The AI Ladder

Chapter 4. The AI Ladder: A Path to Organizational Transformation

Despite AI’s enormous potential, it is still underutilized by many industries and organizations. There are several reasons for this, some having to do with data (in one way or another), some with the lack of people with the right skill sets, and some with issues of trust or misunderstanding. Most of them are connected in some way to the broader problem that many organizations are simply not ready—at a process level, a personnel level, or an infrastructure level—or don’t know how to make the changes necessary for a successful transition to becoming an AI-focused entity. One thing we’ve seen: if you start your AI journey without being ready, you’re bound to fail. But if you don’t start because you’re not ready and are unwilling to take the steps to become ready, you’re also bound to fail. So the big question is: how do you become ready? That’s the question managers need to answer.

We all need to remember we’re in a builder’s market. Organizations have to try things out. Pick a problem you’ve always wanted to solve—whether it’s making better predictions, automating something, or optimizing a process—and use AI to solve it. That first project will get you some experience and force you to start collecting (or preparing) data seriously and building the data infrastructure you will need for larger projects. Perhaps more importantly, you will learn a lot about your team, its culture, and yourself, and ultimately your organization’s ...