Are business outcomes, with the potential to make or break an organization’s future, becoming more important than they’ve ever been before?
It sure seems that way. Embarking on the journey of business growth despite a treacherous path of challenges, all departments are biting at the bit for stability, solid strategies, and a reliable plan for what’s ahead. Leaders are strictly pulling back on investments and looking to save major costs, which means running shop more efficiently and taking their teams’ productivity up a notch (or six). IT and business leaders are increasingly joining forces to support their companies through change, which means taking innovative approaches to get proactive with new technologies and automation.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (genAI) are doing big things for IT that impact the business as whole, with their power to refine processes and empower staff. Even though business outcomes are capturing top-spot priority for leaders, a fair share of folks have yet to buy into the hype.
Generative AI: Some Folks are Still on the Fence
Now about 40 years old, AI has developed plenty of abilities to foster digital transformation and help businesses keep pace during economic shifts, labor market challenges, heightened customer demands, and more. More recently, since November 2022, genAI, like OpenAI’s jaw-dropping ChatGPT has taken well over a million users by storm with its potential to change how many jobs are performed and optimize business processes.
But writers, educators, mathematicians, and even award-winning actors aren’t exactly stoked about genAI, and they’re certainly not welcoming it with open arms. Truth be told, genAI’s content isn’t always accurate, it writes essays for students instead of assisting them, it’s recently failed to perform elementary-level math, and it’s sent Hollywood actors from the set to the streets in protest.
But concerns like these actually expedite the growth of genAI and automation, as leaders look to demonstrate how they complement company processes and performance, rather than take over them. People and automation as a pair make each other better, and their combined strengths are what companies need to survive today’s challenges and thrive in the foreseeable future.
Making the AI-friendly Culture Case
Adopting AI and automation for IT for positive business change and optimal digital transformation starts with applying them where it makes sense – working alongside human teams to perform simple repetitive tasks so that staff can work on things that machines cannot, that require creativity, imagination, and critical thinking.
As leaders look to implement automation into more processes, they’ll need to communicate and translate its value to the team. What does it mean to them and how should it be used? Leaders must provide the training and upskilling opportunities to encourage AI adoption and embrace the benefits it offers, especially as AI gains more prevalence from day to day.
Talent strategies will need adjustments and training curriculum will need tweaks as to minimize and resolve confusion, answer questions, and monitor frenzy. Ultimately, an AI-friendly culture will drive business outcomes, as well as uphold business operations as the economy demands more during today’s talent shortage.
A few reminders to ease AI adoption worries:
- An AI strategy depends on a people strategy
- Human input enables AI, keeping people in control
- People create ideas and use cases for product and service development
- Organizational leaders are responsible for interpersonal coaching and mentoring
Creating and developing a culture that embraces AI is key for tying it to the business. Once people get on board with what AI and automation can do … as well as what they won’t do … the potential for business growth and forward movement is unlocked.
Use Case Example: Applying AI and Automation to Incident Response
What does AI mean for incident response?
For starters, network, security and IT operations teams cannot handle the overwhelming volume of tasks brought about by tough-to-meet business demands during the economic downturn. Data has erupted, and when alerts, events, and other signals are out of control, the business still depends on IT to triage the influx of issues.
Unplanned outages and web application downtime costs unnecessary lost revenue, which companies cannot afford. For example, a 14-hour outage for Facebook in March, 2020 served up just under $90 million in revenue loss.
AI and automation can get ahead of outages and minimize the risk of occurrence. They also can perform with the speed and accuracy needed to respond to and resolve incidents, which extends beyond human capability. Implementing AI and automation allow incident response teams to track metrics, take remedial tasks off staff plates, improve mean time to resolution (MTTR), reduce costs, and standardize processes to ensure customer satisfaction.
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Implementing Automation: Careful Consideration Comes First
When it’s time to implement AI and automation (hint: now), leaders should be smart up front, and think about strategizing AI to drive business results. Basically, a slow start is completely OK.
Mapping AI initiatives to business outcomes is the very first step to aligning business goals and how to operationalize AI. It’s important for leaders to thoroughly consider their most unique, ideal use cases and break down the level of adoption and value they want from automation.
CIOs and business leaders, for example, should determine the key challenges that keep the business from growing, deal unnecessary expenses, and put a cap on efficiency. Information gathered during this step will help to ensure automation is applied correctly to overcome business challenges, estimate scalability, and find the maximum level of applicability.
From there, CIOs and business leaders should transition to the specific goals they want to accomplish, which could include achieving higher quality in a shorter amount of time, quicker releases, and maintaining greater, solid self-healing.
READ MORE: AI and Automation: Transformative Potential for the Future of Business
Today’s level of digitalization and priorities outweighs the amount of talent on the playing field, setting the stage for IT automation opportunities. IT automation can run predictable IT tasks while human teams dedicate their focus to complex projects that require creativity and deep thinking.
Today’s landscape rolls out a business-critical opportunity to join the power of AI and automation with your existing talent. Watch Resolve’s on-demand webinar, “AI and the Future of IT Automation: 3 Power Moves to Harness the Hype” to learn more.
