All In On AI? A Practical Approach To Leveraging AI

How Do You Eat An (AI) Elephant?

A long-standing joke is “How do you eat an elephant? Answer: One bite at a time.”

I feel the same holds for AI, especially for those organizations and individuals that might feel a little overwhelmed by all of the talk (hype) about AI and that if you are not leveraging all of the latest and greatest AI technology you are already behind and you will never catch up. Your approach may need to be “one bite at a time.”

Let’s Talk Data.

Here are some of the latest stats sourced from Content At Scale about AI Tools:

• The AI market is expected to grow from $86.9 billion in 2022 to a staggering $407 billion by 2027.
• Among AI software, hardware, and services segments, AI software accounts for the largest market size.
• The AI software market is predicted to reach $126 billion by 2025.
• China will be the world leader in AI technology by 2030, with a 26.1% global market share.
• 97% of business owners believe ChatGPT will help their business.
• 67% of consumers prefer to use AI language model tools rather than traditional search engines for finding information or answers.

Sources: Content at Scale, Markets and Markets, Statista, Forbes, Statista, Juniper Research, PwC

Is the AI Market going to be large? Absolutely. Is AI going to be a significant game changer for many industries? Hell yes. Are you going to go out of business because you didn’t go all in on AI? Probably not. However, AI is going to be a critical technology that when leveraged correctly will have a significant impact on how you can scale your business for growth.

Where to get started?

In a previous blog, I discussed how to leverage the Growth Gears framework to systematically understand your business, develop a strategy, and execute that strategy with excellence. I believe you can use a similar approach for how and when to leverage AI to improve productivity and to find opportunities to quickly scale your business.

Every business and organization is somewhat unique. What works for the company down the street may not work for your business. How ABC company is leveraging AI tools may not be the best approach for you, so let’s determine where the opportunities in your business exist and determine how AI can help you improve those areas of your business. This approach is similar to “eating the elephant one bite at a time”.

Start With Insights:

At our 2024 National Meeting, Chief Outsiders launched our AI Assessment for SMB and Mid-Market organizations. This assessment tool is intended to provide organizations with an understanding of where they are in their AI maturity and provide practical resources for moving organizations along the maturity curve.

5 Stages To AI Maturity Lifecycle:

Understanding your current position is crucial for knowing where you want to go. Successful organizations are skilled at looking at themselves honestly and understanding their current situation. Through this honest assessment comes the ability to develop a plan to mature/grow/scale.

Stage 1- Discover:

• No formal plan to leverage AI for business improvement
• High-level awareness of some AI tools available
• Some early adopters/explorers of AI exist in the organization
• <10% of the organization is AI literate

Stage 2- Emerge

• The organization seeks to develop AI literacy
• Launch pilot initiatives to play with AI
• AI is not yet aligned with business strategy
• 10% +/- of the organization is AI literate and is growing

Stage 3 - Formalize

• AI initiatives are supported by leadership and have goals, objectives, and guidelines for how to be used within the business.
• AI is aligned with business strategy and KPIs
• AI tools are being used across the organization
• About 30% +/- of the organization is AI literate and growing

Stage 4 - Advance

• Operational workflows are optimized with AI
• AI tools are positively impacting business growth
• AI is improving the personalization of your messaging
• About 50% +/- of the organization is AI literate and continues to grow

Stage 5 - Transform

• AI is helping to drive business strategy
• The AI ecosystem is transforming your business model and spawning new products and services
• Over 70% +/- of the organization is AI literate

Taking the Assessment

Taking the assessment is easy. It will take about five minutes to complete. I would suggest having multiple people on your team (C-Suite, Departments, etc.) take the assessment to gauge both where you are and the consensus of where you are as an organization.

Here is a link to start the survey.

Upon completion, the results will be emailed to you.

Now What?

You have completed the assessment and know what AI maturity stage you are in. Now what? My suggestion is to “eat the elephant one bite at a time.”

Here are 7 steps to get started:

1. Bring a cross-functional group together to gather insights.
2. Identify 2-3 departments/areas of your business that have areas to improve and a team open to trying new things.
3. Set objectives. Example: “We want to reduce time to complete a task by 20%.”
4. Identify 1-2 processes or tasks that would be good candidates for AI technology/tools.
5. Do research on which AI Technology/Tool might be the best for that function.
6. Test and learn. You will need to refine the prompts and the approach multiple times.
7. Measure your progress. Were you able to see improvements against your objective?

Need Help?

Many organizations will still feel overwhelmed and afraid their AI initiative will take their focus away from running their business.

The answer: Bring in an outside resource to help you get started. Chief Outsiders has the resources and expertise to help you assess, identify, develop and implement an AI strategy that is right for your organization.

By William Collins , Partner & CMO

Originally published on the CEO Blog