AI’s Real Value Lies in Insight, Not Hype

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One of the recurring news stories of the past year has been the constant drumbeat of information focused on artificial intelligence (AI). How will it change your company? Will it replace your job? Are major industries about to be transformed? Is it all just a bubble?

It’s clear that AI is proving to be extremely useful for many businesses, but there are many that have struggled to make it work. Usually this is because they can start a small pilot project to prove a concept, but then struggle to scale up to the complete enterprise. Access to high quality data is the usual problem.

There is also a concern that some of the companies doing most of the advanced research into AI are spending so much cash that eventually there will be a backlash. Even if it is a very useful business tool, how can companies keep on spending trillions of dollars without creating a business model that generates revenue?

AI critics are all sharing a report from MIT that suggested 95% of companies using generative AI are not getting any business value from it.

As you can see, the information around AI is very confused at present. It gets even worse when some commentators start confusing generative AI with Agentic AI. Agentic tools are offering autonomous digital assistants to help people at work and it’s an important development, but much of the coverage is confusing.

So it is worth stepping back and thinking about what AI can really offer to your business. Can it help to boost productivity or be a revenue-generating transformative change?

In the case of generative AI, the best business problems will be where there is a large amount of information and you need to identify trends or patterns inside it quickly. We are really talking about Big Data problems. Where you have a vast amount of information – especially where it is changing in real-time – then AI is the best possible tool to help you find insight.

Some examples might be:

• Looking at the plans for a proposed new building and automatically finding how the plans may not be compliant with building codes and regulations.
• When a customer calls a company because they need help with a product, the agent on the call or chat can instantly be briefed on who this customer is, how often they buy products, which type of products they like. It can steer a support conversation into a sales conversation.
• Detecting fraud in banking systems or unusual activity on your network. So it can be a real-time hacking prevention device in addition to helping to protect customer dollars.
• Offering doctors a second opinion on scans – automatically being able to run scans through the AI to verify the opinion of a human expert.
• Creating bespoke training for employees. Most company training is either a tick-box exercise or it needs to cover subjects the employee already understands, but using an AI-focused approach can allow the employee to only focus on learning the skills they need to improve.

This is the key message executives need to remember. AI is a powerful tool and it can be transformational, but it is not a magic solution for a failing business. If you know what you want to achieve, then AI can deliver exactly what you need.

Don’t start exploring innovation with AI just to reduce costs or reduce headcount. AI can be used to overhaul the services your business delivers and your relationship with customers – think about what you can achieve and aim for these positive targets.

Start out with a big data focus – finding insight in a large volume of data. Then as AI becomes more central to the value of your business you can find new solutions and use cases. Most of the confusion around AI has been the media coverage suggesting it can ‘do everything.’ Think about what your business needs to achieve and it will be clearer how AI can help you.

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