The case for moving fast with AI

Bubble or not, here they come.

A study from professional-services firm Accenture, released on January 15, found that execs are investing in AI—and would keep the investments going, even if the larger AI bubble…popped:

• Almost 9 in ten (86%) C-suite leaders plan to up their AI investments.
• Less than half (46%) of leaders say they would keep the investments going even in the event of a market correction—often defined as a market decline of more than 10%.
• More than three-quarters of respondents (78%) see AI “as more beneficial to revenue growth than cost reduction,” an increase from 65% in June 2024.

The global survey polled 3,650 execs from orgs with annual revenues greater than $500 million.

Given investment enthusiasm, Muqsit Ashraf, group chief executive for strategy at Accenture, says organizations that hold back on the emerging tech risk getting beat by competitors.

“You need to move fast, because you will be left behind in this race in a context where, clearly, this has become a C-suite priority,” Ashraf told IT Brew, adding that while speed is of the essence, so is “clarity on how a specific enterprise is going to create value.”

In a conversation with IT Brew, Ashraf offers tips for IT pros on how to start building that value.

Responses below have been edited for length and clarity.

Do you feel like C-suite leaders are feeling a pressure to deploy AI quickly?

The discussion is less about pressure and more about the imperative to get AI to drive a creative ROI and to be the driving force to …reinvent companies, both from how they go to market (their business models) and how they operate.

Almost all of the C-suite executives that we talked to are asking, “How do we accelerate the journey from pilot and experimentation to business outcomes and value at scale?” In fact, in our survey, if I had to summarize the tone…It was one of optimism. It was one of conviction about AI being a force for reinvention and for delivering tangible business outcomes.

What gives people confidence that AI deployments equal revenue growth?

AI allows companies to rethink either how they develop the product or how quickly they develop the product. It also comes from how they deliver services. Take a bank, for instance. If a bank is able to offer a hyper-personalized experience to every one of their customers based on their history, their demographics, if [customers] are providing a very brief survey on their preferences, then you have a much higher ability to potentially attract new customers or retain your existing customers.

What is a good strategy for finding the right business process for AI?

What are some of the most critical decisions that your company makes, and how do you increase the effectiveness or efficiency of those critical decisions, which are generally underpinned by one or more processes?...That is one very surgical way of getting to what you might want to apply AI to.

Do you see downside to a company that might have a lot of proof of concepts?

I think there are challenges for companies that have overdone the idea of POC, because often what has happened is companies take a particular local pain point and say, “You know what? I need to apply AI here and see how it can help.” And then suddenly what you have is a lot of areas where they have done small experiments and created value in those small areas. But then, how does it all link to enterprise-level value?

What’s the next level beyond proof of concept (PoC)?

If you take examples like enhancing customer retention, for instance, and you are able to use generative AI, or even agentic AI, to increase the hyper-personalization for your customer service team, and you have now managed to figure out a way that allows you to retain more of your customers, then how do you now scale that to your entire customer pool? That is where you need to make sure that you’re not just building out the technology. You’re making sure that everyone that’s applying the technology, your workforce, is adequately trained to be able to leverage the technology, where it is going to augment their ability to interact with customers.

Why is speed “of the essence”?

The pace of technological disruption has never been faster and will never be slower…If you’re unable to get your workforce to be skilled, to be able to drive those changes, then you will be left with a workforce that either is disinterested—they’ll find interesting opportunities elsewhere, and you start losing your people side—or you will be left with legacy tech, legacy applications, and legacy business models, which are going to be grossly uncompetitive.