Artificial Intelligence or AI is poised to radically change the current business landscape. Common AI solutions like voice-to-text features, security surveillance, spam filters and smart personal assistants, such as Cortana and Siri, are part of this continuously evolving business backdrop. A report says that 15% of organizations are currently using AI, but 31% have it on their agenda for the next 12 months. So, what are your plans?
Your company is becoming excited about AI and might be planning to invest in the latest AI innovations to automate certain processes, enhance productivity and be at par with your competitors, but the significant question is – Are your prepared to bring this change?
To lay the groundwork for successful AI implementation, consider the following:
1. Acquaint yourself with AI solutions. These solutions have extensive commercial use in diverse industries and are likely to have many more applications in future, so, get to know the capabilities of AI and understand what AI can do for your particular business. Once you’re able to map AI application to your business, you can analyze the feasibility of integrating AI into your current processes.
2. Do a SWOT analysis and build a strategy that focuses on areas that may be beneficial to your business and understand the challenges.
Begin by answering a few questions like:
- Which specific areas of your business can AI improve?
- Is it feasible to invest in AI given your current company size and the market demands?
- Will AI grant you and your team spare time to be creative/ innovative?
Once you are able to clearly see benefits more than risks, craft a logical AI integration plan, lay out a clear structure and invest in educating your workforce on AI.
3. Invest in enhancing your employees’ knowledge of AI and organize training sessions tailored to the needs of your company. Let employees understand how AI solutions will impact their current jobs and what transformations they can expect. Middle and top management will be able to better understand the implications and risks involved and can motivate employees to embrace the necessary changes. In addition, management will also be able to ensure that the IT infrastructure is capable of handling the needs of AI and that your data is organized.
4. Do the necessary data preparation required for AI. AI applications require vast amounts of data, and if that data is not clean and properly structured, AI solutions are likely to fail. A feasible way out is to start with data auditing. Determine where your data is, the type of data you have, and any other data needed to craft effective algorithms. Locate any fragmented data, look for missing information, duplicate entries or inconsistencies, and clean your data at its source – be it on your mobile device, social media or in your CRM. Data is the lifeblood of your business, so keep it clean and collect it at a central location for easy access, maintenance, and quality management. Moreover, data should also be continuously updated for any predictive value. Now that you have well-structured, quality data, you are all set to implement AI solutions.
5. Go back to your strategy, pick the business problems you planned to solve or areas to improve and figure out the KPIs and the way you will measure them. This will make you understand any additional requirements necessary to fulfill in order to implement AI solutions. Once you are all set, use AI’s power to learn more from this data to improve your business processes. This implies improving your customer service with 24×7 available chatbots or handling back-office functions of IT, HR or other departments, or staff training and much more to ensure that the accumulated data transforms into a value-added reality.
In a nutshell, use the above tips to ensure that your preparation is sound and creates a firm foundation for AI integration.