Not every round of ammunition in a warship is made out of brass, and not all brass in warships is in the form of ammo. Some brass is decorative (and a PITA to maintain), and some brass well; just “hits different”.
To remain competitive in 2024 and beyond, you are likely thinking about incorporating a form of AI into your business, but is it going to “hit different”? Are the AI applications simply connected to your business stack?
Is the AI going to be merely “window dress” so you can say that you are using AI?
Are you going to use the limited AI features of the upgraded apps in your tech stack?
Is your team using the AI applications as they come; “out of the box”?
If you answered “yes” to any or all of the above; continue reading below -
Artificial Intelligence is not a “silver bullet round” that magically fixes all operational and efficiency problems. In actuality, if you don’t integrate AI in “smart” fashion, you are likely to inject unforeseen problems into your organization.
Here are four recommendations to integrate AI into your business; so in fact it “hits different”.
Integrate the technology to business processes, and at the functional level.
If you just make a portal on your intranet such that ChatGPT or Claude are available to your employees, you are missing the mark. You are not helping and likely, adding cost to your internal processes. If you are using regular API calls or “Zaps” to connect the GenAI apps to your tech stack, you are missing the mark.
You can and should integrate all GenAI apps in such way that prompts and responses to and from the GenAI application are an embedded part of the process you are trying to improve. Integrate the technologies in such a way that no one in your team has to go to “AI university” to use the technology. Further, integrate the applications so that the response from the app are delivered exactly where, when and how they are needed by the process.
Eliminate pointless activities, and make AI “invisible”
If your team is going to “their” AI application, and then using CTRL-C/CTRL-V to get the results into your business stack applications, you are missing the mark. If your team is using the “embedded AI” features of your application, but then they have to spend 20 minutes “massaging” the output in order to use it; you are missing the mark.
“Sneakernetting” and modifying GenAI results, copying and pasting manually… all of these are pointless activities that defeat the purpose of using GenAI. Collaborate with an integration crew that consistently evaluates, learns and implements optimization to your processes. Injecting GenAI into your processes gives you the opportunity to re-invent how you do things, and actually eliminate some steps that were only done, because the capability to eliminate them did not previously exist.
Question it all, and be purposeful in everything you change
Resist the urge to “make it faster”, “make it smoother”… Ask vigorously - do I have to do this at all? Can we eliminate this step, or even better, this complete process?
Take for example the release of a quote, proposal or document. If you are having an issue developing the approval, release, delivery and management process of ANY of these, no amount of AI will help. You need to fix issues that are extraneous to the technology.
When bringing in AI into your business processes, and for that matter ANY technology, application or methodology, use the opportunity to question everything. I don’t mean here to say “throw everything away”, but rather evaluate everything as if you were implementing the processes for the very first time.
Revisit forgotten and unconventional ideas of the past
Just because you couldn’t do it before, it doesn’t mean that you can’t do it now. As you question everything (as I mentioned above) , take a moment to look at those ideas that you passed on, because they were too hard to implement months ago. The technology is changing that fast, and you may be in for a very pleasant surprise.
If you are considering GenAI as a tool for your business and its operations, take the time to evaluate and truly think outside the proverbial box. The constant and rapid transformation of GenAI applications are giving us a great opportunity to truly transform how we run and operate our businesses.
Don’t just bring in AI into your business to assuage your own FOMO, or to be able to brag while taking amongst your peers. Bring in GenAI to your business so that it fights like a warship, using the latest in AI, and “hitting different.”