Accelerating Ai Without Losing Traction

In the race to implement AI, organizations need to balance throttle with traction. They are driving more pilots and projects and accelerating spending to keep pace with runaway expectations, but without traction, AI strategies, pilots, and projects  can spin their wheels in 4 areas.

Obviously, technical traction is key to AI success, and this includes robust, scalable infrastructure, AI-ready data, security, and so on. Those leaders attending this year’s Q6 Innovate (hosted by banking modernization specialists Quantum Six) rated technical traction at 69%, recognizing that the technology is new and changing fast.

Naturally, the technology is only part of the story. Key to success is business traction, with the business impact of AI being key; that includes how it drives business strategy and success. Leaders rated this at 78%, highlighting the real business imperative around AI. Yet, it is important not to overestimate traction in this area, given the much-publicized reports questioning the return on AI investments.

The next vital area of traction is Governance, Risk and Compliance. For many leaders, this wheel of AI strategy has the potential to slow things down, with leaders rating GRC at just 42% and concerns around data security, fraud and shadow AI use.

 The fourth wheel of traction for AI is people-related. The pace of new technology implementation is often limited by organizational change and adoption. However, leaders at Q6 Innovate are confident about the traction of AI within their organizations, rating it at 72%. Already they can see people bringing their own AI tools to work.

That is a quick overview of traction across the 4 areas. Here we can see the average score for traction overall, at 65%. That is a mid-range level of confidence, suggesting there is little room for complacency. As one leader put it, AI is very new – we are building the car and racing it at the same time!

To make sense of this traction data, think of the two questions often-asked regarding AI:

• First, who owns AI in your organization?
• Second, is your strategy AI-first?

Before you answer, balancing throttle and traction requires a rethink! That is because AI is A.O.R. – an all-of-organization responsibility. It cannot be delivered by departments or teams working in silos. Your strategy requires cross-functional AI pit teams.

So, how will you balance the throttle and traction in your race to implement AI, and more fundamentally, to accelerate business success via AI? Also, how will you build effective cross-functional Ai teams to make it happen? These are questions that we would love to explore with you.