Build the Foundation First: Lessons from the Detroit Policy Conference

Key Takeaways: 

• Sustainable AI growth depends on sequencing fundamentals correctly by building infrastructure first to attract investment and innovation.
• Regions and organizations that win focus less on incentives and more on collaborative ecosystems that align government industry and academia.
• AI adoption fails when leaders skip mindset and trust building and jump straight to tools and training.
• Real readiness comes from treating technology as culture and access rather than credentials or advanced degrees.

There’s a tension at the heart of every AI readiness conversation. Everyone wants talent. Everyone wants innovation. But what became clear across multiple sessions at this year’s Detroit Policy Conference was something less glamorous and more important: the critical importance of building the foundation first. The value of putting the horse before the cart. 

Ambassador John Rakolta Jr. made the case plainly. He compared data centers to the railroads of the 1800s and the auto industry’s rise a century ago. Not just infrastructure. Economic transformation. The regions investing now are positioning themselves for decades of growth. Those that wait will watch talent and business leave for places that didn’t. 

Eccalon told the other side of that story. When CEO André Gudger was deciding where to relocate a company focused on what he calls “22nd-century innovation,” Detroit won. Not because of incentives, but because of the collaborative ecosystem. People, government, industry and academia working together. 

The through line is simple. You can’t attract next-gen talent without next-gen businesses. You can’t attract next-gen businesses without the infrastructure to support them. 

But infrastructure and investment only get you so far. Once the businesses arrive, you still need people ready to do the work. 

Sandy Baruah put it plainly in his welcoming address, quoting board chair Peter Quigley: “AI may not take your job, but someone who understands and can use AI most certainly will.” 

But how do we get our people ready? It’s not a technology problem. It’s a people problem. That was the message from the “Unlocking Human Potential” panel. The common mistake is jumping straight to tools and training when people don’t yet trust or understand what they’re being asked to adopt. 

Leaders must go first, which is why Accenture required its top executives to use AI tools before anyone else on their teams. You can’t ask people to trust what leadership hasn’t touched.

This groundwork matters before rolling out new technology to your people. Skill-building only sticks when the foundation is already laid. Training programs fail when they skip the mindset work. People don’t adopt what they don’t trust or understand. 

Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation gets this. They embedded digital coordinators in career centers. They treat technology as culture and experience rather than just skills to check off. 

Gudger reinforced the point: “You don’t have to have a master’s degree… you can be off the street with common sense and be a player in the AI space.” 

The barrier isn’t capability. It’s access and confidence.

Baruah’s welcome address asked whether Michigan is ready to meet this moment: “Policy leadership, culturally, are we up to it?” 

The answer depends on whether we’re willing to build the foundation first. Infrastructure enables investment. Investment attracts innovation. But innovation stalls without the right mindset. And mindset makes skill-building stick. 

There are no shortcuts. Each step depends on the one before it and sets up the one after. Skip a layer and the whole thing wobbles. Rush the sequence and you end up rebuilding what you skipped. 

The organizations and regions that win won’t be the ones that move fastest. They’ll be the ones that built the foundation first and invested in people along the way. 

Lexi Trimpe is a Director of Digital + AI at Franco. Connect with her on LinkedIn.