AI Intent Illiteracy

This paper argues that the primary barrier to organizational AI adoption is not technical but articulatory, and precedes the technology itself. It introduces the concept of Intent Illiteracy: the inability to convert a real need into a request an intelligence — human or artificial — can understand and serve. The concept comprises three chained failures (diagnostic, formulation, transfer), all occurring before prompt quality is relevant. The paper explains the mechanism that renders the deficit invisible and self-perpetuating, delimits it from AI literacy and from the "blind trust" critique, and situates it within a broader framework relating cognitive deficit, corrective method, and economic infrastructure. Presented as a conceptual proposal with a falsifiable prediction, not a validated empirical finding.