1. Strategy and Value Exchange: Why you most likely don’t need an AI strategy or The “Left Foot Strategy”
Joe Peppard, an Academic Director at UCD Smurfit Executive Development, has written an article for The Wall Street Journal.
In it, he states: “My takeaway from my work with organizations as they grapple with artificial intelligence is that not only do most companies not need an AI strategy, but they shouldn’t have one at all. Going down that road will be, at best, a distraction.”
Peppard shares a few reasons – poor data quality, technological complexity, and a lack of AI literacy among the staff.
But there is a more important reason.
The more businesses talk about “AI strategy,” the less they think about strategy.
The corporate world runs on politics. Executives compete on their departments’ size, projects, budgets, and status.
And soon, before you know it, your AI strategy takes on a life of its own. It becomes a ‘left foot strategy’ for your corporate body.
You’ll have an AI department and an AI committee. What you won’t have is AI at work and satisfied customers.
Forget about AI strategy. Start looking for the key processes where AI can boost customer value.
2. Strategy-related terms: Making AI bots better at customer support is the wrong strategic goal
Over the past few days, I’ve come across a bunch of articles about how we should improve AI bots in customer service.
Personally, I’ve never had a bot that actually helped me. And I’m not alone — only 5% of users are willing to talk to bots at all.
But here’s the thing: I think the goal of improving these bots is the wrong one.
Why use AI to fix mistakes when we could use it to avoid them in the first place?
If AI is already smart enough to handle conversations with customers, maybe it’s smart enough to help employees work in a way that makes customer support unnecessary.
For example, let AI test the product before it’s released — if possible. Or at least let it analyze complaints and help fix the root causes behind the most common ones.
AI is a valuable resource. Let’s find smarter ways to use it.
3. Thursday musings: Stop inviting celebrities to business conferences
A few days ago, I talked to a business conference organizer.
“It’s very difficult to invite celebrities like the CEO of Microsoft, Nvidia, or Apple.”
It struck me that inviting business celebrities isn’t such a good idea.
What can the CEO of Microsoft tell a startup founder about business or strategy?
They live in two totally different worlds.
The CEO of a large company is surrounded by executives, advisors, consultants, and investors.
It would be much more interesting to invite a small business owner who tries to survive and thrive in competition with Amazon. What creative solutions do they use to stay afloat?
The CEO of a big business can share something useful with another CEO of a big company, but they don’t need a conference for that.
Jensen Huang used to be a startup founder himself, but it was decades ago. Human memory is tricky.
Any neuroscientist will tell you that we see our past through the lens of our present.
So, celebrities’ memories are biased.
If someone inherits wealth, attends a top university, makes the right connections, works hard, and builds a successful business, by the time they start giving interviews about their success, all they’ll remember is how hard they worked.
It would be even better to invite customers as keynote speakers.
Many business owners and startup founders never meet their customers face-to-face.
So, instead of collecting more ego-boosting selfies with business celebrities, entrepreneurs could actually bring back something useful—like insights.
What do you think? Share your opinions in the comments.
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Svyatoslav Biryulin
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I help businesses scale fast by creating new markets. Do you need expert guidance to craft a winning strategy for your business? DM me.
Read also: An Ideal Spherical Cow: Why Strategy Fails Outside the Vacuum
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