The Questions IT & Business Leaders Are Asking About AI
A conversation with Chris King, Vice President & Partner at IX Solutions
Over the past few months, I’ve sat down with several organizations to discuss AI at the executive level. These leaders are rightly asking questions about how AI is going to affect their businesses. Topics have ranged from building governance and policy, inquiring about the security of data, and planning for training and skills building internally.
A few themes have resulted from these discussions that I want to share with you.
First, whether we like it or not, our staff are likely already using AI tools like ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot for their jobs today. When looking at the explosion of AI use, industry research tells us that ChatGPT took just two months to reach 100 million users! For comparison, the Internet took seven years to reach that same number.
When I’m speaking with business leaders across a variety of industries, three common questions are being asked:
How will AI affect my industry in the short and long term?
Does my organization have the necessary capabilities (technology, skills, culture) to support AI?
How can my organization best align the deployment of AI with our strategic goals
Let’s talk about it.
1) How will AI affect my industry in the short and long term?
When considering the first question and the ubiquitous use of AI in general, the short-term answer is that commercial AI solutions like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot are likely being used in your organization today. This begs questions about organizational AI policies. What kind of corporate information can be fed into public AI solutions like ChatGPT? Or if we are using Microsoft Copilot, what data is accessible by our end users? Do we want our end users to see that data?
A short-term task that every organization should be looking to accomplish is the formation of AI policies that will govern when, where, and how AI can be used. This can protect the business from accidental data exposure to the public or internally by well-meaning staff trying to be more efficient at their jobs.
The second part of the first question takes more thought and collaboration with key stakeholders to identify how AI will affect their industry in the long term. Consider two fitness companies that have customer service staff. These companies answer customer service inquiries via phone and email today, which requires adequate and experienced staff to provide correct information back to customers. One of these companies decides to ignore AI. The other decides that the long-term effect of AI on their industry is that it can improve customer service through chatbots and AI assistance to staff. They decide on the goal of making their customer service experience more prompt, efficient, and accurate by investing in these AI tools. The question becomes: which of these two companies will have the better customer service experience in 2-3 years?
2) Does my organization have the capabilities to support AI?
The answer to this question is almost always “no”. Very few organizations I work with have capabilities to support AI. We’ve talked about ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot being used by millions of people but very few have had any formal training on these solutions. I find in organizations trying to leverage these tools that adoption is shockingly low. There are a handful of champions that use it and are skilled in the art of “prompt engineering,” but by in large, the majority of users try it a few times and then revert back to completing tasks the way they always have.
Where I have seen success is in organizations that consciously and strategically plan for sustainability with AI. Examples include ongoing and consistent training in the AI tools, or weekly collaborative meetings where users share tips and tricks, helpful prompts, and outcomes achieved with AI. As with most things in technology, AI does not work for everyone out of the box. Training, skills building, and culture are critical to your organization’s AI journey.
3) How can we align AI deployment with our strategic goals?
The third question requires your organization to consider AI when discussing its strategic goals. As one-, three-, or five-year goals are established, ask each other if AI can assist with this goal. For example, let’s return to the example of our two fitness companies. One company aligned a strategic goal (improved customer service) with the use of AI, while the other did not.
For reference, the most common AI use cases I see that align with strategic goals are:
Customer Support Optimization
Content Creation and Management
Project Management Support
Training and Development
Data Analysis and Summarization
HR Assistance
I hope this discussion has been informative and given you something to think about for your organization. At IX Solutions, we love to facilitate these types of discussions between leadership groups. The possibilities are exciting and on a personal level it brings me a lot of joy to see people be enthusiastic and passionate about the future.
Thanks for reading,
Chris King
Partner & Vice President