Three Tips for Bringing AI Into Your Strategy Planning

The release of ChatGPT in November 2022 unleashed a new era for artificial intelligence. Within just a few short months, investment in AI has exploded, alongside a crop of new startups, new use cases, new job positions and a host of other exciting, challenging and even frightening scenarios. Already, 35% of companies say they are using AI while another 42% are exploring its potential for future implementations. With customer satisfaction expected to grow a whopping 25% for organizations that use AI, it’s no surprise that 92% of all organizations are choosing to invest in AI on an ongoing basis. 

It’s safe to say that while we may still be in the “Wild West” phase of AI, the speed at which it is evolving means your organization must be ready for the revolution. Contrary to some concerns, most companies aren’t looking at AI to drastically alter the way they do business, but instead to work smarter, automate processes, improve output, better analyze and apply insights from data and improve the customer experience. In short, AI can be a powerful tool in your arsenal to achieve a competitive advantage.

Whether AI has already begun to transform your business, or you are standing on the precipice, still evaluating its potential, there are things you can do today to allow AI to better inform your strategic thinking and planning. 

Start small

There is no reason you have to dive into AI head first, or all at once. Chances are, you are currently using aspects of the technology in a variety of ways within your organization, and many of those ways can prove to be highly beneficial as part of your strategic planning and management. 

For example, leveraging AI in your analytics is highly effective, not only to help you better utilize all aspects of data available but to also offer data-driven guidance for future decision-making. Using AI in your customer engagement, such as in a chatbot experience, can be instrumental in spotting trends or catching a concern early. Implementing AI in sales forecasting allows you to better predict future shifts, allowing you to better allocate resources and optimize operations. 

Starting small can ultimately help you move faster on your AI journey, with less risk and greater control. The more comfortable you are with the various ways AI is driving insights, the more likely you are to expand and experiment in other parts of the business.

Trust the process

For many areas of your organization, such as customer service, the supply chain or even marketing, AI adoption seems like a no-brainer. Strategy, however, doesn’t often fall into that category. As Yuval Atsmon, senior partner and head of the McKinsey Center for Strategy Innovation explains, strategy is “one of the most integrative conceptual practices. When executives think about strategy automation, many are looking at AI capabilities that would decide, in place of the business leader, what the right strategy is. They are missing opportunities to use AI in the building blocks of strategy that could significantly improve outcomes.”

Atsmon goes on to explain that AI is underutilized in a strategic setting because the technology is not well understood. Equally, many companies are still trying to plan a strategy too far in advance and for too long a period of time. Where AI can be the most beneficial in the context of business strategy is when you consider its value as building blocks to your ultimate goal. 

There is always the concern that AI will get something wrong. In truth, humans often get things wrong too. Rather than treat an AI-built strategy as the end or ultimate goal, instead consider it a tool that helps to build, analyze and create a strategy that is both well-informed and well-reasoned by a human team.

Don’t turn a blind eye to the pitfalls

Eric Ryan, founding partner of Mission Met, recently used ChatGPT to create a strategic business plan and wrote about his experience in Entrepreneur. While the experiment was undoubtedly efficient and insightful, he noted several challenges that arose, including a lack of contextual understanding from the AI and very real data privacy and ethical concerns. His conclusion was that AI should be considered as a tool that must be used alongside human capabilities if it is going to be effective and of value. 

AI is rife with concerns. As noted before, it’s a Wild West experience with little oversight and even less understanding. This leads to very real obstacles including the potential to dehumanize your organization, perpetuate misinformation and compromise privacy or security. Perhaps most challenging is to get buy-in from employees who may view AI as a threat to their own job. 

The opportunities for AI must be evaluated through a critical lens. Helping stakeholders to see how AI can enhance and improve their job experience rather than replace it is a good first step. So is creating a framework that allows AI tools to benefit the organization without relying too heavily on the technology to replace human reasoning and wisdom. While AI can help to inspire and inform, its creative capabilities are limited far more than a human mind. When implementing strategy, reasoned, creative thinking is still the strongest tool in your arsenal.

The full potential of AI is something that will only be realized over time. Like any new technology, it can be easy to fear that AI will eradicate everything we hold dear about the present time – remember the backlash against computers? What is more likely, however, is that AI will do what all technology has done through generations – enhance and evolve the potential and possibility of what humans can create. When evaluated through that lens, AI becomes a highly valuable tool that will help your team become more efficient and, ultimately, more successful. 

New to AI in strategic planning? Let us help. Contact us today and let us walk you through how best to harness the insights from AI to create a better strategy for your organization.