AI: Accelerating Hype to Value

Generative AI has done as much for C-suite digital, data and tech awareness as the pandemic did for tech-enabled change. There is seemingly relentless C-suite demand for AI services, which come paired with high hopes and ambitions to deliver market differentiation through generative AI. With the underlying engineering evolving at breakneck speed, so are the challenges for the accountable executives to ensure organisations extract maximum returns from their AI investments, whether it be generative AI, predictive analytics, machine learning or automation.

As considered in our recent article, the rise of the AI executive is manifest. Right now, a dedicated AI executive role is largely the preserve of the largest firms and organisations, while in other businesses, the accountability for AI can sit with Chief Data Officer, CIO and CTO.

With technology largely commoditised, the anchor points of effective AI leadership tend to be people, philosophy and delivering measurable outcomes - this is a domain where the speed of evolution outpaces the ability to acquire talent. Having the right leader is paramount to set the strategy, create the space for seeding key AI specialists, embrace key partners and build the right environment to allow existing data engineering talent to develop and grow. Odgers Berndtson’s CIO and Technology Officers Practice offers the expertise and global network to identify top-tier AI leaders.

Discussed during the roundtable event, below are the key anchor points for leaders to guide their organisations through increasingly effective data and AI exploitation: 

Governance & regulatory awareness

Strong governance is the foundation of trustworthiness for AI deployments, and as such, critical to the successful realisation of value from data assets. It was noted that unquestionably ‘AI needs data more than data needs AI’. High-quality, well governed data remains key.

Creativity, innovation & collaboration

More than ever, this focuses upon ensuring successful collaboration across what is a diverse business and operational landscape. Drawing together stakeholders across both strategic and operational, the AI executive must connect and balance the two to achieve business success.

Ethics & empathy

For many, the mere mention of AI brings images of automation and human replacement. AI leaders have a responsibility to assist and not just replace through enhanced decisioning to enable their workforce to deliver enhanced outcomes. And where simple automation offers cost benefits, the commitment to retraining and redeployment offers businesses a strategic path in improving productivity and efficiency.

Risk

AI is accelerating how we forecast, model and manage uncertainty. The AI executive must equip stakeholders for responsible use and offer oversight in the management of innate risks such as data security, data integrity and the prevention of inadvertently perpetuated or amplified bias.

Commerciality

‘We can’ doesn’t mean ‘we should’. This involves cutting through the hyperbole to target the specifics that deliver to the demands of the organisation; here more than anywhere else, the importance of ‘value’ is key. Look to the example of Klarna and the mixed reception their AI assistant has generated in replacing some 700 customer service agents.

The overarching sentiment of the roundtable discussion was that there has never been a better time to be a data, analytics and AI leader. Whether you are involved in AI product, AI services or AI delivery, the cycle of curating high-quality data, defining a strategy through which to analyse and exploit for commercial, operational, philanthropic or social value has never been so exciting or well board sponsored.

It was clear from our guests that if we were to add anything to the leadership anchors for data leaders, it is resilience and an affinity for continual change; traits unquestionably shared by ExCo colleagues. Importantly, all agreed there is a specific and critical accountability that sits with all data leaders, and that was to ensure that the future remains firmly anchored in ethics and ethical AI practices.

Get in touch. Follow the links below to discover more, or contact our dedicated AI & Technology leadership experts from your local Odgers Berndtson office here.