5 tips for business leaders to leverage generative AI
It feels like generative AI is everywhere. The explosive launch of advanced chatbots and other generative AI technology, like ChatGPT and others, has commanded the attention of everyone, from consumers to business leaders to the media.
But these chat tools are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to gen AI’s potential impact. The even greater value of generative AI will come as businesses start to apply it on behalf of their customers and employees. There are a vast number of enterprise use cases, from product design to customer service to supply chain management and many, many more. New models, chips and developer services in the cloud are opening the door to widescale adoption across every industry.
Understanding the realm of possibility — and the risk — of generative AI is critically important for CIOs who want to start using this technology to gain an advantage for their businesses. The following are my five tips for getting started.
1. Get your data house in order
Generative AI is here, and it’s poised to have a transformational impact on our world. The potential upsides of leveraging it in your business are too great — and the downsides of being a laggard too many — not to get started now. But the very beginning of this journey is making sure you have the right data foundations for AI/ML. In order to train quality models, you must start with quality, unified data from your business.
2. Envision use cases around your own data
Generative AI could be used to develop predictive models for businesses or to automate content creation. For example, companies could generate financial forecasting and scenario planning to make more informed recommendations for capital expenditures and reserves.
Or generative AI might act as an assistant for clinicians to create recommendations for diagnosis, treatment and follow-up care. Philips is doing just that.
We’re also seeing customers harness generative AI to optimize product lifecycles, like retail companies looking to more precisely manage inventory placement, out-of-stock issues, deliveries and more — or using generative AI to create, optimize and test store layouts. By identifying these scenarios early and exploring the art of the possible with the data you already have, you can ensure your investment in gen AI is both targeted and strategic.
3. Dive into developer productivity benefits
Generative AI can provide significant benefits for developer productivity. It can be a powerful assistant for repetitive coding tasks like testing and debugging, freeing developers to focus on more complex tasks that require human problem-solving skills. CIOs should work with their development teams to identify areas where generative AI can increase productivity and reduce development time.
4. Take outputs with a grain of salt
Generative AI is only as good as the data it’s trained on, and there’s always the risk of bias or inaccuracies. Sometimes the output is a hallucination, a response that seems plausible but is in fact made up. So guide your developers, engineers and business users to regard gen AI outputs as directional, not prescriptive.
Manage the business expectations about accuracy and consider some of the special challenges surrounding responsible generative AI. These models and systems are still in their early days and there’s no replacement for human wisdom, judgment and curation.
5. Think hard about security, legal, and compliance
As with all technology, security and privacy are paramount, and gen AI introduces new considerations, including around IP. CIOs should work closely with their security, compliance and legal teams to identify and mitigate these risks, ensuring that generative AI is deployed in a secure and responsible manner. Further, scope your plans around compliance and regulations and think carefully about who owns the data you’re using.
Generative AI has the potential to be a transformational technology, tackling interesting problems, augmenting human performance and maximizing productivity. Dive in now, experiment with use cases, harness its benefits, and understand the risk, and you’ll be well-positioned to leverage generative AI for your business.
-- Contact us at [email protected]
-
How should leaders govern the people? Michael Chugani
A senior Mainland official once advised Donald Tsang Yam-kuen when he was the chief executive to think like the people do. It was good advice. Leaders who want to effectively serve the people need to
-
Hong Kong Tourism Board Unveils ‘Only in Hong Kong’
The Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) launched ‘Only in Hong Kong’, a new global campaign that redefines how the city is experienced and differentiating Hong Kong as Asia’s World City. Moving beyond a
-
Zhang Daqian, China's Best Painter for 500 Years Mark O'Neill
At Sotheby’s art auction in Hong Kong in April this year, it put on sale three works by Zhang Daqian ( 張大千). One of them, Sunshine after Rain (雨後斜陽), sold for HK$15.36 million. It was evidence that,
-
Government celebrates success of Kai Tak Sports Park Mark O'Neill
The Hong Kong government is celebrating the success of the Kai Tak Sports Park which opened in March last year – nearly 600,000 people have attended major sports events there. In a written reply in
-
Government rewrites history of Hong Kong Mark O'Neill
The government has rewritten the history of Hong Kong, saying that it was never a colony because British rule was illegal and was never democratic and downplaying the events of 1989. “The Hong Kong
