Think globally, act locally: Starting small with AI can make a big impact

AI has and will continue to make important headlines. Most of these are pretty sensational; AI is becoming sentient; AI-generated art win a contest; AI can now compose music (and more). What rarely pops up in the headlines, however, is how transformative AI can be when it comes to business — specifically, how AI can help brands connect with their customers without becoming a flashy sci-fi title.

Due to the general perception of “sci-fi” AI, many business leaders have not seriously considered how to apply it to their businesses beyond data analytics or cutting-edge research labs. And once they’ve decided to dip their toes into AI, they really don’t know where to start. Doing too much too soon is never the answer — instead, businesses need to adopt a “think global, act local” approach.

So what exactly does this mean? Thinking globally means examining the impact of one Simple AIIseduction holistically and consider the larger vision and goals of the business. When it comes to implementing AI, you need to act locally, focusing on one small project at a time with the ultimate goal of scaling. But what does this look like in real life? Here are a few considerations when starting your AI journey.

Define your global goal

The first step to launching an AI implementation strategy is to identify those big “global” goals and needs. This will look different for each organization. Some may start from scratch and need to find every possible way to better connect with customers. Some may already have some AI tools in place and are looking to recalibrate their martech/adtech strategy with the discontinuation of third-party cookies in the near future. In addition, with an impending recession, customer demand is on the verge of drastic change. Many businesses may be moving from a customer acquisition model to a customer retention model.

This is not a one-size-fits-all approach and realizing that is half the battle. While most, if not all, businesses will agree that the top-level goal is customer retention, not every organization can approach this in the same way. Defining your global approach requires addressing the needs of all stakeholders while ensuring your systems are optimized for the maximum benefit of your customers. And while it may sound like a big transformation, starting small can dramatically enhance existing methods and technologies, and restructure them into ongoing commitments to success. work with customers.

Do smaller projects locally

Once you’ve identified your larger goals, it’s important to reframe your thinking to act locally. For example, if your global goal is customer retention, a local action can be implemented AI ability Integrate with your existing customer data platform to ensure that you are maximizing the data you own. This doesn’t require extracting and replacing, but rather enhancing what you already have.

Using AI to better organize and enable existing customer data can enhance marketing strategies, such as where and when to engage with your customers based on the exact context of your customers. them at a particular time. Ultimately, this improves the customer experience with the brand, but organizations can also remove obstacles from the employee experience by removing the guesswork from customer interactions. When employees who work directly with customers have immediate access to data to inform commitments, their job becomes easier and they can be more successful over time. This is good for external brands and internally.

Essential AI Strategy: Know When to Scale

Once an AI project has proven its worth, it’s time to scale — consider whether you’ll get the most benefit from your scaling. AI ability up or out. If you’ve applied AI to glean more insights from a particular set of customer data, it might be time to extend that to the rest of your data. Or, maybe it’s a matter of implementing an AI decision-making hub that can pull information from all parts of your customer-facing business to understand the entire range of the customer journey — from sales, marketing, customer service and more. Regardless, this is definitely a marathon, not a sprint, and the businesses that will benefit most from an AI implementation strategy are those that carefully and strategically build to achieve long-term success.

The lesson here is to evolve over time. Switching can be overwhelming and significantly disruptive. But by breaking it down and learning what works best for your organization, you can get an idea of ​​what your growing needs will be and ultimately create a stronger and more robust long-term growth strategy. can reach.

Tara DeZao is the director of product marketing for AdTech and MarTech at pega.