Artificial Intelligence (AI) startups have been making lives and processes more straightforward through various means. These include lead scoring to AI assisting in making simple decisions. AI is now emerging as a pivotal force, driving many changes and innovations across industries. As per an article on Crunchbase, over 23 Billion USD has been invested into AI startups in 2023 as of August 2023.
For executives, AI will offer approaches to make decision-making better and simpler by harnessing historical data and predictive analytics. I have seen a massive increase in the utilization of AI at multiple levels of an organization.
Some data that AI is becoming part of our daily lives is:
- Snap’s My AI chatbot has received 10 billion messages from 150 million users.
- According to Capegemini, 96% of executives said AI is a hot topic of discussion with their boards.
- IBM found that 34% of companies currently use AI, and an additional 42% are exploring it.
- 54% of companies see AI as supporting cost savings for the business.
- 74% of executives believe that generative AI’s benefits outweigh its risks.
Combination of Strategy and Technology
We have seen a lot of brilliant improvements in the AI domain. The efficiency of the tools has improved, and the speed is also enhancing. AI is revolutionizing executive decision-making, corporate strategy, and planning by actively driving enhanced processes.
Strategy is critical to any business’s success and the organization’s future. This happens by planning and wisely using the resources available. AI can enhance this by using large amounts of data and providing business leaders clear and actionable insights. Being data-informed plays a vital part in maintaining a competitive edge.
As human beings, information can sometimes become too much and overwhelm the decision-maker, impacting the decision. AI enhances decision-making by analyzing complex, multifaceted, and voluminous data, identifying previously overlooked patterns, anomalies, and insights.
Combining emotion with AI
While AI can be helpful, it does not look into one element: emotion. So, combining the power of AI with human emotional intelligence can help businesses understand more about their customers and enhance the decision-making process. I have learned that at the other end of a product being sold is a human being making a decision. The end customer can have multiple emotional reasons for making the decision and reject the product.
AI can analyze the quantitative aspects, for example, purchasing patterns, click-through rates, and other KPIs, to develop a better understanding. Similarly, the executive management can utilize AI to support creating a better customer experience and what could be an excellent next strategic move.
In addition, humans can also make ethical and experiential decisions that could support better decision-making. AI can support data-backed recommendations, with human emotional intelligence weighing on these suggestions, with the moral implications. This will then align the business objectives together with human values.
Integration of AI into better efficiency and productivity
If AI were integrated into support decision-making, it could improve efficiency and productivity, and the executives could focus on more critical decision-making. This includes tasks that are repetitive and do not need much thought about. This field already exists, and I have seen businesses save millions of dollars because of process automation to support their employees. If executive management starts automating simple things using AI, it will increase the team’s productivity.
AI can support risk management and mitigation.
Potential risks can always occur. AI can support in identifying and alerting executives to potential risks and threats, from market fluctuations to cybersecurity vulnerabilities or monitoring the stock market for sudden issues. If a problem can be forecasted in advance, mitigation strategies can be derived to avoid it even before it happens. This will take the executive management team from being reactive to safeguarding the business.
Ethical issues and considerations
AI seems helpful and great, but the executive team must ensure data privacy, ethical diligence, and unbiased algorithms. Moreover, it is critical that the management also addresses the limitations of AI, like dependency on data quality, and the importance of a human looking over to ensure better insights.
AI keeps evolving quickly, and its role in executive management will expand, further supporting strategic leadership and organizational decision-making. The combination of AI not only assists executive management in enhancing their decisions but also propels the business towards a model of decision-making informed by two pivotal layers: data-driven insights from AI and emotional, ethical, and experiential guidance from executive leadership. Additionally, we can forecast risks and take action before issues arise.
Have you already started discussing AI and bringing it to the executive management for decision-making?
