How corporate executives are leveraging AI

From innovation and competitiveness to streamlining productivity. 

AI technologies promise a range of valuable use cases for companies, but many are still seeking ways to realize its full potential.

With increased accuracy and automation, AI can help reduce risk and cut costs; helping drive both profitability for organizations and value to end clients. But, somewhat in contrast to that, Forbes Advisor reported that 43% of business leaders are concerned about becoming too reliant on AI.

The hype and potential risks surrounding AI may be making some corporate executives wary, but the benefits continue to drive interest in investing in and implementing AI technologies.

Corporate AI use cases

In the long run, investing in organization-wide AI literacy and having the resources to execute is crucial for the successful development and deployment of AI technologies. Cross-departmental AI use cases include:

Basic use cases

Data analysis – AI can crawl large datasets to help uncover trends and insights to help inform decision making.

Content creation – From drafting outlines to checking content accuracy, AI can help generate materials for marketing, social media and internal communications.

Workforce optimization – To help improve productivity, AI can analyze employee performance and engagement data to highlight patterns and areas for improvement for managers.

More advanced use cases

Ideation – AI can act as a brainstorming tool with the ability to help speed up creative and decision making processes, helping to refine ideas and foster collaboration among teams.

Chatbots – AI-powered chatbots can help handle customer inquiries and provide personalized, around-the-clock recommendations to improve customer satisfaction.

Cybersecurity and fraud prevention – AI systems can detect threats and respond in real-time to protect sensitive organizational data.

A supplement, not a replacement

Research from Harvard Business Review shows that in areas where AI technology lowers the cost of certain tasks by automating them, the value of the work that employees contribute to the remaining tasks increases. That’s because those remaining tasks demand intellectual skill or nuanced insight – an area where AI still lags behind human capabilities.

Pew Research Center found that 19% of American workers are in jobs exposed to AI, which they defined as having fundamental job-specific tasks that may be fully replaced or at least assisted by AI.

What remains unclear is whether AI exposure will lead to job losses. For now, AI continues to predominantly mimic cognitive functions and automate repetitive or predictive tasks.

As tasks that require exclusively human qualities rise in value, executives are turning their focus to skills that require judgement, creativity and human-to-human relationships.

Tactical steps for executives

Corporate executives can prepare to leverage AI by leading a clear vision for AI adoption and by starting with pilot projects to identify feasible use cases.

Not all AI solutions are easy to scale or integrate into existing systems. Strategically align AI applications with your organizational objectives to pursue your business goals and establish your organization as a competitive and productive leader in the digital space.

Sources: forbes.com; link.springer.com; asaecenter.org; hbr.org; pewresearch.org