This McKinsey article nails it: Gen AI’s next inflection point: From employee experimentation to organizational transformation | McKinsey. Points like these especially, “beyond experimentation”, “capture value from current momentum”, “inflection point” and so on. They get to the essence of this post. It means we are out of the starting gates with Enterprise AI. Some like Gartner even say we are past that and at the Trough of Disillusionment.

Whatever your view and whether you like it or not, it’s safe to say AI is here to stay. There is huge pressure to make it work. Vendors push it to recoup costs invested in their offerings. Companies are hungry to find the next competitive edge.

Let’s assume you’ve (as a company) accepted the need to adopt AI. You have started using it and are finding anecdotal evidence that it’s being well used. Some early gains are being made from this use.

What next?

To quote McKinsey once more: “To capture value from current momentum, businesses must transform their processes. They must change their structures. They must also adjust their approach to talent.”

Beyond foundational use in small pockets of the organisation and teams, we need to think in transformational terms. We need to go beyond personal productivity as well.

Proof of concepts, pilots, experiments – they have had their time. No longer will the organisation be served by limiting risk and playing small.

Now is the time to decide if you are in or out. If you wait any longer, catching up won’t be an option.

Assuming you have taken your early steps and are all in, organisational value is your next goal. This requires you to embrace AI at every level of the business. You don’t have to do it all at once, but you do have to think org wide.

You have to seek everywhere for pockets of use that can benefit from AI and drive impact and value.

Value chain disruption

I think you have to start with some basic business analysis or business process re-engineering. The business process is the basic building block.

Find out how you are delivering and measuring value in your business currently. Then insert AI to see how it can be improved. Carry out the improvements and measure the impact, if any.

Rinse and repeat. Here is a super simple example I put together.

NOTES:

1. I created this for work (disclosure) so am using Copilot for M365 as the example AI but you can use any type of AI
2. I used AI to create many of the components in the image