An AI Strategy Is Not About AI

The need for an AI Strategy has been debated ever since AI began to get attention. An AI Strategy defines how AI will add value to accomplishing the organization's priorities, goals, milestones, mission, and vision. An AI Strategy also focuses on implementing AI technology that enhances the execution of corporate strategies and goals. One without the other is a half-baked plan of action doomed to failure. An AI strategy is about designing it for use to accomplish the organization's goals and objectives. The power of AI is reflected by those that use it and how well it is designed for use.

AI has the potential to improve performance significantly. According to the Forrester report, organizations that scale AI are 7x more likely to be the fastest-growing businesses in their industry. However, to successfully scale AI throughout your organization, barriers to adoption must be dealt with. Many of the barriers are created by the lack of training and education about AI and its capabilities. AI is not just another digital technology; rather, it is a smart perpetuating technology that can provide business insights never before seen or realized when designed for use correctly. Acting on those insights is the job of humans, not machines, at least not yet.

Barriers to AI Adoption

• 77% of CEOs say AI and automation will increase vulnerability and disruption to the way they do business (source). The cost of not understanding and thus not adopting AI effectively will accelerate disruption.
• 76% of CEOs are most concerned with the potential for bias and lack of transparency regarding AI adoption (source). Avoiding the need to learn and understand far outweigh the cost of ignorance.
• Gartner predicts that through 2022, 85% of AI projects will deliver erroneous outcomes due to bias in data, algorithms, or the teams responsible for managing them (source). Education is a vital element of any successful transformation. To not make it a priority is detrimental to human and organizational development.
• 47% of executives say an obstacle to AI initiatives is that it’s hard to integrate cognitive projects with existing processes and systems (source). Processes and systems better serve the business when they are continuously improved and properly designed for use.
• 40% of executives say an obstacle to AI initiatives is that technologies and expertise are too expensive (source). The cost of not adopting new technologies and educating everyone on using said technologies is much higher.
• 37% of executives say an obstacle to AI initiatives is that managers don’t understand cognitive technologies and how they work (source). So the answer is not to educate management? Makes no sense.
• 93% of automation technologists feel unprepared or only partially prepared to tackle the challenges associated with smart machine technologies (source). Ongoing education is the core of success for any change initiative. AI and LMS technology go hand in hand and complement the learning process for both teachers and students.
• Only 23% of businesses have incorporated AI into processes and product/service offerings today (source). The market opportunities are significant for those that get in ahead of the competition. Act now and get the right sources of talent that can enable you to stand out in the crowd.

Unlike most of the previous digital technologies, AI is much smarter, dynamic, and self-perpetuating. AI is also systemic in that it never stops learning and improving if given the right data. The fuel to keep AI learning and improving is clean and accurate data, and the more of it, the better it can perform.

Given that education is critical to AI's success consider the utility of Learning Management Systems with embedded AI functionality. An LMS can deliver custom educational content with engaging exercises and teach participants with new engaging subject matters. AI has the ability to make ongoing improvements in the learning processes for students from K-12 and college. AI embedded within an LMS can teach any subject matter better than any human can and teach the subject matter as an individualized designed course.

AI continuously learns each student's capabilities and shortcomings while making adjustments in the teaching methods designed to help individual students learn better and faster than human teachers could. One example of many that illustrate AI's power with human engagement is to enhance the learning process better than humans can. This power will be coming to a school in the cloud near you sooner than you might think.

AI Strategies is not about AI. Rather, they are about designing effective user experiences and using the data AI provides to gain insight.