How can you apply AI in your organization?

The rapid pace of development in artificial intelligence (AI) is front and center of many executives’ minds. Hardly a day goes by without some article on the topic. But beyond the hype and the scaremongering, how can we apply the technology in our organizations in a way that adds value?

For today’s exercise, consider the following tasks and ask yourself which of the following are well suited for AI:

• Email categorization and prioritization
• Conceptualizing and executing a new marketing strategy
• Financial analysis and reporting
• Designing a new background for a webinar

With generative AI, however, we are moving from prediction to prescription. So, when thinking about how to apply it within your organization, the key question to ask is, “How can I turn this into a generation task?”

Take the example of a pharmaceutical company that sends out thousands of pamphlets and free samples every few months to the 350,000 medical practitioners in its system. Roughly 10-12% of these samples get returned because the addresses are wrong. To solve this problem, the company wrote a very specific Python code and put it into ChatGPT along with the roughly 40,000 incorrect addresses. Within a few minutes, the AI updated the addresses with an accuracy rate of 60-70%, saving the company the equivalent of one year of work by two full-time employees.

To figure out how best to apply AI in your organization, I have come up with a practical framework that considers both the value and creativity of the task. As a rule of thumb, the lower the value of the task, and the less creativity involved, the more effectively AI will be able to handle the task, freeing up human resources to focus on more complex and creative work.

Low value, low creativity

These are repetitive, rule-based tasks that you can easily substitute with AI to make your existing employees more efficient. Think of data entry, cross-checking addresses, inventory management, and basic customer support, such as responding to emails.

High value, low creativity

These are activities that are often of high value to an organization but don’t involve much creativity. For example, analyzing financial reports to create a summary, translating lengthy documents, or preparing a PowerPoint presentation. In these cases, AI can be used to complement, or even replace, work done by employees.

High creativity, low value

Do you want your employees to write a limerick? Or would you like to generate art for your organization’s walls? These are tasks that are of low value to the organization that are highly creative. You can now use AI to create new pictures and generate logos.

High creativity, high value

These are tasks that require strategizing, synthesizing, and making decisions. Because of the high-value nature of the task, you are unlikely to trust AI to do the job alone. For example, conceptualizing and executing a new brand strategy. However, in these cases, AI can act as another brain at the table that can provoke and stimulate ideas and creativity.

Now reconsider the tasks you rated at the beginning – can you see which category each task fits into?

What is your organization’s generative AI policy? And which categories of uses might potentially be useful for you?