Organisational theory assumes that institutionalization unfolds slowly, through years of normative sedimentation. This study suggests that, under specific organisational conditions, digital infrastructure may compress the institutionalization of poorly founded knowledge claims to approximately six weeks in AI-augmented professional services. Through a 22-week process study across three organisational units (498 coded claims, 64 interviews, and 15 process-traced claims), it traces a four-stage drift sequence through which AI-generated claims may acquire institutional endorsement through repetition rather than verification. The findings point to three infrastructural mechanisms that interrupt drift at different stages: epistemic surfacing through provenance, anticipatory verification through accountability, and legitimised contestation. A mediation analysis indicated that approximately 71% of the governance effect operated through challenge behaviour, which is consistent with the interpretation that infrastructure does not substitute for professional judgment but creates the conditions under which judgment can be exercised. The study contributes a theory of micro-institutionalization specifying how digital workflows may compress the sedimentation process, and develops the concept of infrastructure as a condition of possibility for situated professional agency under algorithmic co-production. Given the small number of units, findings are interpreted as patterns consistent with the theorised mechanisms rather than as statistically generalisable effects, and replication across settings is recommended.
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