Understanding AI's Role in Business, and How to Successfully Use It

Last month, Fama partnered with WRKdefined on a webinar about Busting the AI Myths of Candidate Fit. Experts Shally Steckerl, Ben Mones, and William Tincup jumped on the live streamed-event to talk about some of the most common misconceptions about AI, what employers need to know about it, and how to use it safely and effectively for organizational and people success. 

Toward the end of the event, Tincup asked Mones and Steckerl “How often should the board of directors be talking about AI and AI adoption in meetings?” Mones and Steckerl responded that BoDs should be asking at each and every meeting “Do we need to adopt this yet or can we wait without losing our competitive advantage?”

In today’s article, we’re going to  unpack this, the webinar, and answer some key questions that employers and board members should know while considering whether it's time to adopt AI within the organization, and how to make the transition. 

What to Know About Buying AI Solutions? 

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming more common in business today. To keep up with the changing world, it's important for companies to know how AI fits into their operations and how they can leverage AI tools to solve business problems.

Fancy and Sophisticated Doesn’t Mean Better 

Businesses sometimes think that fancy, expensive AI tools are always the best solution. But this can make problems more complicated than they need to be, waste money, and make things less efficient. Instead, businesses should take a simpler, more practical approach to problem-solving.

Just Because Others Are Doing It, Doesn’t Mean You Need To

Many experts agree that businesses shouldn't just follow the crowd when it comes to new technologies like AI. It's important to think carefully about whether a technology really fits the problem it's meant to solve. Even though AI is talked about a lot, it's important to understand what it can and can't do.

The Right Time to Adopt AI is When There’s a Business Need for It 

The main idea here is that AI tools should be judged based on how well they fit with what a business needs to accomplish. Fancy AI might seem impressive, but it's not always the best choice for every situation. It's important for businesses to find tools that are practical, easy to use, and actually help solve the problems they're facing.

By taking a careful approach to choosing technology, businesses can use their resources better and get things done more efficiently. This means looking for simple, easy-to-use AI tools that really make a difference in meeting business goals.

We’re Ready to Use AI. What Now?

Once your organization has established a business need, it’s time to understand how to safely and effectively use the solutions as well as how to evaluate solution providers. The sections below provide practical tips and actionable insights you can use to do just that. 

How to Safely and Effectively Use AI? 

As Steckerl said in the webinar, setting your organization up to use AI successfully means creating an infrastructure that supports it. Let’s take a look at what that means below. 

Using AI safely and effectively means:

• Understand what it’s good at and what it isn’t: AI is a tool that people can use to take in and analyze a huge amount of data really quickly. What it isn’t good at – making decisions. Understanding this nuance – that it’s a tool people can use to help them make better decisions faster – is critical. 
• Boundaries: That includes making sure the software does what it’s supposed to and doesn’t do what it’s not supposed to. AI will do what you tell it to do no matter what. Understanding what you want it to do, areas that those directions may cross lines, and then building in the boundaries to keep the software solution on the path you want it on is important. 
• Transparency: That means communicating the proper disclosures to the proper stakeholders. 
• Human Oversight: AI is not something organizations should “set and forget.” It needs to be actively monitored, checked on, and updated – both on the solution provider-end and on the business-end. 

8 Questions to Ask Every Software Solution Provider  

Boundaries, transparency, and human oversight are great in theory. But, how should business leaders and software buyers within an organization assess that when evaluating software solutions? Here are some questions to ask software vendors: 

• What type of data is being used?
• How is the data going to be used? 
• How is data going to be protected?
• Who is responsible/accountable?
• What training data are you using?
• What audits have you or independent auditors done to review models and algorithms? 
• How do you approach ethical AI?
• How often do you update your models? 

In summary, understanding AI's role in business means recognizing both its strengths and its limitations. Instead of going for the flashiest options, businesses can get better results by keeping things simple and practical. By making smart choices about technology and asking the right questions, businesses can use AI to drive innovation and success.

For more information on AI adoption, subscribe to the Fama blog and watch the webinar here.