Insights from Centric Consulting’s Joseph Ours: Navigating Artificial Intelligence

Why Limiting AI Literacy Training to Your IT Team Is a Big Mistake

AI literacy is more than understanding terminology. At its core, it involves having the skills and competencies needed to use AI technologies and applications successfully. That means recognizing AI, understanding its underlying principles and impacts and knowing how to use it effectively and legally. Learn why this training is critical at all levels of your organization in this Forbes article. Read the full article

AI Is Everywhere: Strategies to Safeguard Your Company’s Innovation

Because of the absence of federal AI regulations, companies need to establish internal AI governance that ensures responsible use while also facilitating successful digital transformation. But how can businesses control company use of powerful, wide-reaching AI tools? Ours’ article in Crain’s Cleveland Business shares insights on how to approach AI management. Read the full article

Microsoft 365 Will Expose Who’s Ready for AI

Ours and Centric colleague Michael McNett penned an article for TechRadar. The article “Microsoft 365 Copilot Will Expose Who’s Ready for AI,” offers an insightful look at how to prepare to get the most out of the new and promising technology. Read the full article

20 Sectors Missing Out on The Power Of AI

Ours is quoted in this Forbes article that discusses public and private sectors that don’t yet have widespread AI adoption and how they could benefit from jumping on the bandwagon.

“AI-powered preventative maintenance for city infrastructure could revolutionize urban management. Machine learning models could analyze data from sensors on roads, bridges and utilities infrastructure to predict maintenance needs before failures occur. AI could also be used to interact with constituents and provide analysis on zoning requests. There are many untapped opportunities within municipalities,” Ours said. READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Specialized GenAI Platforms: Challenges And How To Address Them

As generative AI tools gain popularity across industries, some organizations are considering building their own specialized platforms to realize benefits like tailored solutions, better data control, and improved user experiences. However, this endeavor comes with significant challenges companies need to carefully consider before embarking on the process. Ours weighs in on the challenges in this Forbes article.

“There’s a common misconception that AI is a jack-of-all-trades rather than a specialized tool, which can lead to unrealistic expectations. Establishing clear, focused objectives and tasks will decrease the instances of hallucination and enhance the quality and effectiveness of the AI platform, ultimately leading to more successful outcomes.” READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Skills And Specialties Every Budding Tech Professional Should Master

Ours is quoted in this Forbes article that explores some skills and specialties all tech professionals should focus on acquiring and why organizations will value — or always have valued — them so highly.

“The technology workers of tomorrow must blend futuristic visioning with skepticism to balance AI’s great potential with its hype and the impact of potential bad actors. Therefore, critical thinking is the most important skill in an AI-powered world. It involves not just understanding and using technology, but also questioning its implications, assessing its impacts and ensuring its ethical application.” READ THE FULL ARTICLE

What Should You Do If Your Gen AI Is Hallucinating?

Ethical considerations when implementing AI include making sure data the models are built on is clean, standardized and tested. Ours weighs in on how to handle hallucinations in this Digital Insurance article. Read the full article

How Intelligent Applications Can Boost Sales

In this InformationWeek article, “How Intelligent Applications Can Boost Sales,” Ours discusses how organizations can use these applications to cultivate personalized user experiences, prioritize leads, sales forecasting, and data analytics. Read the full article

Ours Talks ‘The Future of AI’ as One Mic Stand Podcast Guest

Ours was a guest on TEQ Magazine’s One Mic Stand Podcast, produced by the Pittsburgh Technology Council, to discuss the future of artificial intelligence (AI) with host Jonathan Kersting. The two dive into why AI is making a splash across every sector of the workforce and what it means for both people and industry, including how it can spark creativity, drive efficiencies, and help create a “plus two effect.” Listen to the podcast

AI Everywhere: Salesforce Unveils Its Vision of the AI-First Enterprise

Ours is quoted in this Forbes article that discusses Salesforce’s AI Cloud. He shares what companies risk if they don’t adopt innovative new technologies. Read the full article

16 Surprising Ways AI Enhances Healthcare Diagnostics and Delivery

Ours discusses one surprising way AI is enhancing healthcare diagnostics and delivery by optimizing medical coding:

“Missed medical coding creates a hassle for patients and delays payments to providers. Smart providers are using AI to improve medical coding and get paid faster. Sophisticated providers are already using AI to optimize medical coding to increase approval rates on submissions to healthcare payers. Next-level providers will start using AI to optimize medical coding for higher reimbursement.” READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Key C-Suite Discussions That Would Benefit From Tech Leaders’ Takes 

Ours weighs in on critical processes for which the C-suite needs the expertise of its tech leaders:  

“I’d champion AI across all value streams in the organization. AI is shaping up to be more transformational than the Industrial Revolution. By bringing a blend of visionary and pragmatic expertise, I’d help the C-suite strategically implement AI to enhance efficiency, decision-making and innovation. Understanding AI’s capabilities and ethical considerations is crucial to leading your industry in an AI-powered, sustainable fashion.” View the full article

Beyond Content Creation: 16 Innovative AI Applications 

Ours suggests AI applications businesses and the public should explore.

“Small-scale data analysis: There are AI tools that make it easy for laypeople to perform analysis of small-scale datasets. These tools allow leaders to capitalize on their ‘hunches.’ By running these AI tools on their laptops, leaders can quickly confirm or disprove their hunches without the need to send in special requests to their IT team.”  Read the full article

Using GenAI for Coding? How to Leverage It Wisely and Well 

Ours shares advice to help dev teams ensure they’re using generative AI safely and effectively under the section, “Know That Gaps in Knowledge or Contextual Understanding May Need to Be Addressed.”

“Developers tapping into GenAI’s potential for code creation must adhere to modern software craftsmanship principles. They should run code analysis tools on it to avoid security issues creeping in. It should not be blindly inserted without proper human review. Carefully go through the code with the mindset that gaps in knowledge or contextual understanding may need to be addressed before use.” View the full article

20 Tools and Strategies for Safe and Efficient AI System Data Sharing

Ours shares how data abstraction can help manage data sharing among AI systems:

“One effective strategy for secure and efficient data sharing across AI systems is data abstraction. By abstracting data into well-defined interfaces, companies can avoid creating a “data swamp” (as often happens with data lakes) and enable clean, controlled data flow between systems. This should be combined with a strong data management group to ensure data quality, governance and security.” View the full article