- [Instructor] Now it's important for organizations
to take a reality check.
Where are they in the AI journey?
I've divided this AI journey into four stages.
So there's the descriptive AI phase,
the diagnostic AI phase,
predictive AI
and finally, a prescriptive AI phase.
And as you move to the right,
the more mature your AI practice.
So what does this mean in terms of the time
that organizations spend on different tasks?
As you can see, the ratio of the time
varies across the continuum.
The more mature your AI practice,
the smaller the proportion of time you spend capturing data
and the greater the proportion of your time
that is spent analyzing the data and acting on it.
Descriptive analytics is the foundation.
Essential business data is captured,
but it can only tell you what happened.
Using an analogy of an online retailer,
this is the retailer capturing all
of your online transactions.
So you've captured the data,
and perhaps you know what are the best-selling products.
So how do you know
if you're still in the descriptive AI phase?
Well there are a couple of telltale signs.
Business stakeholders rely upon business intelligence
that primarily focuses on reporting
what has occurred in the past.
The vast majority of your time is capturing the data,
but no one is using it
until a report needs to be made for the management team.
So you're providing periodic reporting
of historical performance to business leaders.
You're at the descriptive AI stage
if you're still trying to acquire systems and processes
to help make data-driven decisions.
Your organization often rely on the talent,
instincts and experience of leaders
to make decisions, rather than data.
And you know you're at the descriptive AI stage
when insights can sometimes take months
and they're not shared across the organization.
Data remains in silos and is generally not accessible
and there's no centralized data management
across the organization.
And the only reporting might be some shared network drive
with several Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint presentations
that were made to the management team.
You're probably at the descriptive AI phase
if executive sponsorship and investment is lacking.
Now if, based on your assessment,
you are currently in the descriptive AI phase,
then the focus needs to be getting to diagnostic AI.
How do you do that?
So you want to initiate a project with your platform
or IT team where you're moving from where data is generally
not easily accessible, to data becoming more available.
You move to more advanced data processing methodologies,
although this might still exist in silos
and you're moving from data in silos
to connectivity existing between various data entities.
So how do you continue to move
from the descriptive AI phase to diagnostic AI?
You need to start thinking about the three Vs.
So that's volume, variety and velocity.
So you're starting to think about
getting an understanding of the available data,
so that's the volume.
It's structure, that's the variety.
And frequency, which is the velocity.
And how data can drive business outcomes.
So you're identifying business rules
and ensuring that compliance policies are documented.
You're visualizing data outside of Excel and PowerPoint
using Dashboarding.
This might still not be centralized,
but you're working towards that.
And how do you continue to move
from descriptive AI to diagnostic AI?
Well you're working towards having reusable code
in some business units.
You might not have had any data scientists
or machine-learning engineers,
but you're starting to invest in these resources
and crucially, for them to be working very closely
with the business stakeholders.
Now this might be difficult for some of the seasoned leaders
to get used to, but as an organization,
you are starting to make a transition
from depending on the talent and experience of leaders
to having a data-driven culture.
You aren't replacing the experienced leaders.
Rather, you're increasingly using data to inform decisions.
Now if in your assessment,
your organization is in the diagnostic AI phase,
so basically you did something in the business
and something else happened,
you are able to analyze your data.
So these are some signs that you are
in the diagnostic AI phase.
Business stakeholders recognize the value
of more advanced analytics
and are developing a strategy and a plan
to invest in technology.
So you've invested in data science
and AI resources and personnel
and the change in management necessary to take advantage
of advanced analytics capabilities.
The data scientist and the business stakeholders
are working closely together to identify business use cases
and the organization is aware of new data
applicable to business needs
and is able to harness them with some effort.
So if you're firmly in the diagnostic AI stage,
then you're probably in a position to seriously consider
creating a business case for AI in the organization.
You need to start thinking about how you can embed
AI insights into applications and systems
and business processes.
This stage allows you to take action.
So if you're an online retailer,
out of the hundreds of thousands of items
that you can sell,
using a recommendation engine,
you put on your shopper's screen
the five items that you think they're likely
to be interested in.
These are the items you think they are most likely
to be interested in buying
based on what is currently in their shopping cart,
their buying history with you
and what similar buyers to their profile would opt for.
And at the predictive AI stage,
you as an organization are also thinking about
the ethical implications.
You know what you can do with AI.
The question sometimes is should you?
And finally, there's the prescriptive AI.
As an organization, you are running agile experiments
and iterating between analyzing and acting on the data.
This is where the true business transformation
and disruption takes place.
At the prescriptive AI stage,
there could be several things that are taking place.
So think back to the online retailer.
They now know some of their customers so well
and let's say you're one of them
and they are so confident in their predictions
that they have set up
an informal subscription model with you.
So before you've even ordered anything,
they have shipped it to you.
So you ordered dishwashing powder and dog biscuits
every couple of weeks,
it's at your door even before you've ordered it.
Now the online retailer goes one step further.
In addition to the stuff that you normally buy,
they include a couple of items that they're certain
you would be interested in.
If you don't buy them, just leave them in the box
and they'll pick it up later in the week.
See what they've done?
You do most of your online shopping with them now.
You don't go anywhere else.
You see, all along it's been about you shopping
and then they ship those items across to you.
They've turned shopping on its head.
Now they ship first and you shop later.
This is where you get true disruption.
You think that a retailer truly understands you.
Now some of you might get freaked out
and some of you might think this is great
and one less thing to worry about.
Prescriptive AI,
this is true business transformation and disruption.
This is where most organizations want to be.