Here's the one thing businesses are missing about going AI first
The drumbeat to go "AI first" is deafening. Businesses everywhere are abuzz about AI, and the mandate from the boardroom is clear: adopt AI, and do it yesterday.
Industries are equally awash with AI evangelists, engineers, and consultants who weave tales of revolutionary ROI, unfair competitive advantage, and lean operations – awaiting those who would just reach out to grasp it. Like the dot com and mobile eras of the last three decades, the AI gold rush is now in full swing.
Amidst this gold rush, I’ve noticed a pattern: businesses are, by and large, fixated on AI’s potential to automate their operations – how to make existing processes faster, cheaper, and less reliant on human hands. All without considering what I believe is the biggest opportunity of them all.
The true transformative power of AI awaits those who dare to reimagine business. Far beyond merely oiling the gears that exist today, AI puts a new light to questions we rarely get to ask of organizations: why does a business exist? What does a business want to achieve? And what, in an age of AI, does it mean to “run a business?”
These questions beg leaders to consider the very value a business offers and the intricate dance of how that value is delivered, from the business models that recognize, monetize, and realize value, to the products and services that convey that value, to the customer experiences that define brands.
Recently, we’ve had the chance to see a fascinating, if highly public, stumble play out on this front. Duolingo, the language learning behemoth, made a bold declaration to go fully “AI first” in April, hinting at a significant shift to come in the relationship Duolingo sought to have with its human translator workforce by replacing its contract workers with AI. The ensuing public backlash, however, prompted a swift recalibration of their messaging as their CEO attempted to reassure Duolingo’s workforce that their jobs were not at risk. Duolingo’s recent experience serves as a potent reminder that AI, perceived solely through the lens of replacement, rather than enhancement or reimagination, can be a precarious position.
At a minimum, it highlights a public that is keenly aware of AI’s potential and wary in equal measure of a future where human connection and expertise are summarily devalued in the name of efficiency. Which then begs the question: what good is AI if not for automation?
The allure of automation is understandable – it’s the low hanging fruit that offers quantifiable, near-term gains. And while it’s not inherently wrong, a focus on automation is a little like meticulously polishing the brass on the Titanic. Businesses could instead be asking if they want to even be on this particular ship, or if AI might afford us the opportunity to build something entirely new. Maybe a vessel that doesn’t just cross the ocean, but takes to the stars.
With this in mind, here are three things I suggest you can think about in your own organizations to consider where AI creates opportunities to go beyond automation to reimagination:
Work from the bottom up: Instead of a blanket mandate to “AI everything,” start by examining the biggest pain points in your business. What’s costly, chronically inefficient, or chronically unreliable? Where do your teams consistently run up against roadblocks? And what functions consume disproportionate resources for the value they deliver? These might be areas ripe for substantive improvement. By targeting granular pains such as these, you’re not just looking for tasks to automate away – you’re now on the path to looking for foundational cracks where AI might enable entirely new structures and ways of working – with the chance to potentially redesign how work itself is done to be more meaningful and impactful. This goes beyond just eliminating manual work – it could be about elevating the nature of the work that remains.
Evaluate the weak links in your customer experience: Every business has moments in the customer journey where the experience falters. Maybe it’s in the transparency of your customer support. Or the way in which customers are onboarded. Or perhaps it’s in the amount of time you can afford to spend with your customers. Often, these happen to be the areas where human teams are stretched thin and constrained by legacy systems. In this context, the great AI opportunity isn’t about replacing the human touch, but making it possible to enhance and scale it. There are entire bodies of research going into the use of AI for personalization – imagine AI that anticipates customer needs before the customer knows it, enabling your customer-facing teams to uncannily be there just when the customer needs you the most. And enabling these teams to exercise empathy and complex problem solving in their customer interactions. The goal isn’t fewer human interactions, but better, more meaningful ones.
Lead the conversation to reconsider mission and vision: This is one that requires deep courage, but it might be the most important one for your organization. In a world where AI is fundamentally reshaping what computing can do, upending traditional cost structures, and dramatically changing customer expectations – what business are you really in? Put another way - what latent value, previously uneconomical or logistically impossible to deliver, could you now potentially unlock? This requires leadership to take an honest look in the mirror and challenging “the way things have always been done.” If AI could handle mundane tasks at scale, what audacious goals could your human talent pursue? If predictive inference is just a tap away, how might that change your commitments to customers?
All of this is more than just strategic planning – it’s business soul searching. It’s contemplation of what business you’re really in, enabled by the unprecedented technological potential brought forth by AI.
The path for any business thinking about what AI means can go well beyond thinking about “how to be disruptive” or past the cynicism of the heralded inevitable obsolescence of people in business. The invitation here is the chance to fundamentally re-think what it means to build and run a business, redefine what it means to create value, and to reimagine how that value is delivered to a human world. The organizations that embrace this call and go beyond automation are the ones positioned to truly lead in the era of AI.
