Is Your Company Ready for Artificial Intelligence?

Publié le par hanswillertbleuazurconsultingeu

Overview

Companies are rushing to invest in and pursue initiatives that use artificial intelligence (AI). Some hope to find opportunity to transform their business processes and gain competitive advantage and others are concerned about falling behind the technology curve. But the reality is that many AI initiatives don’t work as planned, largely because companies are not ready for AI.

However, it is possible to leverage AI to create real business value. The key to AI success is ensuring the organization is ready by having the basics in place, particularly structured analytics and automation. Other elements of AI readiness include

  • executive engagement and support,
  • data excellence,
  • organizational capabilities,
  • and completion of AI pilots.

Key Takeaways

There is tremendous AI hype and investment. Artificial intelligence is software that can make decisions without explicit instructions for each scenario, including an ability to learn and improve over time. The term “machine learning” is often used interchangeably with AI, but machine learning is just one approach to AI, though it is currently the approach generating the most attention. Today in most business situations where AI is relevant, machine learning is likely to be employed.

The hype around AI is tremendous and has accelerated in the last few years. It is rare to read a business-related article these days that doesn’t mention AI.

The AI hype is being accompanied by massive investments from corporations (like Amazon, Google, and Uber), as well as from venture capital firms.

Because organizations often pursue AI without fully understanding it or having the basics in place, many AI initiatives fail. The AI fervor is causing companies to hurriedly pursue AI. There is a rush to capitalize on AI, but significant frustration when it comes to actually delivering AI success. AI initiatives are often pursued for the wrong reasons and many AI initiatives experience pitfalls. Some key pitfalls are:

  • Expensive partnerships between large companies and startups without results.
  • Impenetrable black box systems.
  • Open source toolkits without programmers to code.

The root cause for these failures often boils down to companies confusing three different topics:

  • automation,
  • structured analytics,
  • and artificial intelligence.

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Despite the challenges, some organizations are experiencing success with AI. While the hype around AI is overblown, there are organizations having success by leveraging AI to create business value, particularly when AI is used for customer support and in the back office.

The key to AI success is first having the basics in place. In assessing AI successes and failures, the presenters drew three conclusions:

  1. There is a huge benefit from first getting the basics right: automation and structured analytics are prerequisites to AI.
  2. The benefits from AI are greater once these basics have been done right.
  3. Organizations are capable of working with AI at scale only when the basics have been done at scale.

GETTING THE BASICS RIGHT

The most important basics for AI are automation and structured analytics.

  • Automation: In most businesses there are many examples of data processes that can be automated. In many of these examples, there is no point having advanced AI if the basics are not yet automated.
  • Structured analytics means applying standard statistical techniques to well-structured data. In most companies there is huge value in getting automation and structured analytics right before getting to more complicated AI.

Examples of how businesses use structured analytics and automation include:

  • Competitor price checking. A retailer created real-time pricing intelligence by automatically scraping prices from competitors’ websites.
  • Small business cash flow lending product. Recognizing the need for small business customers to acquire loans in days, not weeks, a bank created an online lending product built on structured analytics.

BENEFITS WHEN THE BASICS ARE IN PLACE

Once the basics of structured analytics and automation are in place, organizations see more value from AI—when AI is used in specific situations.

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Examples of how adding AI on top of the basics helps improve business results are:

  • New product assortment decisions. Adding AI on top of structured analytics allowed a retailer to predict the performance of new products for which there was no historic data. With this information, the retailer was able to decide whether or not to add the product to the stores.
  • Promotions forecasting. A retailer was able to improve forecasting of promotional sales using AI. Within two months of implementation, machine learning was better than the old forecasts plus the corrections made by the human forecasting team.
  • Customer churn predictions. A telephone company used AI and structured analytics to identify how to keep at-risk customers from leaving.
  • Defect detection. An aerospace manufacturer used AI to supplement human inspection and improve defect detection.

AI AT SCALE AFTER THE BASICS ARE AT SCALE

Once an organization proves it can work with automation and structured analytics at scale, it is ready for AI at scale. Readiness for AI at scale goes beyond completing a few AI pilots in defined but isolated areas of capability; the basics need to be in use across the business.

Before undertaking AI, organizations need to assess their AI readiness. To be successful, organizations need to be ready for AI. Readiness consists of multiple elements, including

  • executive engagement and support,
  • data excellence,
  • organizational capabilities,
  • and an analytical orientation.

Organizations often struggle with data excellence and organizational capabilities.

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