic. The competitive pressure to be seen as engaging seriously with AI is real, and in many industries the reputational and talent consequences of appearing to lag on AI adoption are genuine concerns for boards and executive teams.
The problem is not the strategic interest in AI. It is the substitution of competitive anxiety for economic analysis as the primary justification for investment. When an organisation approves AI spend because "we cannot afford to fall behind" rather than because it has a specific, time-bounded economic case for a specific capability, several governance pathologies tend to follow.
Business cases are constructed after investment intent is established, not before — which means they are designed to justify rather than to evaluate. Proof standards are looser than they would be for equivalent non-AI investments, because the competitive framing makes challenging proof feel like resisting AI. Ownership is diffuse, because the investment is nominally strategic rather than operational. And exit criteria are absent, because a strategic investment has no predetermined failure condition.
The appropriate governance response to competitive AI pressure is not to ignore it — the competition dynamics are real. It is to distinguish between the strategic rationale for building AI capability generally and the economic case for each specific investment. The former can justify some discretionary capability-building investment on terms that do not require immediate ROI. The latter should still meet normal proof standards.
For the full analysis of why the AI Value Gap opens, see The AI Value Gap.