The Importance of Enterprise AI Education - Part 1 - Strategy

July 11, 2023

There will be a point in the near future where business organizations consider a proposal to utilize AI. An organization may or may not have a documented AI strategy.

Most likely AI studies and reports, conferences, third-party vendor demonstrations, news documentaries, articles, blogs, and other materials have been read, attended, or viewed. We believe that taking in too many sources of AI information can be confusing if not a barrier to understanding the appropriate application and utilization of today’s AI in your organization. 

In our AI projects to date, we have found that incorporating AI education across the “enterprise” is a critical success factor for how we assist clients in planning, applying, utilizing, and maintaining a business application or solution incorporating AI. 

Considering that AI is an innovative and somewhat disruptive technology not yet fully vetted from many perspectives, we have defined three levels of enterprise AI education when collaborating with new client organizations. We propose this enterprise AI educational model whether we are first contacted by an IT organization, a business manager, or executive management. As most mature organizations know how to manage and govern IT, they recognize that AI needs the same level of understanding to be effectively utilized. 

Let’s assume that the CIO is the first contact inquiring about how to begin incorporating AI into the organization’s future state IT enterprise application and systems infrastructure. Most likely, the CIO is already targeted by several technology and IT services organizations. In initial discussions, we often find that while there may have been an initial “project” incorporating an aspect of how AI could be utilized, it typically is not highly visible.  

Regardless of who we advise about enterprise AI education, our recommendation for AI education centers around exposing AI across three distinct areas of focus: Strategy, Business and Technology.  

Read part 2 in our next article where we will explore business considerations to prepare for enterprise AI education.