AI is rising up the C‑suite’s agenda

With $15 bil­lion invest­ed over the past three years, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) is ris­ing up the board­room agen­da at many glob­al enter­pris­es. CxOs across a wide range of indus­tries are well aware of the trans­for­ma­tion­al impact this tech­nol­o­gy is bring­ing, and are assess­ing how to invest effec­tive­ly in new prod­ucts and solu­tions. With this, busi­ness lead­ers have a grow­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty to under­stand the many oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges that can arise when imple­ment­ing AI in the work­force.

The noise sur­round­ing AI can at times be deaf­en­ing, and there is a con­stant stream of new AI offer­ings which are said to rev­o­lu­tionise the way busi­ness­es can run. For busi­ness lead­ers, how­ev­er, keep­ing up with the con­stant stream of change and inno­va­tion can be incred­i­bly chal­leng­ing.

As busi­ness­es con­tin­ue to ramp up AI invest­ment, it is vital lead­ers are giv­en the means to deci­pher which tech­nolo­gies are the right ones to invest in. A recent Gen­pact report found that a quar­ter of senior exec­u­tives say they plan fun­da­men­tal­ly to reimag­ine their busi­ness with AI by the end of 2021. This is there­fore a crit­i­cal time for CxOs to edu­cate them­selves and have a full under­stand­ing of the tech­nolo­gies they are adopt­ing to reap the rewards for their work­force and cus­tomers.

The roll­out of this tech­nol­o­gy is incred­i­bly vital too. A recent study by PwC found that only 4 per cent of exec­u­tives have suc­cess­ful­ly imple­ment­ed AI in their busi­ness. His­tor­i­cal­ly, a chief exec­u­tive relied on the chief infor­ma­tion and chief tech­nol­o­gy offi­cers to make the cor­rect deci­sions when invest­ing in and imple­ment­ing tech­no­log­i­cal changes. How­ev­er, chief exec­u­tives them­selves now have a cen­tral role to play in deci­sion-mak­ing and roll­out.

The buck doesn’t stop there. As AI has become a board-wide respon­si­bil­i­ty, many busi­ness­es also lean on the oper­at­ing, dig­i­tal and admin­is­tra­tive heads, and now the chief AI offi­cer, to dri­ve AI projects and ini­tia­tives. The tra­di­tion­al organ­i­gram is con­tin­u­al­ly evolv­ing and, as new roles emerge, board­rooms are tak­ing a new shape, ever­more focused on the impor­tance of tech­nol­o­gy.

Some sec­tors have been more open and adapt­able to the changes that AI brings. Indus­tries that have invest­ed most heav­i­ly are finan­cial ser­vices, retail and auto­mo­tive, with finan­cial ser­vices fore­cast to become a bil­lion-dol­lar AI indus­try before the end of the year.

CxOs are increas­ing­ly shin­ing a spot­light on their company’s cus­tomer expe­ri­ence strat­e­gy. With grow­ing choice and com­pe­ti­tion, it has become impor­tant to pro­vide the best pos­si­ble cus­tomer jour­ney at every touch­point.

Sainsbury’s has intro­duced AI to improve its sup­ply chain avail­abil­i­ty of prod­ucts for cus­tomers, while NatWest’s deci­sion to imple­ment AI by offer­ing its chat­bot Cora has result­ed in an enhanced cus­tomer ser­vice expe­ri­ence. The bank has also intro­duced a sys­tem that uses robot­ic process automa­tion, which enables it to respond more quick­ly and effec­tive­ly to cus­tomers’ sim­ple email requests. The imple­men­ta­tion of these tech­nolo­gies will undoubt­ed­ly con­tin­ue to improve the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence and, as a result, retain cus­tomers and increase rev­enues.

NatWest’s intro­duc­tion of chat­bots is a great exam­ple of busi­ness lead­ers under­stand­ing the need to trans­form into a 21st-cen­tu­ry busi­ness by using the lat­est tech­nolo­gies. More­over, the change was man­aged seam­less­ly and shows the bank’s exec­u­tives ensured its work­force was trained and prop­er­ly edu­cat­ed on the impact these updates would have through­out the organ­i­sa­tion, as well as how they would affect cus­tomers’ expe­ri­ence with the bank.

As with any new tech­nol­o­gy, there is a huge appetite among busi­ness lead­ers to invest and roll out new AI tech­nolo­gies. We saw 2018 as a break­through year for invest­ments in AI, and there are no signs of activ­i­ty and invest­ment slow­ing down in 2019. How­ev­er, there is a grow­ing need for exec­u­tives to under­stand where to invest and seek the part­ners best suit­ed to deliv­er the solu­tions required.

We can expect to see increased pres­sure to keep up with the rapid pace of change. It is vital for C‑suite exec­u­tives to edu­cate them­selves, offer real­is­tic adop­tion goals and pro­vide suf­fi­cient train­ing for their work­force. Busi­ness lead­ers who ful­ly under­stand and acknowl­edge the chal­lenges faced when imple­ment­ing AI will be best equipped to adapt to these changes. Oth­ers will be left behind and, far worse, those stood on the side­line will become increas­ing­ly irrel­e­vant in the new AI-pow­ered enter­prise land­scape.