You’ve got the technology. Now what?

AI hasn’t taken our jobs – at least, not yet. Nor has it proved to be the miracle cure for every organisational woe. But it’s ubiquitous now, for better or worse, and we’re just at the beginning of the story.

Nobody can predict where exactly we’re headed and what this means for organisations, but we need to think beyond the initial fears about AI and the hype around it, says Keyvan Vakili, Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship and Academic Director of the Data Science and AI Initiative at London Business School.

“The reality is, technology is just a tool,” he says. “There are a lot of more complicated questions that are organisational.” These questions are where leaders ought to be focusing their attention now, to be able to seize new opportunities afforded by the technology and become aware of any associated risks so they can mitigate against them.

“You’ve got the technology. What are you going to do with it? Do people want it? Do they have the incentive to use it? Are they trained to use it? How is it going to change the balance of power in your company? How will it affect your business model, revenue model, culture and learning?”

Some areas of your business are probably already more productive now you have AI carrying out in a flash some of the routine tasks that previously took human workers hours or even days. But gaining productivity is not the same thing as gaining competitive advantage, Keyvan points out – especially when your competitors are adopting the same tool.

“You should do it, because otherwise you’ll fall behind, but the challenge is how you can find those unique opportunities that tap into your unique data sources, your unique ways of doing things. You need the right organisational structure to collect these ideas, test them, deploy them, train people to use these tools.” The most forward-thinking leaders are actioning this already but many are more reluctant to take on the challenge. Instead, they’re hoping for the best, unwilling to accept the scale of what’s required. Most people are risk-averse, Keyvan acknowledges. Almost every company has banned some uses of this technology for their employees. “But that doesn’t mean the employees don’t use it.”

Keyvan offers five key pieces of advice for leaders:

1. Make sure the right technology is in the hands of the right people when they need it, with the right governance mechanisms.

2. Invest in context engineering: collect documents, clean them up and put a structure around them to keep them up to date.

3. Create the structure and training that allows the people on the ground to surface these ideas so you can develop and deploy them.

4. Make sure your senior leaders are comfortable using these tools, and confident in talking about them. They need to understand the opportunities they unlock but also the threats they pose for the organisation.

5. The cost of the tech is only the start. Be prepared to put money, time and effort into change management, confict resolution, politics, restructuring, and training.

“We can’t claim to know exactly how AI is going to unfold and how it’s going to affect every company out there, but it’s something that is going to unfold, and it’s going to affect companies one way or another,” says Keyvan.

The takeaway: invest in this bigger-picture work early on, and accept that it’s going to be costly. Because it won’t be as costly as getting left behind.

This video was produced by Senior Editor Katie Pisa and Content Producer Myra Mansoor.