Applied Artificial Intelligence: An Introduction For Business Leaders

by Mariya Yao

Why You Need a Multi-Disciplinary “AI SWAT Team” Executives alone cannot bring about organizational change, especially of the magnitude that AI can potentially make across an enterprise and industry. Some of your most important stakeholders are your front-line employees and middle managers who will be integrating, using, and overseeing AI tools every day. Many of your employees likely have a strong fear that AI and automation will take away their jobs. Unlike you, they may not initially understand how these powerful technologies can be used to eliminate their lower-value tasks, free them to perform creative and strategic work, and thus augment their output. We have seen firsthand how failure to educate, include, and adapt to these important voices within an organization can lead to resistance, political infighting, and internal sabotage. You will need to put together a multi-disciplinary, cross-departmental “AI SWAT Team” composed of stakeholders in different departments, different functional roles, and different hierarchical levels. The responsibility of this team will be to support your champion and to identify, prioritize, execute, and evangelize your highest-ROI opportunities for automation across the whole company. They will also be critical for identifying potential pitfalls in your organizational design, technical capabilities, and strategic and tactical plans. These diverse views will be critical to help you and your champions form a clearer and fuller picture of t...