SkaiLab

Why aren’t companies implementing AI across all processes?

Insights & Trends
Why aren’t companies implementing AI across all processes?
As we observe the current landscape of AI adoption in business, a consistent trend emerges: around 35% of companies are actively integrating AI into their business processes. The remaining market segment is either in the exploratory phase, planning to adopt AI within the next 1-2 years, or has not yet started considering AI.

Given our deep involvement in innovation management—several team members having earned advanced degrees in this field—this topic resonates strongly with us. We’d like to share our insights.

We categorize companies into two distinct groups: innovators and conservatives.

  • Innovator Companies are those where technology adoption is high, employees are proactive, and new solutions are often proposed from within the team.
  • Conservative Companies tend to focus more on operational support, with less emphasis on technological innovation.

For innovator companies, the AI adoption process often starts organically from within the organization and typically follows these stages:

  1. Stage 1: Employees, particularly in marketing or product teams, begin using AI tools for routine tasks, such as content generation. Over time, AI usage expands to other departments like sales and product development.
  2. Stage 2: AI becomes integrated not just into individual tasks but into the broader business processes of specific departments, targeting areas with the highest potential ROI. For instance, the entire process of managing social media and generating creatives might become AI-driven.
  3. Stage 3: Eventually, AI-optimized processes proliferate across all departments, transforming the company into an AI-powered organization. Routine and low-skill tasks are largely automated or eliminated.

In conservative companies, the path to AI adoption is either not yet underway or is being driven from the top down, often facing significant resistance from employees, which complicates the implementation process.

The key to successful AI implementation—and indeed the adoption of any technology—is the initiative of employees. Building a culture of innovation is essential. While this process is often challenging and time-consuming, we’ve observed that some companies are overcoming these barriers by appointing dedicated AI implementation leaders (with the number of such roles increasing by 74% in the past two years).

However, even conservative companies can successfully adopt AI, typically through strategic decisions made by company founders. For these companies, starting at the second stage—by building fully AI-driven autonomous processes that require minimal employee involvement—can be crucial. For example, automating the sales quality control process might be a starting point. However, it’s important to note that the ROI in such cases is generally lower than in innovator companies.

In summary, the main challenges companies face when implementing AI include:

  • Lack of qualified specialists and a gap in understanding AI.

Solution: Cultivating an innovation-driven culture is crucial. This is a long-term investment, but a necessary one. Alternatively, companies can bridge this gap by hiring AI specialists who can lead the implementation process.

  • High implementation costs and uncertainty about ROI.

Solution: Clearly defining business goals and taking incremental steps toward automation is essential. Research shows that the average ROI from AI implementation can reach 250%.

  • Concerns about data privacy and security.

Solution: This is a complex issue, and we’ll delve into it further in a future post. However, starting with processes that involve minimal risk of confidential information exposure can help mitigate these concerns.

We believe that with the right approach, any company can successfully integrate AI into their operations, driving innovation and efficiency across all levels.


Discover how to implement and leverage AI in your company with a free consultation from our experts.

Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/dgStWY_4