Please read this before crafting an AI strategy for your company.

Everyone’s banging on about AI—I can’t be left behind. How do I tackle it? 

The logical thing is to review my company’s processes and see how AI can boost efficiency in each one. Then I calculate the ROI, rank them from highest to lowest, list the top 15, and there’s my AI strategy. 

Please don’t do that! 

If you think of AI as a machine to squeeze more juice out of the lemon, cut costs, and pin a medal on yourself for it, you’re going to miss the mark. 

When you build your AI strategy, don’t start with the question: 'Which processes can AI help me make more efficient?' If you do that, you’ll end up with 15 piddling little projects that lead nowhere (except maybe saving a few quid), and half of them will stall anyway because applying AI isn’t a walk in the park. 

The question you need to ask is different. Ask yourself: 'What capabilities do I want to develop?'—in other words, what do I want to be outrageously good at? When you ask that, you won’t get 15 answers—maybe two or three at most, and they’ll be bang in the middle of what your business is about. 

JCDecaux, the outdoor advertising firm, needs its ad spaces to sell more. So it’s working on using AI to help clients create more effective ads. It’s not about penny-pinching—it’s building a core capability. 

No proper strategist worth their salt likes competing on a level playing field. It’s frowned upon. You’ve got to carve out an edge, and that’s where AI comes in. So you shouldn’t scatter your AI efforts across 15 disjointed, small-fry projects just to save a handful of pounds. You need every skilled person you can muster and all the leadership you’ve got to manage the change, focused on two or three spots, tops. 

Please keep this in mind before you draft your AI strategy: the question isn’t 'What initiatives can I cobble together to feel like I’m doing something?' The real question is: 'What capability do I need to win the game?' 

Focus AI on forging a superpower that leaves your competition in the dust and your clients dazzled. I know it’s tough, but if you don’t do it, your competitors will."

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