The elements of AI's DNA

When it comes to digital pursuits, there’s nothing like AI. In many ways, it reshapes the companies that adopt it. We believe the following ingredients are essential to creating an effective AI culture:

• Small, multi-skilled teams are critical. AI success depends on combining knowledge from business functions, processes, data and technology. It takes an organizational village.
• Speed is of the essence. AI’s rhythm is to pilot, learn and scale. To make it happen, you need to assemble the relevant skills and teams to work quickly and iteratively.
• Closing the learning loop is essential. Because learning happens on multiple fronts, it unlocks new capabilities and approaches that can be applied to other parts of the business. It’s important to have an organizational construct that can oversee multiple AI experiments in parallel and still ladder up to a centralized approach to learning that advances core business capabilities.
• Never forget humans are at the center of all key business initiatives. Balancing human ambition with machine resilience enables AI to grow. It can’t be an afterthought. Focus on finding balance from the get-go by emphasizing continuous AI literacy, skill retraining and role retooling.
• Communicate, communicate, communicate. Sharing knowledge and experience is at the heart of corporate AI efforts. Apply it to success and failure. Use constructive words that convey and reinforce business value, benefits and outcomes through the use of technology, superior techniques and differentiated data.

From rethinking old ways of work, to recognizing new types of value, AI requires a fresh look at existing approaches. While each business will take its own path to AI, all organizations can follow this process to optimize business results.