We live in an age of wonders, no doubt. News of Artificial Intelligence (AI) advances are in the news almost daily, accompanied by commentary and predictions that are almost entirely speculation. I am writing a blog article about using AI in business but, I am forced to admit, and I am not an AI expert. I have to fall back on years of consulting with other technologies throughout my career to see how expectations eventually settled into reality with other new or popular concepts. 

AI will impact our work life, but a lot of customers are possibly expecting too much in the short term. Advice from Microsoft has been restrained; they are encouraging us to experiment, be prepared to fail, and keep an attitude of learning instead of already knowing what the AI should do for you.  MS Copilot will be able to assist with many work tasks, but initially it is unlikely to do anything without handholding. “AI” is not the first new technology ever introduced, and we have learned some things from history.

Credit: Gerd Altmann, https://pixabay.com/users/geralt-9301/, via Pixabay

Have a Business Advocate

Ideas (in a healthy work environment) can come from anywhere, but an advocate for a new technology can be the key to keeping a focus on priorities. This person has to have the ability to communicate ideas to decision makers (or be one themselves) and be accessible to hear ideas from others. Often these are the people who will provide the organizational “will” to push new initiatives forward. These people don’t need to be experts, but they will need to have a good grasp on the concepts and purposes of AI, and a bit of enthusiasm for the subject may help.  Once someone has an idea for a use, it is important to build that into something more.

Build a Strategy

When overnight document shipping became easily and reliably available, few businesses abandoned the U.S. Postal service and started sending everything overnight immediately. By looking for where it gave a clear advantage over the “traditional” way of doing business, companies were able to speed up the important aspects of their work and create opportunities for themselves. Closing deals faster, getting permits more quickly, shortening the closing steps of the contract cycle, these were the ways that overnight shipping revolutionized how work was done. The strategy was the important development, technology was just a mechanism. Look for the way to exploit the technology, build toward the way to make the technology work for you.

Allow for Failures

Not every idea will be an immediate success. One of the reasons for a Business Advocate is to have someone who can “idea check” the suggestions and authorize a certain amount of time, possibly money, that can be allocated to testing those ideas. There will be a point at which someone will be responsible for deciding if an idea has been a success, a failure, or worth revising. If everyone connected to an idea was punished for failure, it will be harder and harder to find people to step forward and take a risk. Part of the role of the Business Advocate is to make sure the ideas are not punished while also determining when those ideas are no longer worth pursuing. Hopefully failures will teach lessons that will lead to future success.

Reward Participation

While we need to avoid punishing failure, rewarding success and failures may be just as important, if not more important for building an environment that will be successful. People who offer ideas, both good and bad-but-plausible, should be rewarded for their participation and enthusiasm as they are attempting to improve the organization. It is also worth mentioning that acknowledgment of efforts is a form of reward. Money and gift certificates are not always needed to make it clear that attention and efforts are valued. It has been said that we now live in an attention economy. The people in an organization will be a key component in the success of any new technology or technique; some reward for the efforts of people will keep the ideas and efforts flowing.

Preparing to use Artificial Intelligence in our organization is possibly less about the current state of the technology and more about how to manage new ideas and possibilities within organizations. Artificial Intelligence, or Copilot in the Microsoft world, will be changing at a breakneck pace. The direct uses have not been completely defined or we would just be reading how-to articles for implementation instructions. Figuring out how to utilize the possibilities will be far more important to the long-term impact of this field of technology. The process for success with new technologies has been discussed for quite a while and gives us a roadmap for succeeding in the future. We are happy to help you succeed through a proven and mature process.