6 Critical Steps to Harness the Full Power of AI in Your Business

As a business leader, here’s a question you might consider asking your favorite digital assistant: “What value can you, my generative AI friend, add for my customers, my employees and my bottom line?”

As rapidly as these emerging AI-powered platforms are learning, your artificial sidekick would be wise to respond with a question of its own, asking, “Has your organization done the necessary up-front work to take full advantage of AI tools like me?” It might even advise you that in order to maximize the value of AI and the growing range of potential use cases for it, your business first needs to ensure it’s fundamentally ready with a solid IT infrastructure that can fully support it. Because without that foundation in place, the capabilities of your AI tools will be greatly limited and may undermine your ability to earn returns on those investments.

Business spending on AI is rising sharply. According to Forrester, 62% of global business and technology professionals said they expect their organization to significantly increase its AI investments over the next 12 months. Meanwhile, as business leaders gain a more realistic understanding of these newer technologies, they have begun to focus more on the specific AI applications that move the needle inside their company. In the case of Windstream customers, for example, they can access AI capabilities via business communications platforms like a cloud-based contact center as a service.

“By deploying applications that help enhance productivity and personalize processes,” the Deloitte AI Institute said in September, “organizations can use Generative AI to accelerate the pace of their business, evolving an experimental investment into an established value driver.”

How, then, can you build a rock-solid foundation so your genAI friend and other intelligent tools drive value inside your business? If you can check the following six boxes, your company is likely well-positioned to put genAI to work:

1. A clear AI game plan for your business that emphasizes substance over style. Your organization is more likely to realize positive outcomes and solid ROI from its investments if it starts with a clear plan for strategically piloting AI within specific areas of your business. This plan should also include the means to measure and assess the results of those pilot initiatives before scaling AI more broadly across the business. Outcomes also will tend to be better when you pursue AI use cases that align with your business goals and resolve a business issue for you, your clients or your partners — resisting the temptation to invest in an AI product just because it’s the shiniest new toy.

2. Comfort in the cloud. AI requires immense computing power, which is why most AI capabilities are housed in the cloud. Having a thoughtful strategy for which parts of your IT infrastructure are placed in the cloud and which are on-premise is crucial for maximizing AI value.

3. A robust network platform. Besides a cloud computing environment, AI apps work best when they’re supported by — and accessed through — a strong, secure IT foundation that includes a reliable and high-speed network. That’s particularly important for organizations with a large remote or hybrid workforce that requires ready access to AI capabilities wherever they happen to be working.

4. Mastery of your data. In order to get the most from our AI investments, it’s imperative that your data is well modeled. While data is crucial for AI, the quality of that data is most important because your AI models are trained based on the data that you input. The more accurate, up-to-date and complete your data quality is, the more reliable your outputs will be. Diligently cleaning, normalizing and structuring your data on a regular basis will help enhance the training process that your AI systems go through, allowing genAI to more accurately interpret and analyze your data, which will result in greater credibility and strategic value that your AI tools provide back to the business.

5. A sophisticated cybersecurity strategy. Not only are hackers targeting organizations’ AI systems (which can be more vulnerable in a hybrid working environment), but they’re also using AI to help shape their attack strategies. It’s therefore imperative that an organization implement advanced, multilayered security strategies like Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) and Security Service Edge (SSE) to keep up a fair fight against cybercriminals. These solutions can be augmented with strong bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies, along with a mobile device management (MDM) solution.

6. AI expertise. Ensure your company has the in-house know-how to identify use cases with the most potential value to your business, and to evaluate, select and implement AI solutions for those use cases. Investing in training to upskill/reskill members of your IT staff so they’re equipped to take on new responsibilities related to the AI tools in which you have invested is one way to develop that expertise in-house. Another option is to look externally and enlist a third-party IT-managed service provider (MSP) for support — especially if you run IT lean.

7. A pioneering mindset. Be open to testing use cases, knowing all your outcomes may not be positive. That’s okay — everyone around you is also experimenting and learning AI as they go. Build on successes, learn from setbacks, and scale AI use cases more broadly across the organization when you deem it appropriate, without forcing the issue.

When all these boxes are checked and your organization is aligned around a clear AI action plan, then it’s time to ask your trusty digital assistant another question: “What can you do for me next?”