The Human Stack for AI Transformation

Enterprise AI adoption is creating a new professional architecture, a layered ecosystem of specialized roles that didn’t exist five years ago. While organizations obsess over which AI models to deploy, the real constraint isn’t technology: it’s the human infrastructure required to bridge the gap between frontier AI capabilities and enterprise reality.

Forward-Deployed Engineering

This analysis maps the emerging role taxonomy that determines whether AI implementations succeed or become expensive experiments. From initial customer engagement through production deployment and system optimization, each phase requires distinct capabilities that traditional software engineering teams lack.

The pattern reveals a fundamental insight: successful AI implementation requires orchestrating seven distinct professional functions across three critical phases. Organizations that understand this architecture gain a systematic advantage. Those that don’t face the “AI pilot purgatory”—endless proofs of concept that never reach production.