Take the lead in your industry with AI
Best of Business AI 2021 invites you to go behind the scenes with 10 leading global organizations using AI to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing their industries—and our world. These visionary organizations are powered by human innovators who combine strategic thinking and cutting-edge technology to create powerful results.
Explore these real-life stories of AI transformation to learn the insights and tactics that have led to success, along with tools and frameworks from the Microsoft AI Business School that will help you empower your organization with AI.
AI is not the future, it’s now
Get your organization ready for AI
Putting AI into action requires balancing a future vision with more immediate opportunities to improve and compete. It entails creating a culture that’s data driven, curious, and committed to the responsible use of AI, then recognizing the technical capabilities you need to make implementation a reality. Most importantly, it means empowering everyone with AI—not just your technical teams.
At Microsoft, we’ve partnered with experts and analysts, and interviewed leaders across different industries to understand how to be successful and lead in the age of AI. The AI Business School offers best practices to support you making the leap, including frameworks that have empowered organizations like yours.
AI is not the future, it’s now
AI-ready organization
Great AI results depend on the right strategy
Develop your AI strategy
With all the opportunities AI offers, it’s easy to get caught up in the possibilities. But where should you focus to create lasting AI value for your organization?
The INSEAD framework aligns your organization’s strategic initiatives and employee skill sets with the capabilities of AI, so you can identify and prioritize use cases based on the value that will be generated.
Assess your external industry environment
Consider factors like shifting buyer behavior, new competitors and business models, changes in government regulations, and new technologies.
Determine your value proposition
Understand how you’re going to measure the impact derived from your AI investments based on the perceived value to your customers.
Ensure proper execution
Consider the relevant AI skills, capabilities, mindset, and overall state of your organization, so you can execute thoughtfully.
Innovation capacity is the key to long-term success
Scale AI innovation
To progress from small proofs of concept and isolated AI projects to broad adoption of AI in your organization, you need to think about your internal structure, how innovation is fueled across all business units, and how you prioritize and plan AI investments.
Your priorities for scaling AI innovation might include:
Improving core business functions
Use AI to improve or automate existing processes to remain competitive.
Capitalizing on emerging opportunities
Create new services and customer experiences through AI to differentiate from competitors.
Transforming your organization
Create disruptive and innovative business models to cross industry boundaries, and even create new markets.
With AI, data is power
Ensure AI is for everyone
Today, many companies keep AI siloed; the technology is only made available to data scientists and technical teams. Non-technical team members are unable to use these powerful tools to solve operational and organizational challenges.
Putting AI in the hands of everyone in your organization allows you to unlock the creativity and insight of each employee, so you can innovate and respond to business challenges with greater agility.
Staff employees
Action: Provide AI capabilities through off-the-shelf technologies embedded in everyday tools.
We’re putting AI in the hands of the problem solvers closest to the business problem.
Alexia Ciarfella, Associate Scientist for OREO, Mondelēz International
Culture is as important as strategy
Transform your culture
Across a wide range of industries and organization types, people are proving to be the key to success for AI projects. So, adopting a new AI solution doesn’t just change the reach and scope of your technology architecture—it impacts your culture and your people. It involves learning new ways to support decision making, collaborate across functions, and help employees gain new AI-related skills. For AI projects to succeed, the teams using this technology must not only accept but be part of the solution.
Initiating culture change requires cultivation of a new organizational mindset; one that prioritizes communication, innovation, autonomy, and training. To create an AI-ready culture across your organization, you can use a change management framework such as Prosci’s ADKAR approach.
Leadership Tactics
Communication
Share a clear vision of why your AI project will make a positive impact in your organization—and how everyone will be a part of the AI-powered culture.
Responsibility is key
Take responsibility
AI can enhance your ability to be a force for good, confronting global challenges at a greater scale than previously possible.
As with all significant technological innovations, the use of AI can also have unintended consequences, including privacy issues and security breaches.
To anticipate and mitigate risks associated with AI, consider the following in your approach:
Where do you go from here?
To truly harness the power of AI, start by building a culture of experimentation and continuous learning. Instill a core set of principles and goals and specify a responsible way to achieve them.
Learn more by discovering what other companies have done. Take advantage of action guides tailored to your industry. And visit the AI Business School for further guidance.