Implementing AI Tools:
Key First Steps
At many organizations you’ll likely find a wide range of feelings regarding AI. Excitement, fear, confusion, curiosity, and hesitation all within the same walls. No one truly knows what the future holds for AI and how it will impact our lives and work. Or when. But as fast as it is evolving, we can all agree it certainly will. Something new pops up weekly and we’ve all experienced a colleague or industry voice telling you about the next big thing you didn’t know about. So, how do you go about testing and ultimately adopting tools for your organization? 1123 has invested time and resources into a few key items that help answer this very important question.
AI Vision
What do you want your AI Culture to be? Will you encourage team members to discover and experiment with new tools? Do you want to find ways to do work more efficiently? Do you want individuals and departments to seek tools that make their work more innovative? An AI Vision and desired culture needs to be established by leadership. As you begin to roll out and adopt AI in future steps, keep in mind that change comes from the top town. You can’t create policy and culture for AI if the C-Suite isn’t living that vision and using AI tools.
Responsible AI
It is essential to create policies to ensure AI is used responsibly and ethically at your organization. Create an AI Council, which is an internal committee, that will work together to create AI policies. The committee can be created with volunteers, nominations, or a combination of both. Try to have each department in your organization represented on the council. That will ensure that all potential use cases are considered. Your AI Council should consider outlining…
- AI Best Practices
- AI Do’s and Don’ts
- AI Use Policy
- Access Control Policy
- Legalities in Your Industry
AI Internal Launch
Once you have established your desired culture and outlined policies for responsible and ethical use of AI, it is time to launch internally. You need to create an internal communications plan. Express your AI Vision so you can work towards organizational alignment. There may be some trepidation from some members of your team. Clearly communicate what AI will and will not be within your organization. At this time, you should also identify AI Champions, who are people from various departments that will test different AI tools. (more on that in a moment) Create a space for sharing where team members can share information and ask questions related to AI.
Test AI Products
Now the fun begins! In this phase, individuals and departments test AI tools to consider adopting into your tech stack. Create a process and procedure for your organization to follow in the testing phase. For example, you could create a form for staff to fill out and submit to request a tool to test. Tools should be tested INTERNALLY ONLY to begin with. In the test phase…
- Review and Understand Terms of Service of each AI Tool you trial.
- Assess the Value of AI Tool
- Develop Use Cases
- Report to Leadership after an identified period.
Create a feedback form for those testing tools to fill out and submit. Organizational and AI Leadership uses this information to determine whether to invest in the tool long-term and whether to role it out beyond internal use.
Adoption
You discovered an AI tool, put it through the testing phase, found valuable use cases and adopted it into your tech stack. How do you introduce it to the organization? Education is vital. You need to teach relevant staff how it works, provide use cases and samples, prompts, and any templates that may be available.
Establish a tracking system so you can continue to evaluate AI tools after you have adopted them. This will ensure the investment was worthwhile and guide you on whether you should continue to invest.
- Consider having usage minimums. If you are going to invest in tools, you want to be sure they are being utilized.
- Illustrate: Time saved, productivity
- Reviews: 30, 60, 90 Days
Looking for additional guidance on adopting AI within your organization? Reach out! I would be happy to talk about this exciting technology and processes with you! ryan@weare1123.com