As published in AI Today –
Commencing projects without clearly establishing your end goals can be counterproductive, writes Sally Mainsbridge (pictured), Practice Director at Customer Science.
Is your business planning to integrate Artificial Intelligence (AI) into multiple facets of its operations? If you answered in the affirmative, you’re in good company. Around Australia, businesses of all stripes and sizes are moving from experimentation to adoption mode.
More than a third of large businesses and close to a quarter of medium sized ones are already using AI, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Business Characteristics Survey, published in June.
Meanwhile, 43 per cent of SMEs say they’re adopting AI, according to data released the same month by the National AI Centre.
‘…those who committed to AI are doubling down,’ the latter report notes.
The rush to act
Fear of being left behind is compelling many decision makers to proceed at speed. Consequently, we’ve seen scores of businesses racing to implement something – anything! – to do with AI in recent months.
Very often that action has come about not because they’ve identified an aspect of their operations where the technology can add value, but rather because they’ve felt pressure from above, from senior leaders and boards that haven’t wanted to be perceived as AI laggards in shareholders’ eyes.
Their concern is understandable, given being left behind technologically can be an existential risk, as a roll call of late-to-the-party enterprises have found out to their cost over the years. But businesses that forge ahead with AI projects without being crystal clear about what they want to achieve run major risks of their own: missing the mark; wasting their money; and, in a worst-case scenario, damaging their customer experience and relationships.
Forget the tools, focus on the value
Three decades after Australian businesses began computerising and digitising in earnest, it shouldn’t need to be said but here goes: like any other new technology, AI itself isn’t the end game. Awesomely powerful though it may be, it remains an enabler, no more and no less, just as cloud, mobile and agile were in their turns.
That’s why businesses stand their best chance of achieving a positive return from the investment they make when they remain laser focused not on what AI can do, per se, but on what it can for their organisation, right here, right now.
That could be containing headcount by streamlining processing and eliminating time consuming, low value tasks, supercharging data analysis or elevating customer experience with intelligent virtual agents that can remain on duty around the clock.
Harnessing AI’s power effectively starts with developing a strategy and establishing clear objectives long before deployment commences. It continues with appointing a sponsor from within the business and co-designing AI projects in partnership with the IT department, not letting the latter take sole charge.
And it culminates in a commitment to measure the value that’s generated, and to keep on measuring it, as AI becomes embedded in operations and processes.
Taking professional advice at the outset
Determining how AI is best used in your operations, and ensuring you gain the desired benefits, can be fraught, particularly if there are multiple stakeholders in the mix. For mid-sized businesses that can’t afford resident AI experts of their own, charting the optimum course is particularly challenging.
Partnering with an experienced AI consultancy that’s advised scores of organisations like yours on where and how to focus their efforts can be a sensible first move.
Select one that has a strong track record for delivering AI strategies and projects that generate oversized returns for its clients, by moving the needle on customer experience and efficiency, and you’ll be well placed to proceed with confidence and at speed.
Transforming game changing technology into long term value
That AI is a potential source of competitive advantage for early adopters that pursue compelling use cases is not in dispute. Australian businesses that hope to maintain mind and market share have little choice but to forge ahead with deployment strategies. Pursue AI initiatives that have the potential to generate measurable value and you stand the best chance of achieving a strong return on every investment you make in this space.