What is artificial intelligence for?
The emergence and rapid adoption of generative artificial intelligence is prompting many companies to take the plunge. AI, yes, but for what?
Sophie Stern
10/23/20233 min read
Artificial intelligence has become a buzzword!
And yet, born in 1956, it has had time to live a few springs ... 😉
📰 The media sometimes give the impression that "everything is AI"!
Companies and public organizations don't want to be left behind; competition and comparisons are rife.
So, after having created data lakes where we put all available data in bulk - we'll see - after having massively recruited data scientists to whom we didn't always know what to ask - we'll see - the time has come, with the emergence and ultra-fast adoption of generative artificial intelligence, to go all out, we'll see 👓...
🤖 Doing AI, yes, but for what?
As counter-intuitive as it may seem, this is not always the first question asked - or rather, asked - in an organization.
Sometimes the WHAT is quickly swept aside in favor of the HOW. In other words, we take it for granted that we all agree on what we want the organization to achieve, and then we get down to the technicalities!
However, when technical issues take precedence over business issues, this is rarely a good idea. To take a simple analogy, if I first choose between bicycle, train or private car, without knowing whether I'm going to the next town or the other side of the continent, it soon becomes clear that it's better to define your objectives first, then choose the means 😉.
The same applies to artificial intelligence, because AI is nothing more than a set of techniques and tools 🛠️ based on different disciplines: computer science, mathematics, statistics and linguistics.
To sum up, we need to :
Define your business challenges 🎯 even your burning objectives 🔥 !
Define your use cases 📊
Choose the right AI techniques & tools 🛠️
Not the other way around!
🤖 Possible uses of Artificial Intelligence
An organization rarely carries out technology for technology's sake, but to meet business objectives. And when you're unfamiliar with AI, it's hard to know how it might be used, what it might be used for efficiently.
Before, we only talked about machine learning and deep learning, today we only hear about ChatGPT and Midjourney...
These looped repetitions on professional networks, these tables of prompts and other cheat sheets, that's all well and good, but ...
How I can use it in my business ❓
Automatic generation of images, text, ..., is this what I (most) need ❓❓
AI can be fun, but it's not all about fun. Artificial intelligence is serious business!
It can help you, depending on your business and your needs, to:
Optimize your water consumption 🌱
Reduce your maintenance costs 🔧
Increase your customer retention 📈
Improve the quality of your products 🏭
Reduce raw material costs 💵
...
Artificial Intelligence offers thousands of possible applications to make companies and organizations more efficient.
👩🏫 The need for Artificial Intelligence acculturation
That's why Artificial Intelligence acculturation is so important:
To understand the different techniques and possibilities offered by AI,
In order to know which use cases have already been successfully implemented in companies close to one's own, either by Products & Services or by major Functions.
🌊 Accompanying change
Acculturation raises awareness and provides ideas for use cases.
The next challenge will be to define your strategy, your roadmap of use cases, to return to the technical side for implementation, but above all, to support change within the company.
This is where it will be important, and perhaps even essential, to be accompanied by players with a dual "AI" and "Enterprise" vision... 😉
📝Tips
🔎 To define the uses of Artificial Intelligence in your organization, here are a few tips to establish your roadmap:
Understand your challenges, your objectives, your needs.
Get informed, get help if you're starting from 0 or if you don't have the time to train yourself in the benefits of Artificial Intelligence.
Set up creative working groups.
Define your AI strategy, establish your use case roadmap.
Work out your budget and expected KPIs.
GO GO GO!
The author
Sophie Stern
