Enterprise AI in the Cloud

5Envisioning and Aligning Your AI Strategy

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.

—Benjamin Franklin

This chapter not only sets the tone for your AI transformation but also ensures that every step you take from now on resonates with your company's broader objectives.

Targeting business strategists struggling to find their AI direction, technology leaders grappling with business and technology alignment, and AI enthusiasts eager to embed AI meaningfully into their business, this chapter is focused on charting a clear vision for your AI initiatives and aligning it with your business objectives. Without a clearly defined vision and business case, even the most robust AI implementation can fail when not aligned with the business goals.

This chapter presents a methodology that clearly lays down the tasks and deliverables you can follow across various stages of your AI implementation journey. It serves as a bridge between the groundwork laid in Chapters 1–4 for idea generation and later chapters, teeing it up for developing the business cases in Chapter 6 to managing strategic changes in Chapter 7 (see Figure 5.1).

By the end of this chapter, you will have a toolkit of strategies, a clear roadmap of tasks, a business case, and a checklist of tasks vital for your AI journey.

STEP-BY-STEP METHODOLOGY FOR ENTERPRISE-WIDE AI

As you can see in Figure 5.2, you need to manage everything, from strategy to portfolio management to architecture, infrastructure, operations, governance, ...