AI (Artificial Intelligence) is here to stay, and that is a good thing. When interacting with a company's services or tools, we now expect exceptional customer service, quick responses, personalized recommendations, and mostly everything needs to feel seamless. We can all reflect on our recent interaction with some type of AI tool and realize that our expectations are shifting. This change is not only here to transform how businesses operate but mostly how customers perceive and demand services.
Companies across multiple industries are using AI to improve operations, improve customer experiences, and gain a competitive edge. The question is no longer whether we should investigate AI, but what is the best use case to start with? It all comes down to this: Efficiency is a necessity, not a luxury.
I was recently watching the 3rd season of The Bear. A TV show about a chef opening a gastronomy restaurant in Chicago and attempting to attain a Michelin star. To do so, he makes a list with the cooks and staff of the restaurants that he calls “non-negotiables.” This is the list of items that they see as necessary for the success of their newly opened restaurant. I think a similar list could be made regarding the expectations we are building for ourselves as a society when it comes to what AI can help with. Furthermore, I think this list can be divided into two parts.
Part 1: Non-Negotiables (client’s expectations):
Efficient
Responsive
Accessible
Part 2: Non-Negotiables (How it is delivered):
Open
Targeted
Trusted
Empowering
Of course, this list always has room to grow and change over time. But as it stands, it offers us a suitable place to focus. We want AI to help us write text, synthesize notes, automate tasks, and be more efficient in our day-to-day lives. We also expect AI to augment the speed at which we receive help when interacting with services or products. Finally, we want it to be integrated and accessible. This gives a good overview of our expectations, but the part we must look at next is how AI is delivered and built.
Enterprises must make sure that they not only answer the client’s expectations but also deliver and build AI solutions that are open, targeted, trusted, and empowering. This is what each of those means.
Open: Based on open technologies that provide a variety of models to cover enterprise use cases and support compliance initiatives.
Targeted: Targeted to specific enterprise domains like HR, customer service or IT operations to unlock new value.
Trusted: Designed with principles of transparency, responsibility, and governance so you can manage ethical and accuracy concerns.
Empowering: Go beyond being an AI user and become an AI value creator, owning the value your models create.
That brings us to the IBM watsonx platform, which is the perfect AI and Data platform designed to help with scaling and accelerating the impact of AI across businesses. No matter the point of entry or the place in the business where AI can be embedded, watsonx is here to help. To create content, help internal employees find the information they need, deploy virtual assistants, help with coding needs, or unlock insights, watsonx is here to facilitate the AI journey.
Moving forward, as more of us experience tools built with AI that allow us to be more efficient, we will look for similar experiences everywhere else. It is a crucial moment to start investing in augmenting our tools and workforce with AI to provide means for our end users to feel empowered. In doing so, we cannot forget about the list we built —our “non-negotiables.” Making sure that AI is always governed and performing ethically should be top of mind, and I cannot think of a better place to start an AI journey than with watsonx.