Generative AI: Embracing the AI Apprentice
Finding a place in your company for generative AI
Forty years ago, my dad was one of the first attorneys in his law firm to get a computer as the firm went through “computerization.” Some senior partners were skeptical, but as my dad shared a few nights ago, the ability to search through years of court rulings with Lexis (pre-Nexis) was a critical accelerator for him. He sees that same potential now after I sent him a legal response (with accurate statute citations) crafted by ChatGPT.
Right now, generative AI is becoming increasingly prevalent in the enterprise setting. Major companies are being evaluated based on the number of times they mention AI in their earnings calls.
For every story like the one I shared above, there’s an equally exciting fad that flames out. Following the trail of venture capital (VC) money pouring into industry, you may think of cryptocurrency or virtual reality (VR) and wonder if generative AI will follow suit.
I couldn’t convincingly explain the use cases for crypto and VR to my parents. All it took with generative AI was five text messages. The use cases exist, and people are rapidly adopting the use of generative AI to speed up a variety of tasks.
From a risk perspective, leaders must be considering whether and how generative AI can play a part in their strategy and the future of their organization. As difficult as it can be to predict the future, Tamarah Usher does a great job of exploring the future of generative AI in her blog post here.
Many of the companies we’ve worked with fall into three primary categories for how to approach generative AI in an enterprise setting: ad hoc, encouraged, and embraced.
Ad hoc
In an ad hoc approach, people can use generative AI tools, but there isn’t a formal policy or approach to their use (outside of a security policy). This means that individual employees may use generative AI tools on their own without guidance or support from their organization. While this approach may seem flexible, it can lead to inconsistencies in the use of generative AI across the organization. It can also lead to security risks if employees are using unapproved or unsecured generative AI tools.
Companies without a formal policy in place are taking a significant risk, and any enterprise without a policy falls into the ad hoc category, whether they realize it or not. Previously, the use of AI required deep technical knowledge, but that barrier has been removed. My three-year-old can now design his own T-shirt by giving DALL·E 2 a few prompts. (He went for a T-Rex riding a tractor and wearing sunglasses.)
Encouraged
In an encouraged approach, organizational leaders provide guidance and support to employees on how to use generative AI tools and encourages its use to improve productivity, efficiency, and decision-making. The organization may provide prompt engineering training sponsored by passionate super-user groups. This approach can help ensure that generative AI is used consistently across the organization and that employees have access to governed tools that accelerate their work and increase productivity. However, the encouraged approach will not fully capitalize on the potential benefits of generative AI until it’s fully integrated into the organization’s operations.
For skeptical leaders who want to dip a toe in the water, utilizing something along the lines of a digital center of innovation (DCI) as a forum or mechanism for exploring and defining the guardrails for generative AI can be an effective starting point. The DCI can help identify and socialize use cases that span the organization, whether it be helping write code, supporting recruiting, interacting with customers to book travel, or developing creative content. Workshops in partnership with leaders in the space can help accelerate the use case identification and proofs of concepts to generate buy-in.
Embraced
In an embraced approach, generative AI is a critical “worker” within the enterprise, and agents are deployed across the organization to gain a competitive advantage. In this mode, the organization fully embraces the potential benefits of generative AI and incorporates it into its operations at all levels. The technology teams within these organizations are quickly moving to implement use cases for the various cloud provider tools, including Azure OpenAI, Amazon Bedrock, and Google’s various AI tools. (Note that Google’s primary comp for ChatGPT is Bard and is yet to be publicly available.)
This approach requires a significant investment in generative AI infrastructure, including hardware, software, and personnel. However, the benefits of this approach can be substantial, including improved efficiency, accuracy, and decision-making. The technology investment has been reduced to some degree by the foundational models (FMs) that these tools allow enterprises to leverage. While companies previously needed to develop and train their own models, the FMs accelerate time to value.
For companies to move from an ad hoc to an embraced approach would require a truly disruptive mindset and a major shift in strategy. Navigating the change for the organization across people, process, and technology would be a massive undertaking and require alignment across the entire organization.
Moving forward
Each approach has its benefits and drawbacks, and the choice of approach depends on the organization’s goals, resources, and culture. Within each approach there’s a spectrum of adoption and maturity. You may have an organization that’s bought into the capability but is struggling to train models on its own datasets. Or you may have an organization that has been exploring the capabilities for years and is moving quickly to operationalize it more broadly.
While the embraced approach may offer the most significant benefits, it also requires the biggest investment. Organizational leaders should carefully consider the different approaches and choose the one that aligns best with their overall strategy and goals. At this point, not defining an approach is the greatest risk.
Slalom is a global consulting firm that helps people and organizations dream bigger, move faster, and build better tomorrows for all. Learn more and reach out today.
