Leading generative AI adoption, especially when half of it is happening outside of IT, is no joke, as Workato CIO Carter Busse points out. The growth of businesses using generative AI to boost productivity, efficiency and scalability has been huge. Generative AI in business processes grew 400% in 2023.
This growth is backed up by the pressure in the UK to get generative AI out. A recent report from the Communications and Digital Committee told the UK government to have a positive vision for AI, specifically generative AI, to get the social and economic benefits and compete globally.UK businesses are already well into their generative AI strategies and following the global trend. Leaders are facing unexpected challenges around internal ownership and governance. Traditionally IT departments lead the charge on technological rollouts but generative AI adoption is driven by many internal forces. Employees across all departments are automating their work, regardless of their technical skills.
The Work Automation Index 2024 shows the unprecedented democratisation of generative AI within businesses. The hype has led to people across the organisation proactively automating work processes and there is an explosion of applications and automation tools. But this ‘patchwork’ approach has inadvertently created new silos not dismantled the existing ones. Low-code, no-code technology has enabled employees to automate processes without technical skills. 44% of all automations are now being developed outside of IT. Employees no longer need to wait for IT to write code for simple tasks; they can automate themselves.
Generative AI adoption
But without governance, scaling automation with generative AI can be chaos. Automated processes are getting more complex, requiring more steps and creating security, scalability, change control and compliance issues and increasing business risk. So IT departments are playing a ‘player-coach’ role: 56% of automations are still being built by IT which also provides governance and guidance for the other 44%. Generative AI adoption doesn’t follow traditional business implementation patterns. Lessons from other successful technology rollouts suggest starting with narrow-scope challenges, testing benefits and pitfalls before scaling. With generative AI multiple departments are moving at different speeds, each with different needs so a holistic approach is required.
The CIO and IT team must lead the rollout, ensuring clear oversight of all stages of generative AI implementation. By providing security, scalability, change controls and compliance parameters they can get the most out of AI. Prioritise projects with bigger benefits over one off experimental use cases will get more value out of the technology.
Follow the principles of growth, process and scale. Optimize end-to-end processes, change and scale by democratizing data and both business and IT can automate. This era of generative AI requires holistic leadership and a willingness to break down the silos for transformation. By thinking differently about AI and automation businesses can win in their digital transformation and beat the competition.
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