Data Teams Need To Lead When Organizations Become AI-Driven

A recent headline in InfoWorld suggested that data teams need to start taking the lead inside their organizations. Data analysis is becoming critical for any organization that wants to benefit from the use of AI. For AI-driven organizations to succeed, the data they are trained on must be high quality.

But what is an AI-driven organization anyway?

I asked the Gemini AI system on Google to define this and the reply was: “An AI-driven organization is one that uses artificial intelligence (AI) as the primary force behind its processes and technologies. AI-driven organizations use AI to improve efficiency, scalability, and decision-making.”

This sounds simple enough, but how many company leaders are really placing AI at the heart of every decision they make?

The InfoWorld article makes it clear that in a modern organization this is exactly what needs to happen. Unless data can be used by AI the enterprise will be missing out on insight and predictions that could dramatically influence the decision-making process.

The article says: “Over 80% of respondents working in IT, business intelligence, customer service, marketing, operations, and product development stated that using genAI had a medium-to-high impact in their work.”

Think about this statement. It is not a prediction of how AI may impact business in the future. It is a response from businesses in 2024. Generative AI is already having a medium to high impact on many areas of work and business processes.

Data is becoming the foundation on which all companies need to function. Without a supply of high quality and timely data it is likely that your AI cannot provide the insights that might be expected. Data-driven decision-making needs the democratization of data to become a priority – and this cuts across all silos and teams.

This also makes data security an even more important and urgent area of focus than it already is. Everyone already knows that information security is important, but think about how essential this becomes once the foundation for almost all decision-making is the data you have on your products and customers.

A data breach in this environment would be like an office building without electricity or water. When your data underpins every decision then data security needs to also be at the top of the board agenda.

It is important to create a new perspective on data.

For several years we have mostly focused on the development of new applications. ChatGPT was released and it promised to dramatically change how we use generative AI. However, in the enterprise environment the focus should be far less on the applications and far more on the data.

Where is your data? How is it organized? How is it updated? How can it be automatically fed into your AI systems?

These questions are more important than which app you choose. In fact, it could be argued that the way you now organize your data is the killer app because without this careful thought about how to use your data there is no innovation. No AI system can perform well without data and training.

Think more carefully about your data. Are your data analysts and managers at the heart of your strategy or are you still hoping that the apps can create insight without the right data?

For examples of IBA expertise on data analytics and AI, please click here. Follow IBA Group on LinkedIn for regular updates and comment.