Will Drover Urges Companies to Close AI Builder Gap

Will Drover, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Texas Christian University, asserts that organizations must close the builder activation gap to realize the full value of artificial intelligence. While many employees use AI for isolated tasks, Drover notes that few identify as builders capable of creating reusable tools or automated workflows.

To foster this identity, Will Drover recommends three core practices: requiring initial builds through mandatory projects or hackathons, making builders visible through leadership examples, and measuring the quantity of actual builds rather than simple adoption metrics. He cites the example of Howie Liu, CEO of Airtable, who shares prototypes and prompts publicly to prioritize prototyping over presentations.

Practical applications of this shift include the experience of Caroline Davis, Chief of Staff at Capital Factory, who developed an AI agent named Sunny to automate recurring administrative tasks like investor onboarding. Drover also points to institutional successes, such as SharkNinja's four-day company-wide hackathon for 4,000 employees and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, where staff have created more than 20,000 custom GPTs.