How should Chief Information Officers prepare to lead AI efforts in the enterprise? The author of a new book explains exactly what you need to know, on episode #706 of the CXOTalk series of conversations with people shaping our world.
Today’s CIOs must ensure that their organizations have an “AI-ready” infrastructure capable of supporting data and applications related to AI. The challenge is not whether to embrace AI, but how to prepare the organization to adopt AI in a way that increases business value and reduces risk. CIOs must also consider how to establish a distinct set of enterprise capabilities around AI. All this requires CIOs to establish a holistic view of their enterprise infrastructure and how it should evolve to support current and future capabilities related to AI and data. On episode #706 of CXOTalk, prominent author and investor, Ash Fontana, explains how CIOs can develop an “AI-first” operating model as a framework for IT as a business capability, beyond being just a technology provider. Ash is author of the book: The AI-First Company: How to Compete and Win with Artificial Intelligence Watch our entire, in-depth conversation and read the complete transcript. Here are edited comments from our conversation are below: It can be an existing company that starts to put AI at the start of every conversation, at the top of their agenda in every meeting, or it can be a new company that is focused and strategic about collecting the right data, feeding it into the right systems, building products with predictive value. That’s what an AI-first company is: a company that gets the imperative to build these systems and gets the need to focus on this from day one, so that you have the right data in the right place feeding into the right models. Rather than later trying to sprinkle AI over data that you’ve accidentally collected. The implications are a focus on data management, data collection, and data talent or data-competent talent when you’re thinking about budgeting, where to focus your attention.
