5 Things Business Leaders Need to Know About Generative AI

From composing music and writing software code to optimizing business operations, generative AI is driving innovation and efficiency across the business world. This transformative technology might come with a steep learning curve for some businesses, which must first understand where and how it fits, decide whether to build or buy, gauge how much to spend on it and consider whether they are approaching generative AI with trust and guardrails in place.

Generative AI creates completely new data from existing datasets. This data can be in a variety of formats, including text, images, music and even code — and it can produce results that were not in the original input. This versatility allows for an impressive range of creative problem-solving and efficiency-boosting applications.

Let's look at five things every business leader needs to understand about generative AI to maximize their return on investment:

1. Generative AI is revolutionizing business and job functions

Generative AI is driving business innovation and efficiency. The technology's ability to generate new data from an input allows for an impressive range of applications. Generative AI in the workplace is not merely about harnessing data or driving efficiency — it is about fundamentally reshaping the approach to work. Yes, generative AI can make work faster and easier, but it also opens up entirely new possibilities for innovation and creativity.

What’s key about the technology is its potential to be tailored to the needs of each business. Every business has its own unique or priority datasets. By identifying their specific needs, businesses can use generative AI to gain a competitive edge. For instance, applied in health care, generative AI can help analyze patient data, create a summary of the key points, and then use this summary to draft an action plan for delivering better care.

2. Build vs. buy

One critical business decision that enterprises face when implementing AI is whether to build or buy the software. There are several factors to consider, including the following:

3. Identify the industry use case

Generative AI has a wide range of applications across a variety of industries. Common ones include text generation for crafting captivating marketing copy, summarization for condensing extensive news articles and emails, and image generation for developing unique brand visuals or gaming characters.

AI-powered chatbots are enhancing customer service with intelligent, real-time responses in almost every industry, while translation capabilities are making information accessible across languages. In the coding world, generative AI boosts efficiency by dynamically generating comments and functions.

Health care is using generative AI to reduce drug discovery timelines. Game developers are using it to create dynamic game characters. The financial sector is using it to bolster security against transaction fraud and for algorithmic trading. Retail is using it for automatic price optimization.

Businesses find success most quickly when they have an initial project that aligns with their unique needs. For help getting started, ask technology providers for examples they can share from companies with similar project requirements.

4. Investing in generative AI

Implementing generative AI requires substantial financial investment. It involves procuring high-end infrastructure, hiring skilled talent, assembling the necessary software components and gathering the needed data.

That said, not every enterprise needs to invest in generative AI from scratch. Many are using pretrained models, or foundation models, which are more cost-effective to train because businesses only have to augment the model with their own data and apply guardrails associated with their brand. 

While the cost of implementing generative AI can be high, the investment return of increased efficiency, innovation and competitive advantage can make it worthwhile.

5. Ensuring trust and safety in generative AI models

As generative AI grows more advanced and widespread, guaranteeing the safety and responsible use of AI models becomes increasingly paramount. LLM guardrail tools — software applications that keep generative AI models from deviating from their intended purpose — can help developers set boundaries on AI models. These can be set in three areas:

Harnessing the power of enterprise generative AI

Generative AI is poised to transform the world, offering vast opportunities for companies to innovate, improve efficiency and solve complex problems. As business leaders, understanding and using this powerful technology will be vital to staying competitive in the rapidly evolving business landscape.

Following the five principles above will help businesses stay ahead of the curve and reap the rewards that this technology has to offer.