Future Proofing your business with AI: where to start?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been touted as the next big breakthrough in Industry 4.0, with the potential to accelerate operations and develop new revenue streams. But how do you know where to start when introducing AI to your business?

Businesses want to embrace AI – but there’s hesitancy. That’s understandable, considering AI projects can be costly investments which few enterprises have experience navigating.

And while AI has grown in popularity, the number of projects that fail could be as high as 80% . So, despite the range of benefits AI offers, any investment runs an unfortunately high risk of being unsuccessful.

But that doesn’t mean that AI should be avoided.

Often, an AI project’s success comes down to thorough planning, support and guidance made available from the outset.

Because, without a clearly defined roadmap for success, it’s challenging to convince stakeholders of AI’s value – let alone launch a project that is appropriately planned, developed, and tested. We recommend a manageable three-phased approach to ensure AI projects have the greatest chance of success.

From scoping out the project and setting KPIs to testing and iterating the solution, this article will take you through the stages necessary to embark on achievable AI projects. Now, let’s explore our three-step approach:

Phase 1: Discovery – lay the foundations for your AI project

From life sciences to engineering, you’ll no doubt have heard how AI can offer a strategic edge in many verticals. But to invest a little and gain a lot, you’ll need to work out what specific problems it could solve for your business.

This process helps identify your requirements and sets boundaries to tame ‘AI sprawl’. After all, not every project requires new research or a total reinvention of the wheel – sometimes it just needs the adaptation of an existing use case.

With the help of AI specialists, businesses can begin to scope each project appropriately. This typically involves assessing:

• The problems that need to be solved
• The short-term wins AI could provide
• The project’s budget
• The long-term roadmap, including key deliverables and a defined endpoint

At this stage, it’s vital to have the right people in the room while workshopping how, where, and why your business could benefit from AI. That means involving a mix of stakeholders from across a company’s hierarchy, from management and C-levels to data scientists and infrastructure specialists.

Interested in AI but unsure of how it could enhance your business? ?Our AI test drive is a good place to start your journey.

Phase 2: Development – build the best-fit solution

Once the scope of an AI project is defined, production of the solution can begin.

At this stage, the priority is to build a proof of concept (PoC) to prove the viability of the AI solution. Without a glossy user interface, we’re essentially working with a piece of code to demonstrate that AI can solve the problem we want it to solve.

Of course, not every business will be adept at researching and implementing a highly configured AI solution. So, depending on the unique needs of each project, this could mean working to co-create AI systems with a partner or acquiring the necessary in-house expertise.

At Fujitsu, we’ve been doing this for decades – equipping our partners to navigate deep learning solutions and plan specific deployment scenarios using our reference architecture.

One of the first organisations to leverage our AI ecosystem was DFI, a Fujitsu Partner based in France. In just six weeks from ideation to rollout, the team at Fujitsu’s AI Centre of Excellence helped DFI create an intelligent support ticket management system.

It marked the start of an exciting partnership, using our team’s expertise in language model training to guide DFI’s AI-powered future.

Phase 3: Testing – iterate based on user feedback

With the foundations in place for the new AI solution, it’s time to move on to building a minimum viable product (MVP) through interfacing and iterative testing.

This phase aims to turn the PoC into a first draft of the AI solution. It demonstrates how the end-to-end process of using the system works and looks.

Development at this stage is informed by testing the solution with a small group of users to gather feedback for improvements. After making any adjustments and product revisions, another testing cycle is run to repeat the process.

Iterative testing rounds ensure the solution meets the requirements defined at the start of the project, as well as checking it’s accessible to end-users and can be tied to specific business outcomes.

By ironing out the faults before going live, the risk of poor user experience and dissatisfaction at rollout is minimised. Your new AI solution can then provide value right from the moment it’s launched – both to the business and its customers.

Support for AI project rollout and beyond

It’s a common misconception that AI projects must be massively complex to provide value or that they never deliver on their promises.

From Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 to Amazon’s Forecast, we’ve seen the largest players in tech deploy intelligent AI solutions to transform their business functions. But these aren’t reserved just for global corporations. With the right support and guidance, enterprises of all scales can develop AI solutions.

After progressing through the three phases we’ve covered, you can begin to look at rolling out your solution at scale. Fujitsu provides support for the entire lifecycle of AI projects, offering ongoing consultancy and training for solutions architects and engineers.

But that’s not to say that a full project rollout is the end goal for all the businesses we work with.

Often, companies will approach us with the simple aim of understanding how AI might enhance their operations in the future, even if they’re not quite ready to take the leap. Accessible co-creation helps businesses plan and execute transformative AI projects – and it all starts with a conversation.

To learn more about how Fujitsu can future proof your business with AI, register for our Future Proof Event taking place on 15th October at The Pullman, London St Pancras. Register now.

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