When investing in AI development makes sense: infrastructure/data readiness

As I wrote, eluded and then wrote again in many posts, AI returns need? to be calculated upfront as much as possible (unless it is innovation IP. That’s another story.)

When is it economically beneficial to implement an AI solution??

I am going to discuss a bit more about the business IT infrastructure and data conditions.?

Many large corporations now have IT solutions and conditions reasonably mature. This article is intended for mid to large companies still lagging behind.

The actual major blocking point to implement AI solutions is IT infrastructure? or lack of : investing in cloud servers, migrations , CRM, data storage and streaming solutions is perceived as just an additional cost in the business not directly related to a benefit.

The reality is, if you want to implement any automation, this is a requirement. And even more, the IT infrastructure has to be well ‘established’ as in utilised with expertise by the client to be able to change as necessary the integration with any upcoming solution. In other words a client cannot change a CRM one month ago and then implement an AI solution the next. It is going to be messy.

Now, you can use the infrastructure to store the data or documents necessary for your businesses.?

The more you digitise your processes the more you are suitable for automating tasks. To state the obvious, if you have paper documents any process which revolves on them cannot be automated.

Finally, the data and documents need to be ‘standardised’: data has to be collected , categorised? and tagged to be searchable.?

Best if a data quality system procedure and governance is in place (it will come with the maturity of the company in utilising the systems).

To summarise, in order to automate a company process, there are 3 conditions

1. IT infrastructure has to be established (not changed 1 month before)
2. All related data has to be digitalised
3. All related data has been standardised

If these conditions are met, the process can be automated. Usually between 40-80% (compared to corresponding manual process).

I hope it helps.

#ai #artificialintelligence #business #innovation