Harnessing the Power of AI for Business Growth

Discover how to harness the power of AI for business growth. We explain the importance of AI strategy development and robust data governance and share the potential of AI through real-life examples and determine if AI is the right choice for your business.

While no one knows precisely where artificial intelligence (AI) will lead, experts agree that using its power for business operations is a present-day necessity. We explore how businesses can harness AI’s power to drive growth, efficiency and effectiveness.

Understand AI and Its Potential

At its core, AI is a technology that simulates human intelligence processes. Like humans, it learns from data, reasons to reach conclusions, and self-corrects. But how can you translate these capabilities into tangible business benefits?

The answer lies in AI’s ability to process vast amounts of data rapidly and accurately. This processing enables businesses to make data-driven decisions, enhance their operations, and create personalized customer experiences. However, businesses need a well-planned AI strategy and robust data governance to unlock these benefits.

Develop an AI Strategy for Business Growth

AI strategy development includes identifying business problems AI can solve, defining AI use cases, and creating an implementation roadmap.

First, businesses should prioritize problems that AI can address and develop detailed use cases for how AI can solve them.

For instance, if your company struggles to retain customers, your business can define an AI use case for analyzing consumer behavior data to predict and prevent customer turnover. Similarly, AI can help with employee retention, too. You might define a use case that combines quantitative data — like employee absentee rates — with qualitative data from employee survey results. AI can identify patterns for thousands of employees within seconds.

Your implementation roadmap should then lay out the steps required to implement the AI solution. How will you roll it out? How will you collect the data? What will your training model look like? How will you test and validate the output? You should also assess the tools you already own for built-in AI capabilities you aren’t using before purchasing additional capabilities.

For example, generative AI features similar to ChatGPT are often built into CRM software and other digital solutions. Explore them first to see if they will meet your needs before adding new tools to your stack.

Supercharging Productivity with AI: Tips and Tools

While AI strategy development is crucial for long-term growth, businesses can benefit from immediate productivity gains by integrating AI into their daily operations. AI can automate routine tasks, provide intelligent insights, and enable employees to focus on high-value activities.

One way to enhance productivity is through AI-powered tools created for task automation, like UiPath or Microsoft Power Automate. For example, AI can automate email sorting, calendar scheduling, and even customer service. These tools can significantly reduce the time spent on administrative tasks, allowing employees to concentrate on more strategic work.

In addition, AI’s capability to analyze large datasets can uncover insights that might otherwise go unnoticed. Businesses can use AI to identify patterns that provide the basis for predictive analytics, market-trend forecasting, and informed decision making.

AI’s Rising Role in the Workplace

AI technologies like ChatGPT are also shaping the future of work. These generative AI systems use natural language processing to understand and respond to human queries, assist with content creation, and even help decision-making processes.

Microsoft Copilot is a good example of integrating AI into employees’ daily work lives. Microsoft owns OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT, and it has used the tool’s large language model (LLM) technology to deploy AI throughout its Microsoft 365 suite. Copilot subscribers can perform countless tasks using data stored in Outlook, Teams, Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and more. With a simple human query, users can retrieve, synthesize and summarize vast amounts of data stored in multiple locations and files.

Integrating generative AI like ChatGPT into the workplace can significantly improve efficiency and productivity. It can also create new roles centered around AI management and ethical considerations. After all, while AI can do a lot, it can only be trusted to do everything with human oversight.

Chief information officers are taking on more responsibilities as the need for AI management and data governance increases. Multiple new positions are emerging to analyze AI input and output to achieve the highest quality results. An essential part of these employees’ jobs will be overseeing AI’s lifeblood: high-quality, well-governed data.

The Role of Data Governance in AI Implementation

Data governance is necessary for managing data availability, usability, integrity, and security. With proper data governance, businesses can avoid making decisions based on inaccurate or incomplete data, leading to disastrous consequences.

A robust data governance framework should include policies and procedures for data collection, storage, access, and usage. It should also outline the responsibilities of different stakeholders in maintaining data integrity and security.

For instance, data scientists must ensure the data they use for AI models is accurate and complete. IT teams must secure data and protect it from breaches. Business leaders must also ensure that data use complies with regulations and ethical standards.

Using AI for Business: A Real-Life Example

To illustrate the power of AI for businesses, let’s consider a real-life example. The world’s biggest streaming service, Netflix, uses AI to personalize user content recommendations. The company collects data on user behavior, such as the shows they watch and how they rate them, before using AI algorithms to predict what customers might like to watch next.

However, matching customers to recommendations is only the beginning. Netflix also analyzes many other aspects of your viewing behavior to identify patterns you may not even be conscious of, such as films with the same or similar actors or common themes in your viewing habits.

For example, if you didn’t finish a movie, Netflix tracks where you stopped watching and adds that data to its recommendation profiles. Insights from customer data also help the company decide which film or TV projects to support, guide its advertising decisions, and more.

These subtle layers of personalization have made Netflix the top streaming service in the world, and you should consider how they use AI for your business, too.

Conclusion

Harnessing the power of AI for business growth requires a strategic approach and robust data governance. By identifying the right problems, defining clear use cases, and implementing a comprehensive data governance framework, businesses can unlock the full potential of AI.

Are you ready to explore how artificial intelligence can fit into your business but aren’t sure where to start? Our AI experts can guide you through the entire process, from planning to implementation. Talk to an expert