Revolutionizing the way businesses operate, organizations worldwide are rapidly adopting emerging generative AI tools as part of their AI strategies. With the potential to add trillions of dollars in value annually, generative AI has grabbed the attention of tech leaders everywhere. McKinsey’s comprehensive report, authored by experts Aamer Baig, Sven Blumberg, Eva Li, Douglas Merrill, Adi Pradhan, Megha Sinha, Alexander Sukharevsky, and Stephen Xu, outlines nine vital actions for CIOs and CTOs to harness generative AI’s power responsibly and effectively.
While the area of generative AI continues to evolve rapidly, these strategic actions can help tech leaders navigate the landscape and create significant value within their organizations. The report is the culmination of extensive discussions with numerous tech leaders and an in-depth analysis of generative AI initiatives in more than 50 companies.
The report highlights the following actionable ideas for organizations to fully embrace the potential of generative AI:
1. Determine the company’s posture towards generative AI and establish effective communication channels and access for employees.
2. Reimagine the business and identify use cases that enhance productivity, drive growth, and create new business models. Incorporate “financial AI” (FinAI) capabilities to estimate costs and returns accurately.
3. Transform the technology function by swiftly developing generative AI capabilities in software development, reducing technical debt, and optimizing IT operations.
4. Leverage existing services or adapt open-source generative AI models to build proprietary capabilities. Creating and operating your own generative AI models can be cost-intensive in the short term.
5. Upgrade your enterprise technology architecture to seamlessly integrate and manage generative AI models alongside existing AI and machine learning (ML) applications and data sources.
6. Develop a robust data architecture that enables access to high-quality data from structured and unstructured sources.
7. Establish a centralized, cross-functional generative AI platform team to deliver approved models to product and application teams upon request.
8. Invest in upskilling key roles, such as software developers, data engineers, MLOps engineers, and security experts. Customize training programs based on roles and proficiency levels, considering the varying impact of generative AI.
9. Evaluate the new risk landscape and implement ongoing mitigation practices to address models, data, and policies effectively.
As organizations embrace the potential of generative AI, these strategies will play a crucial role in unlocking its transformative power. By adopting these actions, CIOs and CTOs can navigate the complexities and risks associated with generative AI, ultimately driving unprecedented value and innovation for their businesses.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- What is generative AI?
- Why is generative AI important for organizations?
- How can organizations harness the power of generative AI?
Generative AI refers to the use of artificial intelligence techniques to create or generate new content, such as images, text, or sound. It involves training models on vast amounts of data to learn patterns and generate new, original outputs.
Generative AI empowers organizations to enhance productivity, drive growth, and explore new business models. It can generate innovative solutions, automate repetitive tasks, and unlock new possibilities for creative expression and problem-solving.
Organizations can harness the power of generative AI by adopting strategies such as determining their stance towards generative AI, reimagining their business processes, upskilling key roles, and implementing effective data and technology architectures.