We’re Better With AI, Pt 2: Your First Steps to AI Innovation

Now that we’ve settled the debate on AI’s benefits, you’ve decided that AI is a worthy investment for your business. Great! But research shows that only 15% of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) projects succeed within the first year of trial. What does it take to be a part of that statistic? Hint: it has nothing to do with data or models. Rolling out AI in your company isn’t just a technology challenge. The key is mastering leadership and change management. Novelty and uncertainty often bring in fear, too. Building a culture and mindset that are open to trusting data-driven decisions are essential to becoming an AI-driven organization. The journey to becoming AI-driven is an investment. That means using AI at every level and department to drive company decisions. It’s your way of supercharging current systems and processes for the long term. Businesses including Vodafone and Taobao use it for proactive customer service and personalized purchasing recommendations. Here at Thinking Machines, we’ve helped a Singaporean realtor ecosystem valuate real estate. Becoming AI-driven has enormous benefits: efficient systems, better margins, productive teams, and happier and more customers. These companies prove that leveraging AI can deliver the best possible customer experiences. How can you get started?

Before anything else, learn to befriend experimentation

AI can be intimidating for both you and your team. Remember that innovation is a process of experimentation. Take things in steps. You are going through a continuous cycle of tests and incremental improvements. Implementing AI rarely works out on the first try. What matters is helping your team befriend experimentation. Help them understand how AI will benefit them and the company. To do that, your first steps require nailing down three components: your why, your how, and your use cases.

Step 1: Get clear on your goals

Inspirational and innovative organizations know why they do what they do. This is integral to maximizing the use of AI in your company. To help you zero in on your company’s purpose, ask yourself these three questions: What’s the company’s overall identity? Set a mission statement that works for your company. Not having a mission statement results in confusion when hiring and achieving goals. Who are the customers? Identify who is going to benefit from the products and services you offer. This will serve as a guidepost for becoming an AI-driven organization to deliver the best output possible. What value do you bring to the world? Know your distinction from your competitors. This gives you a better idea of how to leverage data and AI to sharpen your advantage. You don’t waste resources trying to keep up with everybody else. Instead, devote your energy to improving on what you do best. Focus on your competitive advantage!

Step 2: Sharpen your strategy

How you execute your why is what sets you apart from your competitors. Knowing how to leverage data is how you achieve your goals. This entails the following: Determining AI-driven actions. Identify the decisions that you want data to drive. Typically, these are the tasks and processes that are driven and quantifiable by data. It can range from network demand planning to critical metrics for marketing campaigns. Implementing effective integration and a centralized database. One of the best ways to leverage AI at your company is by having a single source for all your information. This allows you to bridge data gaps through central data exchange. Building the right organizational design for your people. One size does not fit all. It matters that you determine the structure that suits your needs and will help you and your team succeed. A well-defined organizational structure enables employees to deliver. Some companies may thrive on centralizing AI decisions, coming from an AI or tech executive. Others may decentralize and integrate AI into every business unit. Experiment with what works for you. Developing comprehensive data privacy and legal coverage. Becoming an AI-driven organization means you will be working with AI to analyze data for predictions and recommendations. Doing so can run the risk of infringing on customer privacy. Ensure you have robust data privacy and legal coverage for two things. First, specify that data is used and stored in compliance with the law. Second, have systems in place to prevent security breaches.

Step 3: Prioritize actions over insights

Step 2: Sharpen your strategy

When rolling out AI, you must search for compelling use cases to map out how you, your team, and customers will interact with and benefit from AI integration. Compelling use cases are linked to your company’s why and are actionable. Compelling use cases generate a data flywheel effect. Seeing small, tangible results as you integrate AI into your systems and processes creates momentum to persist. In turn, you improve your processes, your output, and the customer experience. Naturally, you will attract more customers. AI-driven decisions, delivery, and teams eventually become frictionless. It’s just how you do business now.

Source: Modyo

Becoming an AI-driven organization isn’t easy, because change is daunting. Change is also necessary to adapt to a rapidly evolving world. While AI can supercharge the way you do business, remember your greatest asset: your people. Rallying their trust and open-mindedness is key to your organization’s transformation. This post is part of a series! Stay tuned for our next blog, which will discuss mapping out your AI learning process in your AI-driven transformation. Until then, catch up by reading our first post, Why and How AI Supercharges Humans.