AI in Action 2024 – Leaders and Learners
The newly released AI in Action 2024 report from IBM, identifies what separates AI Leaders from AI Learners. The report covers core business issues, with an AI adoption perspective, from productivity to profitability. The report identifies the AI Leaders who are reaping the rewards of AI today and compares this to those in the learner
AI in Action 2024 - Leaders and Learners
The newly released AI in Action 2024 report from IBM, identifies what separates AI Leaders from AI Learners. The report covers core business issues, with an AI adoption perspective, from productivity to profitability.
The report identifies the AI Leaders who are reaping the rewards of AI today and compares this to those in the learner category.
Key findings & Areas of Impact:
Two-thirds of AI Leaders report that AI has driven a greater than 25% improvement in revenue, as well as a finding that 27%–38% of Leaders highlight significant improvements across 5 key areas of value:
- Productivity,
- Cybersecurity,
- Customer experience / service
- marketing / sales effectiveness
- Streamlining of processes.
Alignment of Objectives and Good Data Essential
The findings underscore a long held business success factor – that Leaders don’t mindlessly chase trends. The real business winners understand that they must find the axis of opportunity, need and internal capabilities to develop an action-oriented roadmap. They ensure organization-wide alignment of objectives and purpose through clear and authentic communication.
Leaders also understand that a strong data foundation is an essential building block to create a meaningful and bespoke AI solution that adds value and insights to the daily operation of their business. They rely on a hybrid of cloud strategy, machine learning and a multi-model, platform-based approach, and are committed to incremental improvement through continuous experimentation, adjustments and realignments.
Road-Mapping Creates Common Vision
The survey data reveals that Leaders, are those who build a roadmap informed by 4 AI dimensions: strategy, toolkits, data management and applications.
A clear roadmap fosters the type of C-suite alignment that separates Leaders and Learners. It plots specific goals across a timeline and defines the metrics used to measure their successful implementation.
Cathy Reese Snr, Partner, Data & Technology at IBM comments that “To get AI to scale, you have to present a really tight value case on how AI is going to achieve your organization’s mission.”
When Leaders share a common vision, they avoid sowing confusion and inertia throughout their organization. “A slight hesitation at the top becomes a big roadblock at the bottom,” warns Kurup Prasad, Senior Partner, Service Line Leader, IBM Consulting.
Detailed Roadmaps More Effective
Breadth of vision is also a distinguishing factor between Leaders and Learners; Leaders cover more ground with their roadmaps. Instead of a piecemeal approach, they prefer holistic strategies.
For Leaders, broad doesn’t mean vague. According to the survey data, they prioritize 4 areas of Ai use: Improving customer experience, IT operations and automation, virtual assistants for external applications, and cybersecurity. Leaders are approximately 80% more likely than Learners to invest in these top areas of operation than learners.
It is also clear that it doesn’t matter if an AI roadmap works well on paper, the roadmap must be practical and implementable, it must work in practice. Crafting a roadmap requires a clear-eyed evaluation of business objectives, internal technical capabilities and an organization’s change management.
