To all CEOs: You do NOT need AI
“We need to start to use AI asap!”
Variations of the above message have been heard in millions of management meetings around the world over the last couple of years. In this text, I’ll share my view on why I believe this message is wrong and potentially fatal for your organisation.
You don’t need an AI hammer looking for a nail
Initiatives that start off with interest to use a particular tech seldom generate value. Maybe some PR and employer branding, that value will soon expire. If you don’t solve a problem, or have a clear idea of what you are exploring, why spend time on it? Or let the people you pay devote time to it?
You will definitely need to change for the future.
The world is changing and becoming more complex. At an increasing pace. And everyone around the world seems to agree; the winning recipe for the future is the ability to change and innovate. Something which is notoriously hard the older and bigger your organisation gets.
Many claim that AI (with its inherent power to use data to make predictions beyond our human ability) is the magic key that gives us the needed ability to change and innovate for the future.
Are you fooling yourself by pretending to change?
So returning to the message at the latest management meeting, “We need to use AI”, on top of the need for change to handle the future. It can be tempting to rush into decisions to invest in single AI projects to get going, or even set up an AI lab. Both those routes may give immediate satisfaction and create a perception that you are now doing what is necessary. However, if you are doing this as a separate initiative while your organisation continues to function like it always has. In that case, the thing you may have discovered is simply a way to postpone the inevitable. Investing in AI initiatives without addressing the larger changes needed for your organisation can potentially equal wasting years and resources without unlocking real value.
Change is bigger and more uncomfortable than any single AI project
The promise of the power of AI is the ability to utilise the data in your organisation and make predictions beyond your current capabilities. To make business decisions, create innovation, develop products and services that create growth and give you a competitive edge.
In order to do this, however, you need to have
- True understanding of AI at management level, as well as throughout your organisation. And with true understanding I mean acceptance that AI can help boost your predictions beyond what you can today.
- Shared belief at management level that data-driven decisions is key for your business.
- A reoccurring point on your management agenda where you look at the predictions generated by AI, through the data you can access
- Confidence, trust and speed to make business-critical decisions based on the generated predictions from AI and data.
- A technical infrastructure that allows you to work with data across departments and product areas, in order to make predictions beyond your current way of working.
- Technical infrastructure to train AI models, put them into production, maintain them and retrain them, so that they can continue to unlock value.
- Expertise and knowledge around how to build AI, but more importantly, people who know how to work with AI to solve problems, generate insights and innovation, create predictions and continue to scale your value addition.
AI can be a great tool to create change. But change is the real goal.
I started this argument with the statement that you do not need AI. However, if you can look at AI the right way, as a way to unlock predictions beyond your current capabilities, to increase your speed of change and add to your competitiveness – AI can be a great goal to strive for!
The list in the previous section is by no means complete, but I believe it to be a starting point (and will try to add to it as I get input).
AI readiness means that you have changed
To sum this up, AI readiness means the ability to make data driven predictions so that you to detect patterns faster, and continuously change and adapt.
You really really need to get AI ready — and avoid falling into the trap of hiding behind AI projects to avoid the larger changes required to get to AI readiness. This requires courage and willingness to change above anything else.
