260 attendees came to Memorial Union to understand how to develop a tangible and actionable way to meet the AI moment in their organizations. As Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau accurately described, for many professionals “AI feels like something happening to us.” The Ground Truth: AI for Business Summit changed that narrative by focusing on real specific and practical answers on what they need to do next for leveraging AI. The promise was that each participant would walk away with one idea that they could use the following Monday. This is what we learned from what they shared that they will do upon returning to the office.
“I’ve been to plenty of conferences with big, inspiring ideas that didn’t survive the weekend. Our speakers have used AI to solve real problems, and they’re here to talk honestly about what it took. If we’ve done our job, you’ll leave with something you can do differently next week.”
Matt Seitz, Executive Director of the AI Hub for Business
Be as Specific as Possible
“Use AI” is not a helpful directive. In her keynote, behavioral scientist Kristen Berman shared usage of AI tools increases when you give users highly specific prompts or use case examples. The same principle applies to yourself and your teams. Instead of having a mandate to use AI, create a list of specific ways you and your team should be implementing or applying AI to solve clear challenges. By creating a specific action instead of tackling the existential wave of change that AI can feel like, you are able to gain a better sense of control. This increases your odds of taking action while also providing a clear benchmark of whether you completed that step.
Put time on the Calendar
A common trap industry professionals fall into is having a sincerely well meaning goal of training on new AI skills yet not actually getting around to it through the course of their week. When everything around you feels urgent it becomes hard to get to a point where developing your own AI skills makes it to the top of the priority list. Many speakers echoed the importance of setting aside time on the calendar to work on AI usage and skill development. This was recommended not just at the individual level but also to be applied for your teams. Karen Sauder, President at Google, shared the positive impacts of having team demos for AI usage. Having this recurring scheduled commitment helps your team with both setting aside the time to learn but also to put time constraints on when to have a new case ready to show off.
Strategize Across the Organization, not for Individual Roles
Looking at applying AI for a team that spans across continents, Rob Bradford demonstrated how Kimberly-Clark made significant productivity gains focusing on building AI deployment applied to activities rather than roles. Similarly, Nassar Nizami showed how Exact Sciences is finding a bigger impact building AI strategy to create new business value capture rather than solely focusing on incremental productivity gains. Deploying a massive organizational change actually increases the need to apply change management skills because ultimately, like all past technological changes, the main pitfall will be the human factor. If employees in portions of the organization don’t use the AI tools, they will fall behind and minimize the potential gains for the wider organization. The strategy of building for activities rather than roles creates a natural incentive for engagement since no one will be unimpacted and will all have a reason to be involved. You need to be really clear with your team members on what you are hoping to achieve and how they can play a role, making them eager to come alongside in reaping the gains rather than trying to avoid changes.
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