Key Steps to Implementing GenAI in Your Business
Since OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public in November 2022, the interest in Generative AI (Gen AI) has grown significantly. Every few weeks a new Large Language Model (LLM) is released promising to have better generative capabilities than its predecessor or competitors. Outside the models being released by big tech like Google, Meta, and OpenAI, some of the top LLM’s are released by companies the public never knew about or who didn’t exist before the Gen AI boom like Anthropic and Mistral. And let’s be honest, most of us weren’t aware of OpenAI before ChatGPT was released. We’re also seeing a big focus on multimodal models that aren’t only using text for input and output, but audio, video and images.
With Gartner predicting GenAI hitting the high of the hype cycle last year, we are now seeing the dust settling on GenAI and people are looking at it with more sobriety as they are starting to realise the true benefits of incorporating GenAI into their organizations. Using solutions like Microsoft’s Copilot for Microsoft 365, users are improving and speeding up their daily output. There is no denying that GenAI can have a positive impact for your organization, and outside “off-the-shelf” solutions like Microsoft’s Copilot, there are even bigger opportunities for your business to create tailored solutions that can improve your customer and employee experience.
But this is where most companies get stuck. We see this often in the market where companies want to implement Gen AI, but they don’t have a clear strategy in place or the expertise in implementing such a solution. Outside of the actual technology implementation, there are very real business and people strategies that need to be considered first. A clear methodical approach is required, and leveraging some of the below steps you can set your organization up for success in its implementation of GenAI.
Start with People
Understanding the current skill set helps identify strengths and areas for improvement. Begin by evaluating the technical and domain expertise within your organization. Remember that you shouldn’t only focus on the technical skill sets. Having technical skills will help, but you require a team with domain expertise, strong communication skills and business analysis skills as you are not simply looking at building a solution but a business strategy around GenAI. Once you have identified the key people, you can assemble a governance team that will focus on GenAI solutions, and you will also have a clear plan on where you require assistance from consultants or vendors who will form part of your team. This team will evaluate the implementation of GenAI within your organization by reviewing everything from how the solutions aligns with your business values, goals and compliance, to user adoption of the solutions to the technical implementation.
Discovery
Once your governance team is in place, you can start looking at use cases for GenAI. Leveraging the experience and domain experience of your governance team members, you can start identifying valid use cases for GenAI within your organization. Once you have use cases clearly defined, you must start looking at your data. Data is one of the most important factors in implementing a GenAI solution (or any bespoke AI solution for that matter). You must ensure that your data is in a usable state and is sanitized. You must ask yourself some questions about your data, like it’s accuracy, security and governance around the data and how performant the data is. As part of the discovery phase, you also need to look at existing infrastructure and existing solutions.
Build, Deploy, Iterate, Measure
Start your builds by first focusing on smaller pilot solutions. By developing a pilot solution, you get the opportunity to build prototypes and test the effectiveness and accuracy of your GenAI solution. This gives you the freedom to explore and fail without requiring a large financial commitment before you can prove the clear benefits of your solution, and you can also use this to increase buy-in from the organization for your GenAI solution. We’ve found that initially focusing on quick wins and high impact solutions significantly increases the chance of your solution being adopted.
Once you have proven the value of your prototype, you can start working on the production version and roll-out of the solution by ensuring things like user training and awareness campaigns are done as part of your project.
With your solution being used by your organization or customers, you also require clear measures to identify the success and impact of your solution. Ensure that you create metrics to measure how your solution is being used, users’ perception of the solution, and the efficiency of the solution.
Final Thoughts
Implementing a GenAI strategy should be a holistic approach that focuses on people, technology, and your business strategy. Most companies see the value of implementing GenAI solutions within their organizations but find it daunting to communicate the benefits of it and setting up a governance team around it. Mint has assisted companies in implementing teams that drive strategic innovations. Reach out to us today and we can discuss how we can help you with your GenAI journey.
