THE FOUR ELEMENTS

YOUR AI STRATEGY
NEEDS TO SUCCEED
The Four Elements Your AI Strategy Needs to Succeed

Artificial intelligence (AI) will be a key

technology that propels organizations
through Digital Transformation (DX).

IDC predicts that by the end of 2019, 40%

of all DX initiatives will be related to AI.
That’s because data that comes from DX initiatives has limited
value without the right technology to empower organizations to
extract valuable, accurate, and timely insights.
Many businesses are turning to AI technologies to help derive
real value from their data, but in a haphazard way. Enterprises
need to create an organization-wide Artificial Intelligence
Strategy to prioritize where to implement AI and how to use it.
So, how do you start creating your organization’s AI strategy?
Here are the first steps you need to take:

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The Four Elements Your AI Strategy Needs to Succeed

1 Align the AI Strategy with a

Strategic Business Goal
AI technology is capable of so many tasks. Organizations need to clearly define what element of their business they
want to improve and tie their AI strategy to a business goal (such as improving profits or reducing workforce costs),
and not a technology goal. Once the business goal has been identified, organizations should assess if the desired
business outcome aligns with one or more of the core benefits of AI. Some of those core benefits include:

Complete work Improve the Automate routine and/

more quickly quality of work or repetitive tasks

IN PRACTICE
For example, if your business goal was to improve productivity, your organization’s AI strategy could include identifying routine
and repetitive tasks to automate, which will in turn increase accuracy and efficiency in your business processes. Improving
productivity through AI will then deliver insights in a timely manner, resulting in a better realization of business value.
One more thing to remember when aligning your strategy to business goals - make sure that you are using your AI strategy and
AI technology to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. AI is transformative, so you don’t want to expend the
time and resources to just align your AI strategy to a short-term business goal.

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The Four Elements Your AI Strategy Needs to Succeed

2 Use Rich Data Sets as the Foundation

of Your Strategy Execution
The most successful way to ensure your AI strategy is driving sustainable competitive advantage
is to make rich, preferably exclusive data sets, the foundation of your strategy execution.

To successfully deploy AI, your Computing power is available via the cloud to almost any
organization needs three things: company. Machine/deep learning models and algorithms
are open source and are being democratized. There is little
competitive advantage to hinging your AI strategy on either of
these elements. However, data, particularly proprietary data, is
an element on which your organization can build a sustainable
strategy for competitive advantage.
Even if you have your own proprietary data, you will most
likely need to supplement it with data from other providers as
well. No matter the source of your data, it is crucial to ensure
that you are working with high quality data, and are following
Rich data sets
Computing power Machine learning secure governance guidelines to protect your proprietary data
(high speed and and/or deep learning
infinitely scalable) algorithms and to safeguard third party data.

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The Four Elements Your AI Strategy Needs to Succeed

AI Strategy in Action
An IDC client in automotive insurance planned on embarking on an AI-first strategy. They based this
strategy on their proprietary data. The company combined their unique data about its auto insurers
and vehicles with real-time GPS app data to gain more detailed and real-time information about its
drivers. Combining this information through AI algorithms gave the company better insight into the
habits of their insurers and will potentially help the company from taking on high-risk drivers.
This strategy to combine the company’s private data with publicly available data or third-party data
creates competitive advantage.
AI strategy aligned with the business goal should have data as the foundation. This
way AI can help businesses create sustainable competitive advantage.

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The Four Elements Your AI Strategy Needs to Succeed

3 Consider Which Business Processes

Will Need to be Updated to
Support the Strategy
Integrating AI into your business based upon your strategy is smart, but it can be
challenging because there are so many factors to consider. When executing your
business strategy, think about these three things:

Processes Change Management Technology

Mature companies will have
of archaic processes that
will need to be upgraded to
accommodate the AI strategy
and technology. Adding
AI to just one part of the
system, when other system
processes will still be slow,
won’t help the process
overall.
Establish a change management organization
to proactively address human concerns about
AI. Look for ways to retool existing staff to
support more strategic initiatives and fill in
skill gaps. If you plan on building an AI team,
you will need to address both the business
and technology sides — people who have
a general understanding of AI and people
who can understand and work with data and
programmers.
AI technology is being commoditized,
which means that unless AI is your
main business, you can simply use AI
as a service provided by companies
like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft
or other niche players — but just be
careful how you share your data and
ensure data privacy and compliance.
Remember, your proprietary data is
your competitive advantage. Protect it.

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The Four Elements Your AI Strategy Needs to Succeed

4 Include Ethical Considerations

in Your Strategy
With any technology, there is the potential for individuals to use it in an irresponsible or
unethical manner. The same is true for artificial intelligence.
Recent advances in AI have made it smarter, faster, and more human. But with all the data, opinions, and
interactions from a global community, AI can inherit our human flaws, particularly around biases. Since AI
algorithms are built by humans, they aren’t neutral. This leaves them exposed to bias as they are programmed
or used. Instances of bias are found in image searches, hiring software, financial searches, and so forth.
That’s why it’s so important for organizations that build or use AI technology to address these questions and
establish a code of ethics within their AI strategy.

How to eliminate AI bias, protect user data, stay in

control of a complex system, and protect against
unintended consequences are just some of the
fundamental questions organizations should be
prepared to answer when working with AI.

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The Four Elements Your AI Strategy Needs to Succeed

The rapid rise of digital

transformation has pushed AI to
the top of the corporate agenda.
Organizations that don’t approach AI integration in a thought-out,
text strategic manner risk wasting time, money, and resources on a digital
transformation process that doesn’t help realize business success. A
strategy that identifies areas ripe for AI and aligns to tangible business
goals is crucial for implementing meaningful digital transformation.

Learn more about how IDC works with clients to build and
execute effective AI strategies. Watch this video featuring
IDC’s Program Vice President of AI Strategies, Ritu Jyoti, and
see how IDC is approaching AI and AI strategy.

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