How to Turn Your Company Into an AI-Centric One (and Why Long-Term Success Depends on It)
After a few years of rather stable technology, generative artificial intelligence (AI) has swept the globe, to the point where McKinsey predicts that any company not using AI will go out of business within the next three years.
Businesses that are AI-native, or that use AI at their heart, are already becoming more and more common. Corporates that are currently in operation but require time to adjust must pay attention. Organizations that are still unsure are quickly falling behind as a result of the tipping point that generative AI has produced for AI-centric models.
I witnessed a similar situation with Blockbuster during the dot.com boom, as the company neglected to digitize in time to meet the needs of a growingly tech-savvy audience.
Blackberry’s state-of-the-art smartphone was rendered obsolete due to its tardiness in implementing touch screen keyboard technology. Not so much the absence of product updates in both cases as it is the leadership team’s inability to implement a more thorough business change on schedule.
Time is running out for enterprises currently experimenting with AI, even though many are only now waking up. The unfortunate news is that. There is still time to do a course correction, which is good news. Business process transformation is the initial step in any successful technological change. That has everything to do with your staff and how they collaborate with one another. Employees can quickly turn into agents for change provided they’re given the right tools and space to contribute. And that’s something you can easily do.
What is an AI-centric organization?
I see two forces coming together here: the rapid transformation of established firms into AI-centric entities, and AI-native organizations, which are essentially startups that are designed with AI in their infrastructure from day one, automation and data being at the heart of their modus operandi. More businesses will need to adopt an AI-centric mindset in order to endure and prosper, seeing AI as the essential “glue” that holds their operations and future development together.
Of course, this transition is a big ask. Any operational change can be a difficult process, especially if it affects every facet of the company, including finance, HR, sales, and customer care.
However, I believe that there is too much lost in opportunity if this significant shift is not carried out. If businesses want to be competitive and relevant in the long run, they must adopt AI. Therefore, how to become an AI-centric organization is more important than whether or not you should.
Building an AI-centric organization
People are afraid of the unknown. Anxiety and uncertainty will be high if change is occurring and your staff feels like they’re the last to know. According to a McKinsey report, for example, many transformation initiatives fall short because the objectives aren’t tailored to the work of each individual person.
What’s even more concerning is the discovery that top leaders, compared to the rest of the workforce, are 20% more likely to believe that these goals have been modified, creating a huge miscommunication gap.
Include intrapreneurs from all organizational levels in the process of creating your AI strategy and goals so they can understand how these changes will affect specific job positions. Permit them to inform the affected staff members of these changes. Establish public forums where staff members may communicate, voice issues, and exchange best practices. Although you might feel uneasy and need assistance at first, taking the initiative will pay off in the long run by increasing innovation, adoption, and influence.
Engage everyone in the process:
In addition to informing staff members about impending changes (a top-down strategy), you should consider how to involve every employee in the process (a bottom-up strategy). Employees are considerably more likely to persist with any business change when they feel like they’re actively involved in it, according to a previous McKinsey study.
Asking your employees about technologies and use cases that they believe can address an ongoing business issue is the best way to engage them. Another method is to organize “promptathons,” which will assist individuals in developing new AI prompts and provide you with much-needed information regarding the caliber of your current AI algorithms.
Lastly, assign teams to test and report on pilot solutions. For instance, collaborate with your customer support staff to co-design a new chatbot if they need training on how to use it with it. Employees are the most creative thinkers and have the most in-depth knowledge of your company’s operations.
Try out these AI-focused business models:
Keep an eye on how quickly technology and new business models are evolving in the field of artificial intelligence. Collaborate with your specialized innovation team to test out AI-focused ideas. If you don’t already have one, you might want to get one made now that AI innovation is moving quickly.
Make a map of every business function transformation, a clear metrics and priority framework, and a tiered strategy for AI use cases in this context. Data (and thus organizational knowledge) must be able to move freely between business units and underlying systems in an AI-centric organization. Although this could be an expensive project, it offers a rare chance to review and redesign your whole company infrastructure. Consider it as the transition from memoranda on paper to emails. It’s difficult to believe that corporations used to rely solely on printed materials and interoffice mail, even though that was a significant step in the past.
The highway or the AI way
Working with CEOs in a variety of verticals, I observe that a large number of them are frequently the targets of AI scare tactics. Executives in business are under growing pressure to use AI even though they are not prepared to. Naturally, this is the incorrect strategy. Adopting AI incorrectly can cause significantly more harm than not adopting it at all. Thus, be sure to concentrate on your business plan as a first step.
That being said, giving up is also not the solution. The top item on your priority list should be developing a clear plan for how AI might improve your company. Speak with your staff to obtain perspectives that you would not have discovered otherwise. Then get to work, as the clock is running out and AI-using enterprises are already outperforming their competitors.
