Let’s face it, AI is hardly a new phenomenon. It’s been baked into many of the devices around us for years – just ask Siri!
What is new is the speed with which we’ve seen the ability to control generative AI become mainstream. The most obvious example is ChatGPT. However, there are many other applications of generative AI, including visual applications, marketing applications, customer relations applications – and the list goes on. The point we are trying to make is that generative AI is here to stay – and it won’t just involve ChatGPT. If you’re not ready for it, there’s a risk your business will be left behind.
Here are three AI-readiness questions we think decision-makers in future-focussed organisations need to ask themselves.
How well do you understand the AI-driven opportunities for executing your strategy?
A 3-5 year strategic plan is likely to contemplate the widespread use of AI applications. Unfortunately, the people crafting these plans are often not the ones familiar with AI capabilities. There’s plenty of information online, including this article about the top 70 generative AI applications. We also recommend corporate leaders start to play around with apps like ChatGPT to get a feel for what generative AI can do.
What teams will you need to execute your strategy if the roll-out plan includes generative AI?
Understanding which generative AI applications will help you efficiently deliver your strategy is one thing. Understanding the capabilities and resources you will need to develop, implement and manage them is another. Like the tech itself, the roles required for generative IT are constantly evolving. For example, there’s now a role called a prompt engineer – someone who can command a generative AI bot. The skills needed for that role, including creative development, are usually self-taught and innate. That’s why many in these evolving roles are not purely tech people – they have backgrounds in the disciplines of arts, history and science.
How can these future capabilities be built at scale?
One of the biggest challenges in this space is that the developments are nascent and people with the right skills are scarce – and expensive. The scarcity of candidates has seen prompt engineer roles around the world attract salaries as high as £360k – roughly AUD 670k! We have a few collaborative partnerships in place where we are working with experts in several fields to explore this further as it is so new.
For many organisations, it’s not just a question of catching up the capability. It’s about building the capabilities at scale to ensure they can keep up.
JOST&Co is exploring this new world alongside you. We know the right questions to ask and can facilitate design-thinking sessions with subject matter experts to help get your leaders AI-ready.