Barnacle Labs Apologises for Refusing to Use the Word “Transformation”

Barnacle Labs, a UK-based AI engineering firm, today issued a public apology after it emerged that the company has never, in any client engagement, used the word “transformation”.

“We accept that this is a serious omission,” said Co-Founder and former IBM Watson European CTO Duncan Anderson. “The industry standard is clear. You don’t build a system. You take the client on a transformation journey. We failed to do this. We just built the system.”

An internal review found that across all client communications, proposals, and project documentation, Barnacle Labs had also failed to use the phrases “digital transformation”, “AI transformation”, “transformation roadmap”, “transformation office”, and “transformational change”. The review noted one email in which an engineer used the word “changed”, but concluded this did not meet the threshold.

“We recognise that transformation is not just a word. It’s a billing mechanism,” Anderson continued. “A project has a start and an end. A transformation has neither. We should have understood the commercial elegance of that.”

Industry experts expressed concern that Barnacle Labs’ approach of defining a specific problem, building a solution, and then leaving could spread to other firms. “If this catches on, it would be catastrophic,” said one partner at a firm that asked not to be named. “Our entire operating model depends on the word transformation. Without it, we’re just people with spreadsheets.”

Barnacle Labs confirmed it would not be appointing a Chief Transformation Officer.