Imagine a world where AI is used to solve some of the business’s biggest problems, from marketing to improving content. But before AI can reach its full potential, we need to develop a long-term data strategy.
In today’s data-driven world, organizations of all sizes are looking for ways to leverage data to improve their operations and amplify their impact. However, many companies are struggling to develop a long-term data strategy that supports AI initiatives that, in return, will reduce costs and improve the performance of their products.
Data costs money, we need all to agree with it, and we don’t just collect it and process it for the fun of it; we wish to create some income based on the money we spend.
This is a mistake I see with many organizations who include data in the regular costs just like they collect costs on phones, screens, or computers, and this is wrong!
This blog post will explore the importance of an AI-driven data strategy and provide tips for developing one. We will also discuss how to measure your progress and organizational readiness for the day when AI becomes a lever.
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An AI-driven data strategy is a plan that outlines how an organization will collect, manage, and analyze data to support its AI initiatives. It should be aligned with the organization’s overall business goals and should identify the specific ways in which AI will be used to improve operations, products, and services.
Data is an expensive topic; to drive good AI or even a good ML model, we have to have reliable, trustworthy data, and this means that we have to create some models that evaluate the costs of the data and the processing of it, against the potential return, especially when we are talking about AI models as they should create long term an uplift for us.
An AI-driven data strategy is important for a number of reasons. First, it helps organizations focus their data collection and management efforts on the data that is most relevant to their AI initiatives. This can lead to significant improvements in data quality and efficiency.
Second, an AI-driven data strategy helps organizations identify and address any gaps in their data infrastructure. This is essential for ensuring that AI models have access to the data they need to perform optimally.
Finally, an AI-driven data strategy helps organizations to create a culture of data-driven decision-making. This is essential for ensuring that AI is used to make better decisions across the organization.
To develop an AI-driven data strategy, organizations should follow these steps:
Define your business goals. What do you hope to achieve with AI? Once you have a clear understanding of your business goals, you can start to identify the specific ways AI can support them.
Assess your current data infrastructure. Do you have the data you need to support your AI initiatives? If not, what gaps need to be addressed?
Identify your AI use cases. What specific problems or opportunities can AI be used to address? Once you have identified your AI use cases, you can start to develop specific data requirements for each one.
Develop a data management plan. This plan should outline how you will collect, store, and manage the data you need to support your AI initiatives. It should also include provisions for data quality and security.
Implement your data strategy. This involves putting your data management plan into action and collecting, storing, and managing the data you need to support your AI initiatives.
Monitor and update your data strategy. As your business and AI initiatives evolve, you will need to monitor and update your data strategy accordingly.
Build an ROI model to evaluate costs vs. return: Create portability models to your data; don’t just let the costs grow thinking they will generate more income, but calculate what you expect each euro you invest to return to you.
When developing your AI-driven data strategy, it’s important to consider the costs and benefits of different approaches. One way to do this is to build an ROI model.
An ROI model will help you to estimate the return on investment for different AI initiatives. This can help you to make informed decisions about where to allocate your resources.
The cost of storing the data and ingesting it if it is applicable on a daily base all the time. The data is stored in your bucket, and not in deep storage or deleted costs you money; identify the costs of this specific component.
Costs of processing the data, how much it costs on a daily basis, each model will require different data and different processing time, which will have some significant effect on the costs.
Expected return over the data; for each euro, we expect to receive back 1.2 euros.
Actual return on investment today — If the data, for example, is used for optimizing advertisement, what is the uplift it creates by having the data vs. not having the data?
Having these numbers in place will help you better calculate the costs and estimate what you expect in return before the model goes live and after the model goes live with updated real numbers; if a certain ROI threshold is not reached, then you should consider what to do with it.
Organizations can overcome the challenges of developing and implementing an AI-driven data strategy by:
I agree with your advice to organizations just starting on their AI journey. It is important to think about the long-term vision for AI in the organization and to develop ROI models to evaluate the success of AI initiatives.
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There are a number of KPIs that organizations can use to measure their progress and organizational readiness for the day when AI becomes a lever. Some examples include:
An AI-driven data strategy is essential for organizations that want to leverage AI to improve their operations and amplify their impact. By following the steps outlined above, organizations can develop a data strategy that will help them achieve their business goals and become more AI-ready.
In addition to the topics covered above, I would like to add that it is important for organizations to have a clear understanding of the ethical implications of AI. AI is a powerful tool, but it is important to use it in a responsible and ethical manner.
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