You are the weakest link (in AI implementations)

When it comes to using AI to automate or provide productivity benefits in a business, it's more likely than not that the success or failure of any implementation will come down to humans, not AI.

To start with, AI solutions are designed and built by humans, and so may be developed according to certain expectations about their users that don't hold true.

Or AI might accidentally embed biases that their developers are unaware of, or take insufficient care to address.

There are also many potential barriers to adoption of AI technologies from the customer side, including a lack of awareness and understanding, a lack of budget, a lack of skilled people, and a lack of management support.

Stakeholders in an AI implementation (including decision makers, technology providers, business units, departments, and individual employees) may have divergent needs, priorities, and objectives, and not all of them will benefit equally from an AI implementation.

The people who will use AI technologies to create value for their organizations often may not be the same ones who are involved in purchasing, deploying, or managing these technologies.

And without appropriate training and support, staff may not be able to use AI technologies effectively or safely, feel their jobs are theatened or may not see the value in these technologies.

While within an organisation business units, departments, and individual employees are likely to have divergent interests, priorities, and needs with regard to AI and other digital technologies.

Finally, despite the promise that AI technologies could help organizations do things better than humans could, there will be reasons why organizations will want to limit AI's capability autonomy or restrict its use in certain situations. Some of these will come down to legal and ethical reasons, such as where AI is required to work within safety limits to perform a given task, but others will be due to outdated policies, expectations or direction that could be updated To allow AI to deliver greater value.

So how can you make sure you're doing everything you can to make your AI implementation successful?

Here's a few quick tips:

Ensure you have the right people in place

That means:

• Your CTO is not the one doing the implementation.
• You have the right people on the project, who know both the technical and business sides of the business.
• People are in place who have both the experience in implementing AI and the ability to communicate with the end users.

Make sure you have the right data

If you want to use AI to make intelligent decisions, you need to have the data needed to make those intelligent decisions. You'll need to make sure your data is clean and accurate, and you'll need a good strategy for collecting data going forward.

Set realistic expectations

Finally, set realistic expectations. Just because you're using AI doesn't mean things are going to be easier, that everything will go smoothly, or that the implementation will be successful. Expect to have to work hard to make the implementation work, and to have to work even harder to make sure it's successful. Just remember: if you don't try to do everything you can, you won't get anywhere.

It's your turn

I'd love to hear from you.

• Have you implemented AI in your business?
• What were the challenges you faced when doing so?
• What would you have done differently?
• What advice would you give to others considering using AI in their business?
• Let me know in the comments below.

This article was generated using the SimpleMarketing.AI AI content engine, with a little tweaking by a human.

To learn more about how AI could accelerate your content generation, and to try our AI for free, visit www.SimpleMarketing.AI