Your comfort zone is a danger zone

Explore hybrid generative AI deployment models, such as the “hub and spoke” approach, and update your operating model to enable a hybrid approach to decision-making. Provide gen AI-powered tools, along with governance frameworks and guardrails, that give people the freedom to rethink their roles safely. 

• Rip up the playbook. Start the conversation by defining what you want to achieve, then explore how gen AI can get you there. Push teams to redesign operations and workflows to take advantage of the new opportunities gen AI creates.
• Put customers first—no exceptions. Adopt an operating model oriented toward services, products, and platforms. Track performance gains and assign operational value to gen AI-enabled workflows. Establish a governance model that creates transparency around how gen AI is used in in service provisioning, product development, and across the platform and ecosystem. 
• Accelerate decision-making. Build on the bedrock of existing AI capabilities and governance structures to help teams pivot quickly and build momentum as new opportunities arise. Support and encourage exploration with incentives, contests, and employee performance goals.

Foster a collaborative culture of shared responsibility, inclusivity, and proactive engagement. Evolve the operating model to facilitate the creation of interdisciplinary teams better equipped to ideate innovative products and solutions and overcome the obstacles to scaling generative AI.

• Don’t let leaders pass the buck. Encourage collective ownership of gen AI initiatives. Give executives and managers the education they need to become internal gen AI experts. Create a participatory culture that encourages tackling the challenges of gen AI head-on, rather than avoiding them out of fear of failure. 
• Demolish siloed thinking. Establish cross-functional roles, from AI ethicist to data curator to content orchestrator. Encourage knowledge-sharing by building teams that bring together product, engineering, and AI expertise to develop and deliver gen AI-enabled products and platforms. 
• Spur culture change with a clear vision and shared imperatives. Outline enterprise-wide milestones, timelines, and resources required for successful gen AI implementation. Set measurable goals and objectives, such as productivity gains or cost savings, and hold all teams accountable for meeting them. 

Design an operating model that fosters innovation across your ecosystem by building bridges and enabling rapid adaptation in lockstep with partner organizations. Integrate governance as a core component, emphasizing collaborative innovation as a shared responsibility across teams. Create clear accountability from inception to implementation.

• Unite teams to ignite growth. Emphasize that innovation through collaboration is a shared responsibility. Encourage and empower all team members to actively contribute to and take ownership of innovation efforts—down to the tiniest details of day-to-day workflows.
• Forge an unbreakable chain of accountability. Initiate AI governance from the conceptual stage and sustain it throughout the AI solution’s lifecycle. Set clear funding requirements, appoint accountable leaders, and create AI centers of excellence to ensure continuous alignment and drive enterprise success. 
• Weave data and AI into an innovation tapestry. Develop a flexible IT architecture that disaggregates models, tools, infrastructure, and applications to ensure seamless integration and cost efficiency. Use a composable data and generative AI platform to power your innovation engine.