Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) has arrived in the business world with transformative potential, redefining boundaries and capturing everyone’s attention. Tools like OpenAI, Claude, Synthesia, and DALL-E2 are reshaping how we work and manage operations.
Companies that implement generative AI to streamline, automate, scale, and optimize their processes will undoubtedly gain significant advantages. According to Gartner, adopting AI in businesses can increase productivity by 24.69% and reduce costs by 15.7%.
With so much information, it can be overwhelming to know where to start. Here, we’ll walk you through the step-by-step process of correctly integrating generative AI into your company to maximize its impact and minimize risks by focusing on valuable and, above all, feasible initiatives.
The first thing you need is to adopt a strategic approach 🤓
The ideal starting point is identifying these 4 key components, which will serve as the foundation of your strategy:
Vision: Define how generative AI will drive your company’s goals. Establish what benefits you expect to gain and how you will measure success to ensure the strategy aligns with your objectives.
Adoption: Identify which generative AI initiatives are most suitable for your business. Evaluate their value and feasibility with the consensus of both IT leaders and business unit stakeholders.
Value: Recognize the organizational barriers that could hinder your progress. Plan concrete actions to overcome these obstacles and ensure a smooth integration.
Risks: Analyze potential risks, whether regulatory, reputational, technological, or others. Develop a plan to assess and mitigate them effectively.
Now, here are the steps we mentioned 👇🏻
1. Identify Key Areas of Opportunity
The first step in adopting generative AI is to analyze your internal processes, especially those that are repetitive and tedious. Areas like marketing, customer service, and design are ideal for starting. Lean on your team to identify tasks that could benefit from automation and advanced analysis offered by AI.
Let’s say we’re improving customer support. Imagine your agents use a generative AI tool with a conversational interface to handle calls. Customers could say: “I want to block my card due to theft,” “I forgot my password,” or “Why isn’t my mobile data working?” The agents can respond naturally by consulting the AI, which provides answers in a language similar to the customer’s. Additionally, by reviewing accumulated queries, AI can identify the most common questions and response times, allowing you to optimize service. Finally, AI can compare these questions with the FAQs on your website and generate answers for those not covered, continually improving customer support.
2. Evaluate Feasibility and Return on Investment
Although generative AI promises a lot, it’s crucial to be realistic about its current capabilities. Assess whether the available tools can be effectively integrated into your processes and if the return on investment justifies the effort. Keep in mind that the results of a generative AI project can come from many sources, meaning its value can be measured directly or indirectly.
Track the process with these KPIs that apply to various domains and industries:
- Productivity: To understand generative AI’s impact on productivity, consider metrics like response time, the number of tasks completed per unit of time, and the reduction in manual effort required.
- Accuracy: Indicators like precision, recall, or mean squared error will help you measure how accurate generative AI is at producing appropriate results.
- Customer satisfaction: If it’s a customer-facing application, investigate through satisfaction surveys how well their needs and expectations are being met.
- Business impact: Metrics such as increased sales, reduced complaints, or higher employee retention can help measure its effect.
- Cost savings: Evaluate the cost reduction achieved with generative AI implementation. This might involve comparing the costs of using the AI system with those associated with traditional processes.
- Scalability: Assess how the generative AI model adapts to increased usage or growing demands. This is crucial for long-term success.
Consider seeking expert advice to optimize implementation and ensure your expectations are achievable.
Spoiler alert: At Activeone, we specialize in bringing your ideas from concept to implementation.
3. Test, Iterate, and Scale
Don’t aim to integrate AI on a large scale from the start. First, validate its capability for specific tasks in a controlled environment through a pilot. For example, you could test a virtual AI assistant to handle basic user queries and compare its performance with traditional channels. Through these initial trials, identify areas for improvement by asking users to discover their preferences, iterating on the models and processes until you ensure it works safely and effectively. Once you’ve validated its effectiveness, you can then scale AI use to other departments or service lines.
4. Communication and Transparency
AI implementation can create uncertainty among your employees. It’s essential to clearly communicate the goals and benefits of AI. Emphasize that AI is designed to complement and enhance their work, not replace them. Foster a culture of acceptance and trust around these new technologies.
After all, human oversight is necessary, especially in sensitive and high-risk applications.
5. Training and Development
To fully leverage generative AI tools, train your team in their use. From basic concepts to advanced “prompt engineering” techniques, ensure your employees know how to effectively interact with AI so you can understand the multiple ways each user interacts with the model. Proper training unlocks the true potential of these tools.
In a nutshell…
Adopting generative AI represents a unique opportunity to transform your company. By integrating hybrid workflows, where AI and humans collaborate, you can achieve unprecedented levels of efficiency and innovation. Approach this process strategically, ensuring that each step aligns with your organization’s needs and goals. In doing so, you’ll turn today’s challenges into opportunities for long-term growth and advancement.
If you still have questions, at Activeone we bring our more than 10 years of experience in our clients’ digital growth to your service. Don’t hesitate to contact us!