The 6 Disciplines Companies Need to Get the Most Out of Gen AI

The Nugget

  • To get the most out of Generative AI (gen AI), companies need six key disciplines: behavioral change, controlled experimentation, measurement of business value, data management, human capital development, and systems thinking.

Make it stick

  • 🧠 Gen AI requires people to review its output and add value to it to maximize its benefits.
  • 💡 Companies need to run controlled experiments to assess the value of employing gen AI in different business domains.
  • 📊 Measurement of business value from gen AI is crucial, and companies should have clear practices for tracking metrics over time.
  • 👩‍🔬 Organizations must commit to developing their employees' skills and knowledge to successfully leverage gen AI.

Key insights

The 6 Disciplines Companies Need for Gen AI

  1. Behavioral Change

    • Companies need individuals to adapt their behavior to effectively utilize gen AI in various stages of content creation.
    • Users should review AI-generated output and add value to it.
  2. Controlled Experimentation

    • Conducting controlled experiments to determine the value of gen AI tools in different business domains is crucial.
    • Businesses should compare the productivity and effectiveness of using gen AI tools against not using them.
  3. Measurement of Business Value

    • Rigorous measurement of business value is essential, ranging from individual-level productivity to the impact on new initiatives and strategies enabled by gen AI.
    • Organizations should develop practices for tracking metrics over time to assess the effectiveness of gen AI.
  4. Data Management

    • Data management is a critical discipline, particularly for dealing with unstructured data like text and images used in gen AI.
    • Companies need to establish processes for collecting, storing, and curating unstructured data for gen AI applications.
  5. Human Capital Development

    • Developing employees' skills and knowledge is crucial for successfully leveraging gen AI.
    • Organizations must commit to using AI to augment employee capabilities, not replace human labor.
  6. Systems Thinking

    • Applying systems thinking to gen AI experimentation can lead to superior work models in various industries.
    • Organizations need to redesign business systems to incorporate gen AI effectively and drive competitive advantage.

Key quotes

  • "There are, however, two behaviors that will likely be common across roles and applications."
  • "Companies may need to create new tasks, business processes, and career paths — each of which effectively involve designing work for both a human and a machine."
  • "Data management is a discipline as well, and most organizations had challenges with it even for the structured, numerical data that fueled analytics and analytical machine learning."
  • "Organizations wanting to get the full benefit of gen AI need to commit to and develop their people."
  • "One key to their approach was to create a superior system that crafted an interlocking set of advantages into a competitive moat, and resulting higher economic returns."
This summary contains AI-generated information and may have important inaccuracies or omissions.