Powering Enterprises with AI

In this chapter, we’ll talk about practical steps to level up your organisation when it comes to AI applications. The strategy here is mostly adapted for large enterprises with enough capital and structure to carry out a plan. On the other hand, I also take into account that large enterprises are often slower to adapt, more decision-makers need to be convinced, and thus a plan to power your organisation with AI might be harder to implement. It’s also definitely different than if you’re running a smaller organisation or if you’re a freelancer. I will treat these cases separately in the next chapter, Boosting Startups with Artificial Intelligence.

Let’s now go back to enterprises. They are organized into departments by their core function, ranging from sales/marketing to customer service, product development, et cetera. Because each of those departments has a different goal and thus is optimized for a different function, it’s worth first to analyze what level we want to re-organise with AI. Is it the whole organisation, a department, a single project? Depending on what you choose, there will be different obstacles, organisational change being the hardest due to inertia and lengthy processes involved unless you have already a great innovative culture at your workplace (I’ll discuss that as well). Before applying AI, you need to gauge your organisation’s AI maturity level.