What you should know about AI right now

(1000 words/4.5 minute read)

AI is the shiny object and the hot topic that you can hardly sit down for a minute before looking up and there’s a new app arriving or an incredible technology update.  Now with all this excitement and hype, I love that a prevailing thought me and my peers discuss is that 

You will never work with a worse AI than you have now

You are seeing the starting point of what AI can do.  And this means it can only get better.  So maybe not fear missing out on the rush to adopt. 

Start Building Your Skill Sets Today

You will not miss out by waiting and learning.  And that’s exactly what you do with your time – you learn.  See the challenge is that, as a technology evolves, so do your skill sets. And skills can take a lot longer to evolve than technology so that’s why we want to start working on our skill sets now as we decide the right time and the right way and the right manner and the right reason for where we make those valuable technology investments.

Like any industrial revolution there’s people, processes, and technology changes. While, you may be waiting for the technology to change, now is the time to look at your people and processes. 

As we learn more about these technologies we’re seeing the needed skill sets and attitudes required to leverage any investment in AI technology being articulated. Inquisitive and learning minds are key to exploring the technology.  Asking questions and seeking more information about different topics and ideas is something we should always be doing.  Yet AI is going to highlight where we are NOT doing enough, let alone built this perspective into daily work activities. 
 

Critical Questions

Take examples with the simple chat prompts or something like ChatGPT.  Those that ask better questions get better results and are doing more with AI than those who are simply using chat to their bad dad jokes.  Are you encouraging your teams to explore not just new technology but new ways of thinking, turning processes sideways to see if there’s different or other alternative ways to do things, or asking “so what?” or “what if?” or especially “why?”  If you’re not encouraging this behavior now it’s going to be hard to take advantage of technology that evolves and builds on lesson learned and experimentation.
 

Avoiding Rigid Infrastructures

And, that same place where we have teams really thinking about what else can we do, are they locked in by our processes? Technology can be hard to replace.  A simple change in business rules or processes or methodology can enable an organization to gain greater benefits with very little capital investment. Those that are going to take great advantage of the technology advancements are those that have flexible and nimble processes and procedures, and even organizational structures, that can ebb and flow and flex with the demands of the business and the larger community and competition space. 
 

Don’t Wait for Technology to Force You to Change

You don’t want to wait for the technology to drive you to change. Forcing to change is as painful as legal regulation changes that are fined before ever being communicated. You want to start looking internally at how rigid are your structures? Do you have models that still service the customer even if you have to change what you service them with or how you service them? What rules hold you back from taking advantage if the processes change and especially the delivery models and the engagement with your customers as well as your employees?

Like, for example, I have a good amount of trainings on how to ask good questions and use AI prompts to drive efficiency and greater productivity.  We focus on asking questions portion and how they are considering their challenges.  These are skill sets people need now and especially tomorrow.  Yet it is less about the technology and more getting people to be more willing to try something new.  Getting their mindsets in place and even modifying our working environments to be more adaptable is more critical than worrying whether or not you have the latest AI app that’s hot on social media.  Having staff that like experimenting and exploring, and considering there might be different ways of working is a greater investment than someone who knows how to build chat bots. 

Prepare Yourself to Adopt

AI technology is going to continue to evolve. It’s going to get bigger, better, faster for you to take advantage of all this technological innovation. You need to look internally and ask what are your people and processes and especially any old and antiquated technology doing to be bigger and better and faster NOW so that you can find the right way for the right reasons to implement the right AI technology? It’s OK to not be first to market sometimes if you’re the one that still standing after the initial hype has faded!

If you need help on writing that business case for AI and understanding that your first business case may simply to get the resources to explore what AI means to your organization ,then check out my course on LinkedIn Learning. In Building the Business Case for AI, I not only give you the template to help you justify any technology investment, but more importantly, have that conversation with decision makers on why we should be exploring opportunities now, but only the ones that make the smartest business sense.  Having a solid footing into why the case is justified and what benefits are provided is critical so that we use our precious resources for the right thing at the right time for the right reason.  Cause with this approach, we then don’t worry about losing to our competitors for not being on AI in the first place as we will show our clients that we are the right people for the right job always no matter what the market or industry does!