The Four Stages of Deploying AI at Scale
AMPLYFI’s Head of FinTech Ant Murphy discusses implementing Artificial Intelligence in Finance
Implementing Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions successfully in the Financial Services sector can be challenging for a variety of reasons and, as with any transformation, behavioural change plays a major role. AI products are generally not a plug-and-play solution, and implementing and embedding tools that can substantially improve a business takes time, effort and a lot of learning.
In order to maximise the benefits of the products, users are often required to change their behaviours and leadership need to set realistic expectations for their teams. Users must be aware that there is still a requirement for them to bring their expertise, experience, and knowledge to bear on interpreting and actioning the insights surfaced. This often provides comfort in knowing that their role is being augmented and enhanced rather than displaced, which can often be the immediate assumption.
Given the effort associated with making the implementation of AI a success in transforming ways of working, business leaders are required to meet a range of challenges such as the need to champion change. Meeting these will reap huge rewards and ensure that you can keep ahead of your competitors by seamlessly integrating the power of AI-driven tools with the quality of your workforce.
In my experience, it’s critical to align four different types of investment to allow this transformational change to happen:
1. Emotional Investment
Does AI and the potential of AI within your organisation and your sector make senior leaders and decision makers excited? This is a critical component when trying to effect change within an organisation. Emotional investment and leadership drives commitment across the business and is essential where the implementation of such tools requires institutional and personal behavioural change. There will undoubtedly be times when issues arise and belief in some projects may waver. The question is whether people can remain enthusiastic during these periods? If people are emotionally invested, the answer will be a resounding YES.
2. Strategic Investment
Once you’ve decided that significant transformation via AI products is something you’re emotionally invested in as an organisation, you need to focus relentlessly on the overall strategy and objectives that will deliver success. Every level of the organisation needs to be aware that AI is something you’re hugely committed to, that you’re determined to deliver success, and evidence of that commitment is openly seen on a daily basis. This is especially critical for senior leaders. A cohesive, focused plan driven by the associated business benefits and a strategic view is important. Making difficult decisions to de-prioritise or stop some existing activity to allow the new methods to flourish is a tough but crucial step.
3. Cultural Investment
Ask yourself whether, if you were starting your business over again, what decisions would you make to ensure it moved at pace to deliver innovative, market leading products? How would you ensure that your employees feel that they are more effective as a result of the AI tools they use daily? How would you create a culture that encourages people to experiment, fail fast (but safely), and carry lessons learned from such experiences forward and across the organisation? A significant investment in the skills, behaviours, and methods of teams is required to move organisations forward in an increasingly digitally-focused world. Whilst this is possibly the most difficult step to address, particularly in large organisations, creating and nurturing enthusiasm for change, demonstrating a commitment to it, and ensuring all teams are clearly targeted to deliver against and contribute to the strategy will make it a realistic proposition.
4. Financial Investment
Finally, strong commitment to financial investment is required. If the other components are in place, this should be a relatively simple and logical step. Major benefits can be delivered with relatively little investment if the methods employed to deliver are optimised to be as efficient as possible. The financial benefits of using AI powered tools can be significant with improvements achievable across operational cost, revenue, risk and control, and customer service. It’s also possible to significantly improve the engagement of teams when they feel that their roles have been enriched by using AI products to free them to focus on the most critical, value-adding, and interesting aspects of their roles.
Transforming your business with AI Products
When making the decision to transform an organisation or team using AI products, the focus can too often be on the initial financial cost. Whilst it’s obviously important that this is a consideration, it’s more critical to look beyond this to ensure success. Ensure your organisation is ready to use the AI-driven products by building an environment that’s emotionally, strategically, and culturally ready to transform.
At AMPLYFI we have significant experience in implementing our products as part of wider organisational transformational change; enabling businesses across a range of industries to transform their methods and processes. By using AI to unlock Deep Web data on the internet, and by surfacing the very best of gold standard structured data to complement this, AMPLYFI deliver unique insights that produce a range of benefits to businesses. We ensure that our tools are embedded efficiently meaning the benefits of these products can be realised swiftly and sustained. Should you wish to discuss our products and how they can transform your organisation please contact us via www.AMPLYFI.com
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