Building a Cognitive Business

In essence, H&R Block now has an experienced employee of over 30 years of tax filing experience who is able to digest all the tax information and historical precedents to help families save money.

By 2019, the cognitive (confirm) market is expected to grow to more than $31 billion, and according to a recent study “The Cognitive Advantage,” early adopters are already gaining significant advantage from pursuing cognitive initiatives.

So if you’re considering adding AI to your organization, here are a few tips before you get started:

1. Drive it from the Top

Infusing cognition into your business isn’t a feature you can “turn on and off” or buy “off the shelf”. To be sustainable, it must be part of your company’s culture and ethos. It should not be something “given” to the CIO office to implement. The lines of business owners must own the vision and work in concert with the CIO to define a roadmap. I have seen that successful experiences usually start with assembling a small core team of senior executives as the “innovation team” to spearhead the vision and strategy working closely with lines of business to scope out use cases to start with and scale from there.

2. Be Deliberate Where You Start Your Cognitive Journey

As the adage goes, walk before you run. Start with a pilot program. It is an excellent opportunity to learn about how a cognitive solution will impact and benefit your organization, and lay the foundation for successful adoption more broadly. For companies which need help on where to start, I have found design thinking workshops, which can be as short as one day, to be extremely effective to pinpoint where to start, if done well.

3. Adopt Early, Fail Fast, Learn Fast

There will never be a perfect time to start the cognitive journey. Developing a strategy is important, but execution speed is equally so. The current digital revolution is accelerating the pace of change and every day of waiting is time given to your competitor to catch up or further their lead over you. The earlier you infuse AI into your business, the greater your competitive advantage. This cognitive support to human knowledge, understanding, and the facility can enable your teams to approach problem-solving more efficiently, identify trends and potential opportunities more quickly, and discover solutions to reach consumers more effectively.

Cognitive solutions also become smarter and smarter over time. However, don’t be discouraged if your initial attempt falls short. The important thing to remember is to try fast and learn fast, and you can be sure you’ll be working with a more intuitive platform than the day before.