It is as yet unknown if artificial intelligence is more akin to a “great invention” of the 19th and 20th centuries, or if it will ultimately represent another more incremental evolution of existing capabilities. The former—as seems more likely given the immense investments being made today—will present significant challenges to nearly every organization that, having become accustomed to incremental change, is suddenly faced with a “great inventions” caliber paradigm shift that AI seems to portend. Or, as I continue to remind the CIOs with whom I work closely, the grace period for organizations to get their act together and position themselves for the next wave is growing much shorter, the margin for error much more narrow. In this session we will explore AI strategies that are flexible, able to absorb tomorrow what we don’t fully grasp today, strategies that offer value to the organization beyond specific AI-driven workloads because the nature and value of these workloads will remain unclear for some time. We will understand core concepts behind AI acting on enterprise data, present a framework of five pillars upon which future-ready AI strategies are built, and discuss concepts and approaches to mitigate risk in your organization’s AI strategy.

This session is based on a piece I published at https://cloudlight.house/blog/intro-ai-strategy, and reflects my latest work on the topic. It will be the subject of a white paper upcoming later in 2023.