Blog: The Essential Skills Needed to Lead With AI

"The value of AI comes from rewiring how companies run." - Mckinsey

Like digital and mobile, AI is changing the way organisations think and operate. Today, three-quarters of organisations use AI in at least one business function, with 80% of AI investments spent on how to reshape key functions and create new offerings. But while AI enables powerful new capabilities, business value cannot be realised through simply having the technology, which is why 7 in 10 organisations haven’t experienced measurable returns from their AI investments.

AI Got Off to a Bad Start 

AI was the ‘new shiny thing’ and everyone flocked to give it a try, but it's complex. Without knowing how to use it properly, understanding the use cases for it, or considering the risks it can introduce to a business, it’s not surprising that the AI reality hasn’t lived up to expectations.

Now, 3 in 5 leaders fear their organisation lacks a plan and vision to implement AI, so AI initiatives suffer from ill-defined goals, with rollouts doomed to fail. Even today, not a lot has been done to fully embrace the technology, and less than a third of organisations have upskilled one-quarter of their workforce to use AI. 

Failing to upskill in AI can manifest in ways that are detrimental to your business success.

Building AI Capabilities Over Outcomes

AI moves so quickly, if you spend time acquiring capabilities, they're likely to be out-of-date or redundant by the time you come to use them for value generation activities. Also, focus on capabilities, and you’ll accumulate a lot of AI tools with ‘nice to have’ functionality, which adds complexity to your tech stack, is expensive to run, and becomes confusing to end users. 

Widespread Fear and Panic

AI is new and therefore unknown, which means people will naturally worry about its impact. With AI in particular, there’s a fear it will take people’s jobs, affect data privacy and security, and cause widespread disruption. And then there’s the #1 barrier to AI implementation: worries about complying with regulations. New and emerging AI laws differ depending on where your business operates, which places additional pressure on you to meet regulatory obligations.

Failure to Maximise Value From AI Investments

Unless you’re trained to know how to get the most from AI, you’ll never realise its true value. The reality is, nearly 9 in 10 companies gather behavioural data, but only a quarter use it. And while 7 in 10 companies use AI for product recommendations, half don’t think to use it to apply personalisation to those recommendations, which would further engage customers.

Leaders Help Translate Technical Capabilities into Strategic Outcomes 

To be successful and deliver good ROI, AI initiatives must align with your organisation’s  objectives to move the business dials that matter. When you start with the overall goals, it’s easier to start identifying where AI use cases may exist. For example, if your business goal is to improve customer retention by 10%, you know you need to investigate reasons why they churn and think about how that can be improved.

Adopt a Systematic and Structured Approach

By thinking of AI in terms of use cases, rather than capabilities, you always focus on addressing challenges, and AI therefore delivers value back to the business. The key is to start small and scale gradually. Think, what problem are you trying to solve? And what can you do in the next 90-days to create a minimal viable product (MVP) to address it? Once you know your MVP is a success, you can scale it quickly across the business.

Engage in Cross-Functional Collaboration

Anywhere a process exists in your business is a potential AI use case. Therefore you need to know how to use cross-functional leadership to unite the business around AI with a shared vision. By working with other business functions, it becomes possible to leverage their insights and expertise, identify shifting trends earlier, and eliminate redundancies. Now, AI can support product development, marketing campaigns, sales strategies, and customer support initiatives.

Develop an AI Roadmap

By thinking about AI use cases, you’ll start to build an inventory. By referring back to your organisational goals, you can start to prioritise where to direct your efforts and resources. 

You can also mitigate risk without the need for excessive governance. Some use cases are naturally low-risk. Start with those, and you allow your team to learn on the job and gain the confidence to tackle more complex use cases in the future. Eventually, you’ll create an AI roadmap, which gives your organisation a structured plan of how to successfully adopt AI and maximise the value from your investments.

Communicate Effectively With All Stakeholders

Successfully adopting AI requires you to possess exceptional change management skills, because 9 in 10 leaders cite cultural challenges as impeding implementations. Here, communication is key – with both senior stakeholders and end users. At both ends of the scale, people need to understand what AI initiatives are being implemented, why, and the expected impact. They’ll want reassurance over their fears and the inherent risks AI presents. And they’ll be keen to see progress is being made and successful outcomes delivered. 

Knowing how to craft effective communication strategies is key, because it will make clear your communication objectives, stakeholder mapping, timeline to ensure regular updates, appropriate channel selection, and where to establish feedback loops.

Upskill Now and Lead with AI

AI has leapt from fifth to the most in-demand tech skill in just 18 months. If you want your organisation to succeed in the AI era, it’s time to invest in yourself and build the confidence to lead with AI.

At Cambridge Spark, we set the gold standard for data and AI education.

Through our premium executive education programme, “Leading with AI”, you’ll acquire the skills to help your organisation secure its AI-powered future, develop a strategic AI vision, and lead with confidence in the age of AI.

Discover more about how we can help you to drive tangible results, build your AI and change management expertise, and demonstrate the true value AI delivers to your organisation.