CIO's survival guide to AI adoption

If your organisation is adopting AI, focus on articulating what value are you planning to generated from it other than “just efficiency”, say Tim Crawford and Isaac Sacolick in this “CIO survival guide” interview on CXOTalk hosted by Michael Krigsman.

Why?

If your AI project is focusing on efficiency, its outputs are harder to measure. What is efficiency for you? It can be about performing tasks faster, cheaper, with more accuracy. Here comes ‘gamification’ - focus on optimising specific metrics (for example, error rates) which do not necessarily mean impacting overall business outcomes. Does the actual efficiency gain overweigh the effort put into implementing and maintaining the AI solution (including data preparation and quality control, model training, integration, and monitoring)? Is it worth it (for the business)?

Innovation, on the other hand, focuses on creating new products, services, or insights that were not achievable before. The impact of these new outcomes can be linked to AI more directly, and the value proposition lies in unlocking some new opportunities (which often lead to more significant, transformative impacts on the organisation as a whole in the long run). This is why AI-focused projects often face less internal resistance and are easier to get approved (and funded).

For example, if an IT department is using AI tools “to code faster”, what exactly is the value of this improvement for the business? This needs to be articulated clearly to show that it is not simply an internal optimisation. Maybe it is faster time-to-market for new products or features? Or improved reliability and uptime of critical systems? Is AI used for threat detection and response to improve the business’ security posture? Is AI-driven data analysis benefiting the organisation in general?

I found this interview very insightful as it discusses these and many other aspects of AI adoption, including governance, AI literacy, change management, privacy and security, and more. A must-watch for CIOs and organisation leaders - check it out and share your thoughts!