Given the recent announcements from Microsoft at Ignite and the rapidly evolving Artificial Intelligence (AI) ecosystem, I wanted to jump on and share some of the conversations I’ve been having with clients about how AI can be leveraged for a return on investment (ROI) – because realistically, that’s what we all want.
To start, AI isn’t new. It’s been around for a long time and has close ties to machine learning (ML), which is used in forecasting, predictive analytics, and more. The key difference, in my view, is that machine learning has a limited scope, whereas AI, through the simulation of human intelligence, can handle a wide range of complex tasks.
Historically, implementing AI wasn’t achievable for many businesses because it wasn’t commercially or publicly available. That changed when OpenAI burst onto the scene with the release of ChatGPT, making AI highly accessible for everyone, particularly businesses that use it the right way.
Two Starting Points for AI Adoption
Working in the world of innovation and developing pragmatic solutions with clients, I’ve identified two common scenarios for businesses looking to adopt AI:
- You already have a defined set of use cases for the business.
- You want to adopt AI but have no idea where to start.
Interestingly, both scenarios face the exact same challenges when trying to adopt AI:
- Data Privacy and Security Concerns
- Lack of Domain-Specific Models
- High Costs
- Integration Challenges and Poor Data Foundations/Infrastructure
- Regulatory and Compliance Hurdles
- Ethical and Bias Concerns
- Limited Trust in AI-Generated Outputs
- Talent and Expertise Shortages
- Overhyped Expectations
- Scalability and Performance Issues
Should You Adopt AI?
It’s important to state the obvious: if you don’t address these blockers or feel comfortable with how to use AI, it’s not a good idea to jump in at the deep end and expect to achieve an ROI. You won’t – and you’ll likely be left with some big license costs and little value to show for it.
This leaves you firmly in the “Shouldn’t Adopt AI (yet)” bucket.
How to Move Into the “Should Adopt AI” Bucket
To overcome these challenges and help businesses confidently adopt AI, vendors are now starting to make significant changes. If you are trying find the best AI solution fit for your business, read our navigating AI solutions article.
The goal is to help you unlock AI’s potential for your business while achieving measurable ROI.
For further information on regulating AI, read our creating a robust AI framework article.
If you’d like to find out more about our trend predictions, head to our 2025 trends blog.
If any of the above relates to you or your business, please do get in touch and we can go through how we can help you address them .