How Culture-First Adoption And Knowledge Sharing Yield The Most Meaningful AI Gains

For many manufacturers, the biggest GenAI gains aren't coming from splashy, multi-million-dollar tech investments. Instead, the most meaningful returns are driven by employees who are empowered to experiment, find efficiencies, and build a culture of adoption with low-cost tools.

Matt Totsch is the Chief Financial Officer at drywall solutions manufacturer Trim-Tex and heads the company’s Business Optimization unit. His background across finance and accounting roles since 2009 shapes a practical, results-focused view of where real value is actually created.

To put that perspective into practice, Trim-Tex launched a company-wide AI competition that asked every department to share the most useful ways they were applying the tool. The exercise helped teams learn from one another and highlighted the practical use cases that delivered real value. "We’re all-in on AI, but in the ways that actually help the business. Once people started sharing what worked, the right applications became clear and the day-to-day impact really showed up," says Totsch. The return on investment for Trim-Tex comes from making its 75-person office staff more effective every day, prioritizing widespread incremental gains over the search for a single “killer app.”

• Doing more with less: For Totsch, AI is an efficiency tool for cleaning up his own emails and checking that company goals are SMART. These small wins add up to a tangible strategic advantage, especially in a down economy. "When we talk about controlling costs in a down year, we're getting so much more productivity out of our salaried staff," he says. "AI has helped us weather these storms because we haven't had to hire as much."

• Homegrown vs. hyped-up: Nowhere is the culture-first advantage clearer than in Trim-Tex’s HR project. The team used ChatGPT Projects to build a simple internal knowledge base that outperformed the much-hyped AI search feature from their multi-billion-dollar HRIS provider. "Our HRIS system launched their own AI search engine, and I found it really underwhelming. What we built ourselves in ChatGPT is what I would have expected their tool to be able to do."

That experience was a prelude to a more expensive lesson in managing vendor hype and the uncertain ROI many manufacturers face. The company invested in an AI pilot that was, as Totsch puts it, a "complete dud." The pilot failed because it couldn't handle the on-the-ground reality of the construction business, a gap between vendor promises and the proactive sales analysis that Totsch expected.

• Buying the snake oil: "We certainly bought some snake oil, so we're more aware now. There are so many pop-up companies that just slap an AI label on their products. You just have to be aware of the hype and have realistic expectations." Yet, Totsch reframes the loss not as a write-off, but as a valuable tuition payment. "We didn't get much for the investment, but we learned something," he says. "It put us on a new pathway, showing us what we need to do internally to build the right foundation so we're ready for more advanced AI later."

• Mid-market mantra: The lesson solidified what he believes is a key insight: for a mid-market manufacturer, successful AI implementation often depends on building a strong internal data foundation before acquiring a tool. This insight set them on a new strategic path rooted in the company's commitment to being a learning culture. "It's always a question of whether you want to be on the cutting edge, or right behind it. For small to middle-market organizations, the answer to me is right behind the cutting edge."

The company's adoption culture is already delivering results similar to what the expensive, failed tool had promised. The marketing team now uses low-cost AI tools to conduct competitor and market trend analysis—the very function Trim-Tex had paid the ineffective vendor to automate.

Totsch concludes that his vision for AI is as a tool for augmentation, one designed to make people more effective rather than to replace them. "Long-term, AI will be a way to make us more effective human beings. I already feel like I've become a more effective communicator. It's great; I can just type away nonsense and have a nice story come out of it. To me, it's one of the greatest things since sliced bread."