From AI Adoption to AI Transformation: The AX-5R Framework for Socio-Technical Work System Redesign

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has diffused rapidly, yet adoption has not reliably progressed to AI transformation (AX). Firms grant tool access but fail to redesign workflows, clarify accountability, govern risks, or measure value. The gap is a socio-technical systems problem, not a productivity problem: AI tools are inserted into existing routines without redesigning task interdependencies, decision rights, oversight loops, or performance feedback. This paper develops AX-5R, a socio-technical systems architecture that converts fragmented AI use into accountable, governable, and measurable work systems. Synthesizing seven literature streams, it maps failure modes to five interdependent design functions: readiness, redesign, role, risk, and return. AX-5R treats transformation as joint optimization of technical and social subsystems requiring configurational alignment. A supplementary ablation probe generated 252 artifacts across three workflows and seven prompt arms from two language models, scored by blinded cross-provider judges; the full frame outscored a sham five-part control and its four artifact-relevant ablations, significant under two-sided Holm-corrected testing, with an independent human-expert-rating check. With a failure-mode derivation matrix, implementation artifacts, and six testable propositions, the framework specifies a minimum architecture in which readiness sets boundaries, redesign restructures tasks, role assigns accountability, risk establishes control, and return supplies learning feedback.