How To Identify The Best AI Opportunities For Your Business – In 2 Simple Steps

No organization can afford to sit back and ignore the potential of AI. Yet, rushing to adopt AI just because the technology exists can be just as damaging to a business. To fully realize the potential of AI – indeed, any new technology – you need to approach it with a clear business goal or need in mind. In other words, you need to identify and narrow down to the most valuable AI opportunities for your business (which means your approach could be quite different from that of your competitors). 

When I work with organizations to develop their AI strategy, we break the process down into two fundamental steps:

1.     First, you need to identify the potential applications (use cases) of AI in your business.

2.     Then you can begin to whittle those potential use cases down to just a few top priorities.

Let’s explore each step in a little more detail.

Linking your AI strategy to your business strategy is the best way to ensure AI delivers maximum value for the business. Therefore, this first step involves looking at what your business is trying to achieve, and what unique challenges your business is facing, and then identifying potential solutions through AI. What you’ll end up with is a list of potential AI projects or use cases. An AI consultant can help you with this process.

Don’t limit yourself to a small number of use cases at this stage, as you’ll be narrowing down your options in the second step. For now, your goal is to explore the many ways in which AI could help your organization achieve its key strategic goals. This might include:  

Having pinpointed some potential uses in your business, you can now begin to flesh them out in more detail. Consider the following factors for each potential use case (this ensures you’re approaching each use in the same structured, thorough way):

1.     Link to strategic goal. Because it’s so easy to get caught up in all the incredible things AI can do, it’s vital you can link each use case to a strategic business goal. If a potential use of AI doesn’t link to your overarching business strategy, I’d question whether it’s really worth the expense and disruption. So ask yourself, “How would this use of AI help the business achieve its objectives, grow and prosper?”

2.     AI objective. Here, you can define your AI-related goal in more detail. What, specifically, are you hoping to achieve through this use of AI? For example, you may be looking to solve a particular business-critical problem, reduce employee turnover, improve health and safety, etc.

3.     Measures of success (KPIs). This section answers the question, “What does success look like for this AI project, and how will we measure success?” Therefore, identify which business metrics/KPIs you could use to track progress against your AI objective.

4.     Use case owner. Who in the business would be responsible for this AI use case and assume overall ownership of the project?

5.     AI approach and data required.