7 steps to accelerate your speed to value with GenAI

Often described as a ‘solution in search of a problem’, new technology can struggle to get beyond the hype and find practical, real-world applications. We’ve witnessed that with tech like the metaverse and NFTs; but there are rare gems that transcend the initial hype and embed themselves into our everyday lives. The gem of 2023 - and arguably of a whole generation - has been GenAI.

Brought to the masses just over a year ago by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, GenAI has transformed content creation for businesses and individuals. It’s a game-changer for efficiency, and with the right skills and ways of working in place, GenAI can significantly accelerate your speed to value.

In this blog, I’m breaking down our 7 key steps - tried and tested by clients - to help your business deliver to market faster with AI. 

7 steps to accelerate your AI speed to value

1. Hone your AI use cases

Bring the right combination of people together (product, tech, execs) for a use case exploration. There are endless possibilities that GenAI can solve for, but start small and focus on 2-3, and get buy-in from the start.

2. Think productivity before efficiency

Efficiency will come with time; but first you need to give your team the space to learn and experiment. Focus first on seeking opportunities to do more, and to get to market quicker with richer features and functionality.

3. Solve your customers’ real problems

Look at the most complex problems your target customers are facing. Are there any solutions that were previously unreachable - either because they weren’t possible without GenAI, or because low speed to value meant it wasn’t worthwhile? Can you now deliver a new product to market to solve this problem, using GenAI?

4. Enrich your current plans with AI

It’s not always about adding GenAI on top of already agreed capital plans and ‘locked and loaded’ technology architectures. Scan that plan and re-look at how many of the agreed projects and products could be enriched and enabled by GenAI - through the lens of speed to value, of course.

5. Get to the answer quickly

With the right people in the room and exec buy-in on use cases from day one, you can avoid the tedious line of approval that holds back innovation. Move through the cycle of use-case, to prototype, to proof of concept (PoC), to rollout. Step back to measure and reflect, before wider rollout and build-out of new use cases.

6. Tackle the GenAI skills gap

As a leader and an AI advocate, it’s your job to get your tech teams curious about GenAI. Encourage experimentation and sharing around successful prompt engineering. Share upskilling and courses on training Large Language Models (LLMs), and set some initial tasks in writing, creating, debugging and testing code with GenAI. Your team will soon find perks in GenAI’s productivity, freeing them up to work on more interesting and creative engineering tasks. 

7. Plan your data and governance strategy upfront

Don't hold up your GenAI-enabled product launches, with belated considerations of data security and privacy. Make sure this is all in place first. 

Know the AI opportunities - and the risks

While I’m a big believer in the opportunity GenAI can bring to elevate our roles, careers and organisations, I of course share this advice alongside a word of caution. Beware the risks, the hallucinations, the skills gap and the pace of GenAI’s evolution. Place your bets carefully, but do this at pace. Focus on speed to value, fail and learn fast and maybe this time, let’s believe the hype.

The digital skills gap could be holding back your journey and your chance to be competitive. Whether that’s a lack of GenAI skills in your team, or a simple lack of people to focus on GenAI, AND Digital can help. Learn more about our AI services.