Accelerating GenAI adoption takes a human touch
5 Steps to Ignite Your GenAI Initiatives
When it comes to GenAI, media companies are getting real, forming task forces and tackling tough topics: What are the best use cases to drive our business? What are the risks? What is the anticipated ROI? Asking all the right questions is essential to ignite your imagination. But considering all the right people is critical to realizing your vision.
According to data from Variety*, media companies expect to apply GenAI across the business. From developing content to summarizing conversations with customers to protecting the business from cyber attacks, GenAI stands to transform every aspect of operations from pre-production and development to distribution and marketing.
Despite GenAI’s immense potential, it could easily remain a proof-of-concept (POC), languishing like an unreleased film. That’s because change of this magnitude gives rise to resistance, conscious or unconscious. More than any technology in the last 20 years, GenAI adoption demands thoughtful consideration of user attitudes, from inception through implementation.
Helping employees feel supported versus threatened
For example, we recently worked with a media company to build a prototype that expands their visibility into sales data. Sales executives were toggling tirelessly between systems to amass the information they needed to make a deal, wasting time and leaving revenue on the table. Our aim was to empower the sales team with instant and effortless access to the key information they needed.
We leveraged the power of Large Language Models to connect ad sales executives using Microsoft Teams with their Salesforce data. By enabling instant data access, we empowered employees to use conversational language to compel a composite of their customers anytime, anywhere, increasing the number of calls they make and the amount of revenue they generate.
Helping employees reach a creative decision faster and easier made them feel supported. In contrast, if we would have developed and delivered insights for what they should pitch, they might have felt we were usurping their autonomy and resisted usage. To create a solid platform for future enhancements, we prioritized user adoption and improved data access.
With great power, comes great responsibility
Think of your relationship with GenAI as an opportunity to make jumps in innovation and optimization. With each level-up the complexity increases, but so do the rewards. However, you have to consider users at every stage of your evolution to win the game.
To avoid getting stuck in the starting gate or throwing things against the wall to see what sticks, take the middle path that we dub: strategic pragmatism, a measured approach to integrate GenAI that aligns with a company's goals, capabilities, and culture. It avoids being overly cautious or recklessly ambitious. Instead, it focuses on creating value and sustaining growth by balancing risk and reward.
Gain GenAI Awareness
Experimenting with GenAI begins with awareness. How are our competitors using these tools? More importantly, how does GenAI support specific business goals, including increasing employee satisfaction and productivity? How can GenAI help to solve specific problems like manual asset creation, the capturing of rights and licensing agreements, or driving live content in broadcasting? It’s important to know how GenAI can be used, while taking into account constraints like budget, security requirements and legal factors.
Put people at the forefront
Once you have assessed the marketplace place, pivot to your people. Create a forum for stakeholders from IT, business units, legal, and cyber to ensure GenAI initiatives are well-suited for the organization. It's vital to achieve buy-in from leadership and employees early on. The best technology will not get far without user adoption. This is achieved by marrying leadership support along with an understanding of the technology’s impact and its ability to create opportunities for people to achieve more.
Give your workforce confidence with governance guardrails
Once leaders are on board, talk about governance. Set ethical guidelines, accountability measures, and regulatory compliance. Leaders and employees need to feel confident that they are aligned with the company’s goals, especially considering that a recent Conference Board study shows that 54% of employees are already using GenAI to increase their productivity, adopting GenAI at a quicker clip than their employers.
Cultivate a culture of experimentation
To avoid over-investing in unproven technologies or under-investing in areas with high potential, cultivate a culture of continuous learning and prioritize POC projects. Ask questions like: where can we automate manual processes to save costs or how can we create new revenue streams? Small and controlled POCs allow you to examine GenAI’s potential to deliver value and drive adoption across dimensions without significant risk. A custom-built private co-pilot gates your sensitive data and serves as an ideal testing ground for experimentation
Adapt and advance
Take what you learned from your POC to refine and improve your initial strategy. This often involves trial and error. Employees must be able to accept failure as a part of the learning process. Be honest about a technology’s ROI. What may seem promising as an idea could turn out to have limited return, and focus needs to shift elsewhere. When it comes to GenAI, it’s critical to stay agile. What works today may not work tomorrow. Be ready to adjust and adapt to new technologies to stay ahead.
Without support from your people, GenAI will fail to live up to its full potential. Including leaders and employees early and often in your GenAI planning is critical to drive GenAI adoption. To succeed at GenAI, you must move at the pace of human relationships.
GenAI does more than talk a good game. It delivers real-world results across business workflows.
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*Source: Variety VIP Plus: “Generative AI in Film & TV: How artificial tools and models are transforming today’s production processes,” Dec. 2023