IT Leaders Fast-5: Ed Fox, MetTel
InformationWeek, Wednesday, March 4th, 2026
Ed Fox argues why AI can't rescue broken workflows -- and explains how he's scaling experimentation while curbing shadow AI at MetTel.
In this installment of the IT Leaders Fast-5 -- InformationWeek's column for IT professionals to gain peer insights -- Ed Fox, CTO of MetTel, recounts why adding AI on top of a broken process only makes things worse, faster. "If your process is broken to begin with, then [AI] is not going to help you," Fox said.
At MetTel, most AI remains focused on automation. As Fox pushes his teams to experiment more broadly with AI, he is also tightening oversight after shadow AI started showing up across the network. He is now formalizing that push through biweekly AI productivity sessions and quarterly reviews designed to raise the organization's overall AI fluency.