Blog It’s time to innovate: three steps to building generative AI into your organisation
By Insight Blog / 29 Jun 2023 / Topics: Data and AI Generative AI
Generative AI is one of the most talked about innovations in recent history. Its ability to understand natural language, interact with users and generate content is game-changing.
At Insight, we’re seeing a lot of interest from clients seeking innovative new ways to use generative AI. For example, Insight recently partnered with South Australia’s Department for Education and Microsoft to develop a generative AI app for schools focused on teaching students how to use AI productively and safely.
Its potential uses are almost limitless. Organisations across a wide range of industries and sectors, from professional services to manufacturing and healthcare, are exploring or already using generative AI. They are using it to improve productivity, reduce costs, and enhance the customer and employee experience.
However, we also know that many organisations don’t yet fully understand the opportunities generative AI present. In a recent survey conducted by The Harris Poll, Insight found that while 72 per cent of responding organisations plan to use generative AI to improve productivity, 78 per cent have yet to consider how they can use generative AI to improve security for their business.
Take an early advantage
As is the case with any big change, we are seeing apprehension around what embracing generative AI might mean for organisations and, in particular, their data security and governance posture. We saw this with the cloud too. People were concerned that they might lose control of their data or the ability to control who has access to it, but we have since seen the cloud transform security protocols, improve threat detection and prevention, and accelerate disaster recovery.
We can learn from our cloud experience by planning and preparing carefully to ensure generative AI implementations are secure and tailored to your organisation’s needs. This can take time and involves an iterative process. So early adopters stand to gain significant head start – and potential competitive advantage – over companies that take a wait-and-see approach.
To get you started, here are the three key steps we believe every leader must take to unlock the power of generative AI in a secure and sustainable manner – and how we, at Insight, can help you through the process.
1. Embrace an AI mindset
AI is subverting many of the assumptions and expectations we had around technology and its role in the workplace. Embracing the art of the possible means breaking the constraints of legacy thinking, so we can imagine transformative new ways of doing things.
Instead of relying on existing ways of thinking, leaders need to reimagine problems and solutions from the ground up, guided by the latest developments and augmenting processes in AI.
We’ve always thought of AI not as a technology evolution, but rather, a revolution. So much of what is possible now seemed impossible 20 years ago. At Insight, we have helped massive organisations with rich and complex datasets build generative AI solutions, such as Insight Assist, an internal ChatGPT platform to help users retrieve information, draft responses and develop content almost instantly.
2. Prepare to onboard AI
Instead of operating out of fear of what AI might do with your data, get ahead by preparing your organisation with the necessary permission policies, admin controls, change management strategies and compliance mechanisms before embedding it in your business.
With built-in security features like that of Microsoft 365 Copilot, you can be assured about your organisation’s data security. This uses your existing policies and permissions to enable generative AI to deliver the most relevant information to users’ fingertips. To learn more, check out this helpful video on how to get ready for Microsoft 365 Copilot.
3. Iterate and learn
AI is rapidly evolving, so there’s a significant chance that what you set out to do and what you actually achieve will be two different things. It’s important to embrace that uncertainty. The process of building and developing with AI requires, above all else, flexibility and agility. You will need to be prepared to fail early and often.
You will learn more from the testing stage of your generative AI project than from any amount of research. The technology will also learn iteratively from your corrections and feedback. In short, the journey to embed generative AI in your organisation does not end when your solution goes live – rather, it continues as you use, review and improve your AI solution.
Insight helps customers develop the skills needed to navigate this process through facilitated design-thinking sessions. For example, our Azure OpenAI Immersion Workshops are designed to help you explore OpenAI use cases within your organisation and build with the expertise you need to develop them further.
Go forward with confidence
Most importantly, remember that AI is only your copilot – you are not letting it fly the plane. If you can learn to embrace the art of the possible while remaining grounded in best practice, your organisation will enjoy the best of what generative AI has to offer.
You don’t have to go it alone. Insight’s team of generative AI experts have the deep industry knowledge and experience needed to help you navigate the path to AI innovation. Our experts work with leading clients to help them develop their own generative AI solutions. They have the knowledge and experience to help you workshop new ideas, guide you through strategy development and most importantly, match your enthusiasm for what generative AI can do.
We can help you adopt Microsoft Copilot, leverage OpenAI Services in Azure, implement responsible AI governance and secure conversational AI within your corporate boundaries.
Roland Leggat
Modern Workplace Specialist, Insight Enterprises
With more than 20 years of industry experience, Roland focuses on the Microsoft stack of technologies to help identify customer business and technology challenges and realise the business value of Modern Workplace solutions.
