Beyond the Hype | Redefining Artificial Intelligence

During our latest AI Leaders virtual gathering I had the pleasure and privilege of interviewing Stan Sthanunathan, former executive vice president of customer and market insight at Unilever. I wanted to get his take on the common assertion and fear that artificial intelligence (AI) will replace vast areas of human labour in the not-too-distant future, and on where the industry is going.

Stan shared his views about how the data science and analytics world is evolving and how the community needs to redefine artificial intelligence for what it really is.

Here are my takeaways:

You’ve got data – now what?

Rather than getting weighed down in the ‘craft’ of data science and analytics, it’s time to shift the focus on what you can meaningfully do with the analytics. Without this, your data lake may turn into a data swamp! Move the conversation beyond the ‘what’ of data to ask the questions ‘so what?’ and ‘now what?’. This means focusing on the impact and action that the insight will deliver to your business, rather than on the actual data itself.

Let’s talk Augmented Intelligence

There’s often a misattribution about what AI and machine-learning really are. Some executives still equate AI with building robots! Thankfully, we’re not living in a dystopian future where humans have become slaves to AI. Let’s change the narrative and talk about Augmented Intelligence instead. Today, artificial intelligence and machine-learning tools can augment human intelligence, which will unleash the power of your people to be more productive, more creative and more innovative.

Democratise insight

Data often sits within the IT function, but the insight it holds needs to be in the hands of the sales, marketing and operational teams for it to have the biggest impact on driving business growth. For example, your HR leader can interrogate employee data to spot trends and enhance the employee value proposition to aid talent retention, while your Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) can use consumer insight to test and launch new product and service offerings faster than the competition.

Avoid the ‘perfection’ rabbit hole

You may have oceans of data but whether it’s of the right quality is another matter. However, there’s a balance to be struck between enhancing the accuracy of the data you’re gathering and wasting time in the hunt for perfection. Put simply, ‘perfect’ data doesn’t exist and trying to find it kills action, so don’t waste the time or effort. If the data you have leads to insight that creates 10 new marketing campaign ideas for your CMO to test, that’s a win.

Remove the jargon

The data community must be better envoys and translators. Remove jargon and reframe the conversation around data and insight to talk about what matters to your stakeholder – whether the CEO, CFO, CMO or HR lead – not to you. And emphasise how data analytics delivers real value, meaning and power to the work done by employees across the organisation.

Behave responsibly

Data ethics, security and privacy are high on the board agenda today. Demonstrating that you are an ethical organisation which uses data responsibly is vital. Communicate clearly with your customers about what they get in return for sharing their data with you and build a trust relationship from that foundation.

Stan’s rallying cry to the industry is that it’s within our power to shape the direction of travel for artificial intelligence and machine learning within our organisations. It’s time to shift the focus from the input – the data itself – to the outcomes and impact on our employees, on business growth and on wider society. I’d like to leave you with Stan’s recommended measure of success for the data community: how many ‘aha’ moments can you create among your colleagues and leadership? Because it’s when you move from ‘here’s the data’ to ‘here’s the insight’ and beyond, to ‘here are the ideas to action’ that the magic will truly happen.