6 key steps to maximize the power of AI in your business

AI For Business


As a business leader, here are some questions you might want to ask your favorite digital assistant. “What value can you, my generative AI friend, add to my customers, employees, and bottom line?”

As rapidly as these emerging AI-powered platforms are learning, your artificial sidekick is also learning: Have you done any up-front work?” and respond with your own questions. ” To maximize the value of AI and the expansion of its potential use cases, businesses must first be fundamentally prepared with a solid IT infrastructure that can fully support AI. We may advise you that you need to check. Without that foundation in place, the capabilities of your AI tools can be severely limited and your ability to get a return on your investment.

Corporate spending on AI is increasing rapidly. According to Forrester, 62% of global business and technology professionals say they expect their organizations to significantly increase their investments in AI over the next 12 months. Meanwhile, as business leaders gain a more realistic understanding of these new technologies, they are starting to focus more on specific AI applications that will bring about transformation within their companies. For example, if you are a Windstream customer, you can access AI capabilities through business communications platforms such as our cloud-based contact center as a service.

In September, the Deloitte AI Institute said, “By deploying applications that help increase productivity and personalize processes, organizations can use generative AI to accelerate the pace of business and transform experimental investments into established value.” It can evolve into a driver.”

So how can you build a solid foundation for genAI Friends and other intelligent tools to drive value within your business? If you can tick these six boxes, your company appears to be well-positioned to take advantage of genAI.

1. A clear AI game plan for your business, with substance over style. By starting with a clear plan to strategically pilot AI within specific areas of the business, organizations are more likely to realize positive outcomes and solid ROI from their investments. This plan should also include a means to measure and evaluate the results of these pilot initiatives before expanding AI more broadly across the business. And while resisting the temptation to invest in an AI product just because it's the shiny new toy, pursue AI use cases that align with your business goals and solve business problems for you, your clients, or partners. Once resolved, the results tend to be better.

2. Comfort on the cloud. AI requires vast amounts of computing power, so most AI functionality is stored in the cloud. To maximize the value of AI, it's important to develop a thoughtful strategy for which parts of your IT infrastructure should be in the cloud and which parts should be on-premises.

3. Robust network platform. AI apps work best when supported by and accessed through a strong, secure IT foundation that includes a reliable, high-speed network in addition to a cloud computing environment. This is especially important for organizations with large remote or hybrid workforces that need ready access to AI capabilities no matter where they work.

Four. Master data. To get the most out of your AI investment, it's essential that your data is properly modeled. Data is important for AI, but since AI models are trained on the input data, the quality of that data is paramount. The more accurate, up-to-date, and complete your data is, the more reliable your output will be. Carefully cleaning, normalizing, and structuring your data on a regular basis strengthens the AI ​​system's training process, allows genAI to more accurately interpret and analyze your data, and improves the reliability and strategy that AI tools provide. value will increase. Back to business.

Five. A sophisticated cybersecurity strategy. Hackers are not only targeting organizations’ AI systems (which can be more vulnerable in hybrid work environments), but also leveraging AI to develop attack strategies. Therefore, it is essential for organizations to implement advanced multi-layered security strategies such as Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) and Security Service Edge (SSE) to continue to fight fair against cybercriminals. These solutions, along with mobile device management (MDM) solutions, can be enhanced with strong bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies.

6. AI expertise. Identify the use cases with the most potential value to your business and ensure your company has the internal know-how to evaluate, select, and implement AI solutions for those use cases. Investing in training to upskill/reskill members of your IT staff, and enabling them to take on new responsibilities related to the AI ​​tools you've invested in, will help you develop that expertise in-house. That's one way. Another option, especially if you're running IT Lean, is to look externally and ask a third-party IT managed service provider (MSP) for support.

7. Pioneering thinking. Be open to testing use cases, knowing that not all results will be positive. It is okay. Everyone around you is experimenting and learning with AI. Build on successes, learn from setbacks, and expand AI use cases more broadly across your organization as you see fit without forcing problems.

Once all those boxes are checked and your organization is aligned with a clear AI action plan, it’s time to ask your trusted digital assistant another question. “What can you do for me?” Next? ”