HBR Guide to AI Basics for Managers

CHAPTER 7

Assembling Your AI Operations Team

by Terence Tse, Mark Esposito, Takaaki Mizuno, and Danny Goh

Here is a common story of how companies trying to adopt AI fail. They work closely with a promising technology vendor. They invest the time, money, and effort necessary to achieve resounding success with their proof of concept and demonstrate how the use of artificial intelligence will improve their business. Then everything comes to a screeching halt—the companies finds themselves stuck, at a dead end, with their outstanding proof of concept mothballed and their teams frustrated.

What explains the disappointing end? Well, it’s hard—in fact, very hard—to integrate AI models into a company’s overall technology architecture. Doing so requires ...