Is your business strategy thriving in the ever-changing digital world? If not, it’s time to rethink your entire business strategy – by adding AI into the mix.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has made its mark on almost every industry, allowing businesses to automate tedious processes while getting better results.
And with applications ranging from predictive analytics to advertising to saving customer service teams time and energy, there’s no denying that AI is a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes. But where do you start?
In one (or two) of Dr. Raj Ramesh‘s visual lessons on implementing an AI strategy, he talked about the vital elements that make the implementation of AI into anyone’s business more smooth and more structured.
In this article, we’ll go over what Dr. Ramesh explained needs to be done first before ever thinking about AI strategies and the questions that’ll help you form the AI strategy that will fit your business needs.
What Comes Before AI Strategies?
AI is emerging as a crucial tool in business, and business leaders know its importance will only increase with time.
AI-driven strategies are changing the way businesses operate (even countries are using it to drive economic growth) providing unprecedented opportunities to drive sales and efficiency.
Implementing an effective artificial intelligence strategy in business, however, requires careful planning – it’s simply not enough to jump on the AI bandwagon without having a plan of action.
That’s why having an AI framework and AI strategy is so vital.
By understanding the need for both and which comes first, companies can better utilize the full potential of their implementation of AI.
AI frameworks develop the logic behind an AI implementation, provide guidance for effective change management and give reasonable expectations for success.
This is why it’s essential for businesses to build frameworks first before getting into the strategies that need to go into place.
Without the right framework, businesses may end up adopting AI solutions that don’t really address the right kind of issues inside the organization—wasting time, money, and training around strategies and technology that may only be motivated by trends.
How Do You Frame an AI Framework?
AI frameworks are essential for companies looking to create AI strategies. AI frameworks serve as the building blocks of AI. For Dr. Raj Ramesh, AI is a complex field, and AI frameworks give direction to an otherwise overwhelming task.
That’s why, before you worry about what AI strategies to implement in your business, start with your frameworks first. Below are some of the main components that you must work on to build a solid AI framework.
- Teams
- Tools
- Business Processes
- Partners and Platforms
1. Your AI team
AI implementation is a complex and specialized task, so having the right AI teams in place is critical to your AI strategy’s success.
There are two options when deciding who should be part of your AI teams: as a business strategy, you can either build one in-house or consult an AI firm.
Building an AI team in-house gives you complete control over the decision-making process for your AI strategy, but you’ll need to invest resources into finding and training more skilled AI professionals.
If you decide to go with a consulting AI firm, they will bring their own AI experts that know their stuff and provide turnaround times that may be faster than upgrading your existing staff.
2. What AI tools to use
AI has revolutionized the way we approach data analysis, and those that use AI technologies possess a great advantage over their competition. As such, it’s crucial to make sure the right tools are being used when constructing an AI framework.
Poorly chosen AI tools can lead to confusing results or a lack of insights just as easily as selecting the correct technologies may provide valuable and detailed information.
3. The concerned business processes
When determining an AI initiative, there is one essential step that cannot be skipped in order to ensure success: Examining the existing business processes.
This step is crucial, as AI should not operate in a vacuum, but should instead be used to augment or improve those existing processes.
Understanding what works and what doesn’t informs how your AI initiatives can harness the maximum benefits of artificial intelligence.
After all, if you don’t take the time to get a clear direction for your AI projects before getting started, all of your efforts could be doomed to fail right out of the gate and may remain nothing but AI initiatives.
4. Partners and platforms to work with
Creating an artificial intelligence framework is no small feat, but ensuring its solid foundation is what will lead to equitable and sustainable development.
It’s important to identify the platform and partners that are necessary to bring your AI vision to life. After all, you can’t build a castle on loose sand!
When you get the right people and platforms in place and reach the same page in terms of AI ethics with everyone involved, it creates the momentum necessary for progress.
After Frameworks Come AI Strategies
Frameworks and strategies – do you know the difference? If AI is your cup of tea, you’ll want to make sure you understand the distinction. A framework is like an AI skeleton, providing structure and support but not necessarily specifying every detail.
On the other hand, a strategy goes one step further and offers guidelines that take into account all factors related to an AI project, such as individual needs, resources, dependencies, goals, and objectives.
In short: frameworks are foundations; strategies are plans formulated to get you from Point A to Point B along a certain artificial intelligence path. To get to point B with AI, start by asking questions.
- AI team: Do I need an in-house team or can I work with an agency/firm/consultant to lead our AI integration?
- AI tools: What kind of AI tool will address our needs? What are other businesses saying about these tools? Should we focus on two options or more?
- Business processes: What part of the business operation do we wish to augment with AI: sales? marketing? customer service?
- Partners and platforms: Should we build our very own AI environment or should we use external services from other providers?
Of course, the considerations regarding the decisions that you can draw out of your AI framework are not limited to this.
But by sitting down with your stakeholders, surely, there will be more to discover that will help ensure that your AI strategy addresses all that it can when it comes to scaling your business.
The Factors That You Need to Consider
AI is a rapidly advancing field and its potential applications are immeasurable.
With AI playing an increasingly important role in businesses today, organizations should be taking steps to ensure they have a solid AI strategy as your approach to AI can also pose significant impacts on your business strategy.
To do this, Dr. Ramesh believes that they must make sure to consider multiple factors that can potentially impact their AI ecosystems. Essential factors to consider when deciding on what AI strategies to take revolve around:
- Expense
- Time
- Resources/skills needed
- Its impact on core competencies
- Risks
The Things You Need to Execute Your AI Strategy
According to Dr. Ramesh, there are a few things that a business will need in order to execute an effective AI strategy properly and effectively.
Granted, every institution is different from the others, creating different needs and necessities when it comes to implementations. But these components are what we can consider common considerations.
- Data
- Processes
- Change Management
- Technology
- Team
- Business Problems
Data
An effective AI strategy wouldn’t be possible without data. AI is all about collecting patterns from observed data, so data is essential in AI algorithms.
AI systems analyze the input to learn and determine what actions should be taken to create desired outcomes.
A broad AI strategy will leverage AI by collecting powerful amounts of data to train AI models; without a large data set, AI can’t make accurate predictions or become a valuable resource in decision-making.
Processes
AI implementation can often be a challenge in the business world, but determining the processes that stand in your way is the key to beginning an AI strategy and unlocking the many benefits AI has to offer.
AI provides an opportunity to work smarter and streamline operations, so understanding what processes bog down the business impact is essential for taking full advantage of AI’s capabilities.
Change management
AI is one of the most exciting developments in current technology, but if the AI strategy isn’t managed properly and changes aren’t implemented effectively, it can create great disruption for an organization.
Change management within AI systems is an integral aspect as AI can be quite complex and fast-paced.
Without careful and consistent change management, AI systems are at risk of becoming obsolete and failing to meet the goals that AI was supposed to achieve in the first place.
Technology
AI as a service is increasingly becoming more available for companies of all shapes and sizes.
A successful AI strategy can be harnessed to provide companies with tactical advantages in sales, marketing, customer service, and a range of other processes.
AI’s potential is only growing by the day and AI services help organizations across industries unleash its potential with ease. Companies like Amazon and Google are especially well poised to take advantage of AI-as-a-service.
But of course, you should always be smart with how you share your data.
Team
When building a team to help lead the implementation of your AI strategy, you don’t need a big one. But it’s important to have these key positions beside you when forming your people:
- Data gurus
- Business architects
- Communicators
- Programmers
- Solution developers
- Strategist
Business problem
AI can be an incredibly useful tool for businesses, but to truly get the most out of AI it’s important to have a well-defined understanding of the problems that need solving.
Identifying which business problems you want AI to address should be at the core of any AI strategy.
AI Can Bring Greatness to Your Business
In this digital age, AI has taken off like a rocket with the entire AI industry expected to reach $641.3 billion in 2028, becoming an integral part of many business strategies across various industries.
This adoption of AI comes with both pros and cons; on one hand, companies are able to increase efficiency in processes that would otherwise remain stagnant for long periods of time, ultimately freeing up resources and enabling companies to focus more heavily on innovating for the future.
And professionals believe in that premise as studies show 9 in 10 organizations believe that AI will give them a competitive edge in business, according to MIT Sloan Management.
On the other hand, this adoption can result in potentially less job security as processes could be automated within organizations.
But with this reality, what seems like an overturn of anticipation follows as a recent study by the World Economic Forum states that AI will help create 97 million new jobs in the year 2025.
In order for businesses to properly take advantage of the digital transformation brought upon us by AI, employee education and culture shifts are key – it’s no longer ‘business as usual’ after all.
FAQs
Implementing AI into your business can come about with so many questions. The following are the most common questions that people ask when it comes to AI strategies. Let’s go over them one by one.
In Summary
In order to have a successful implementation of AI, it is important to have both frameworks and strategies in place.
A framework gives you the structure for how you will execute your plans while a strategy focuses on the specific goals you want to achieve.
Forming a framework can be done by understanding the set of problems you want to solve and then finding different ways to address those issues.
Once you have created your framework, developing strategies requires setting objectives and determining action steps that will help you reach those goals.
To carry out your plans, it is necessary to have access to data, resources, and talent. Keep these things in mind as you start formulating your own AI frameworks and strategies.
Brian Shelton is an entrepreneur, marketer, and life-long learner committed to helping businesses achieve impactful results. He founded Grow Predictably to provide tailored marketing strategies to generate predictable, profitable growth. With over a decade of experience in the industry, Brian has helped businesses, large and small. reach their goals and drive positive change in the world.