Leadership needed during the AI boom

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in the last year has seen exponential growth in new discoveries and applications for the technology. Each day businesses witness new innovations made possible by AI, and it presents a valuable opportunity for all departments to capitalise on the benefits it provides.

Widespread adoption of AI can be extremely beneficial for your business when correctly utilised, so IT leaders need to lead its strategic application. Becoming more involved in business decision-making as witnessed during and post pandemic, IT leaders play a crucial role in providing expertise for incorporating AI into their company.

The increasing attraction of AI

AI has completely fascinated businesses and the world over the last six months. And rightly so, as AI presents an enormous opportunity for organisations to innovate and optimise across a range of areas.

Many businesses have deepened their understanding of AI and in turn evolved beyond looking at hypothetical examples of future implementation, to practical examples of business transformation.

CSIRO Australia’s AI ecosystem momentum report found 56% of AI providers believe the AI industry has the necessary expertise to deliver positive outcomes for Australian businesses, and 60% of respondents indicated they are accelerating and expanding their AI-related solution offerings to meet market demand.

With this opportunity for different pathways of innovation, we can expect to see organisations over the next 12 months utilise AI to differentiate themselves within their industries and markets to gain a competitive edge. AI will also help organisations become more agile when responding to emerging opportunities and rapidly changing market dynamics.

The vast number of use cases for AI means that organisations will ultimately be looking at every single department to consider how it can be optimised, and while this can be a significant opportunity for businesses, adoption needs to be well-planned and implemented strategically.

During the early stages of the pandemic, organisations rapidly invested in a range of different technologies and applications to keep up with the changing landscape. Although this provided a short-term solution, the siloed technologies led to tech bloat for organisations, and in turn wasted expenditure. During this current economic uncertainty, businesses need to be smart when approaching AI, and ensure investments in solutions are worthwhile for the whole organisation or they risk repeating similar mistakes.

The need to approach AI with care

AI allows businesses to optimise across their company in ways never considered before. Having been on organisations’ radars for years now, conversations have matured from a narrow focus on chatbots and cost saving to a wider business objective of productivity and success. AI offers the opportunity for organisations to improve a range of areas including businesses automation, document analysis, IT operations, cybersecurity, decision-making and insights, product innovation, sales, and customer and employee experience. A long list, with each area potentially requiring different AI solutions to excel, will only mean that businesses will need to be selective with investment, especially during the current economic climate.

Therefore, a need for further education and expertise is required. Given AI is ever evolving, organisations need to ensure their understanding remains parallel. Business leaders should be continually discussing how to capitalise on AI and how it can be integrated both in the short term and long term to drive business success and optimisation.

Thankfully, IT leaders and teams are already well-equipped with knowledge needed to guide businesses’ decisions when investing in AI. And once invested in, IT leaders also provide strong guidance on best practices and how to safely interact with it. Businesses need to be discussing with IT leaders how they can regulate the use of AI to mitigate the risk of exposing sensitive information to outside platforms.

Leaning into IT expertise will be pivotal to future-proofing organisations.

Harnessing IT leaders for AI

Organisations have already witnessed IT become more involved in business decision-making, as our 2023 IT Priorities Report found when it comes to deciding on new digital tools, 39% of Australian business leaders took their IT team’s recommendation.

Understanding the complexities and intricacies of current solutions used by the business, combined with their knowledge of different technological advancements, IT teams and leaders can provide well-informed decisions and perspectives for businesses to consider when investing in AI.

CIOs, CTOs and IT leaders should help businesses identify the most valuable opportunities and issues where AI can benefit their the company, and those where it can’t.

Research from McKinsey indicates generative AI can lift productivity for certain marketing use cases by roughly 10% and customer support by up to 40%. IT leaders can be particularly helpful in developing a perspective on how best to cluster use cases either by domain (such as customer journey or business process) or use case type (such as creative content creation or virtual agents) so that AI adoption will have the most optimal ROI.

For example, solutions applying ChatGPT integrations to understand, access and analyse a range of customer data can benefit multiple departments. Similarly, AI solutions that automate mundane tasks can be applied across a range of use cases.

AI advancements will continue to reshape how organisations approach work and operations, and the ongoing experience will only uncover more circumstances in which it can be adopted. Given initial limitations of talent and capabilities, IT leaders and IT teams will provide feasibility and resource estimates to help businesses prioritise departments’ AI adoption and ensure organisations are optimising their operations both in the short term and for the future.

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