By Jeff Boudreau, chief AI officer, Dell Technologies
Improving operational efficiency, accelerating your innovation, enabling greater productivity… by now you’ve heard the promise and opportunity of generative AI (GenAI). But is your organization primed with a focused GenAI strategy? As Dell’s Chief AI Officer, I’m tackling the complex questions around GenAI with my team, understanding both the limitations and opportunities this emerging technology presents. At this moment, organizations stand to gain. But if they aren’t careful, they might get left behind.
Dell recently published the GenAI Pulse Survey, which polled 500 IT leaders from several countries to generate important insights around readiness and potential to innovate using GenAI. Leaning on research, dependable partnerships, and a solid implementation strategy, here’s what to know so that your organization can optimize outcomes and maintain relevance.
The opportunity of GenAI
According to the GenAI Pulse Survey, 76% of information technology decision-makers think that the impact of GenAI on their organization will be significant, if not transformative. Image and signaling software company Digital Harmonic used Dell’s suite of GenAI tools to enhance their video and image-enhancing tools, resulting in an expansive partnership with federal agencies.
Greenhouse produce grower Nature Fresh Farms implemented PowerScale to build out video storage capacity, which provided greater access to data on diseases and pests in their greenhouses. The information gathered allowed data scientists at the company to enact real-time changes to growing conditions, resulting in fresher and healthier produce.
However, over a third of leaders surveyed revealed that they are hesitant to implement AI, concerned about data security, complexity of implementation and the effects on existing teams.
As you begin your GenAI journey, consider the following tactics to ensure that your organization is using this forward-thinking tech to its fullest potential.
- Create a strategic implementation plan.
While it’s easy to get excited about the possibilities generative AI can afford your business, many leaders tend to put the cart before the horse and introduce new tech without considering the effects these tools will have on day-to-day operations. Generative AI can provide answers to all your questions, but it’s important for every employee to understand which questions your organization is asking. Creating a holistic strategy that defines the benefits and long-term goals for your business with GenAI will provide a guide for the teams on the ground.
Consider how GenAI will integrate with existing tools and processes to determine if product upgrades are needed and where your teams should focus as they prepare existing data for ingestion and analysis. Make sure that adequate training and governance programs are in place to avoid the creep of shadow AI — every employee in your organization with access to these tools is a potential risk if not trained properly on the correct workflows.
- Make data your differentiator.
GenAI is only as strong as data allows it to be. In the past, companies required outside vendors to implement AI solutions for them, potentially widening gaps in understanding and effectiveness if the information provided was not holistic or contextual enough. Your organization will find the most value if you connect AI tools to a wide swath of internal data, allowing for more robust solutions that consider every conceivable information point and a stronger data chain down the line. Dell’s suite of generative AI tools can deliver your business secure control over the data inputs required to make AI work towards your goals, not against them.
- Practice proper data hygiene.
To make GenAI successful for your organization, it’s important that your data management practices are up to standard. As the saying goes, you are what you eat. In this case, the collection and preparation of information for ingestion into these tools can strengthen or weaken the outputs.
As your team prepares for implementation, ensure that company data is up-to-date and accurate. Enact standard documentation processes across teams, remove duplicate or incomplete records, and invest in modernization storage infrastructure so that nothing falls between the cracks. While these steps can be time-consuming, especially if performed for the first time or on years’ worth of information, you’ll have a more seamless transition to working with GenAI and getting legible, actionable results.
- Invest in security measures.
Many decision-makers have reservations about the security of generative AI tools. For some, the risk around data protection and potential leakage can prevent them from moving forward with wide-scale implementation. However, having the correct governance practices and tools in place will assuage many of these fears; in addition to comprehensive employee training and proper data management, cluster configuration API models like Dell’s PowerScale applications provide secure access to data, limiting organizational exposure. And, of course, creating a security-first culture internally will mitigate human error. IT and data security teams will be an imperative factor in ensuring that your employees are not putting themselves or their work at risk for leakage.
At Dell, we want customers to feel in control over every aspect of their business. Our GenAI solutions provide a foundation that allows organizations to build solutions that support their business goals and push their teams forward. If you follow these steps — leading with a strong vision, providing the right data, and enabling secure systems — AI can be a business accelerator, not a hindrance. As a proven leader in enterprise data storage, we look forward to providing your teams with access to GenAI and facilitating your next great leap toward innovation.
Interested in hearing more about AI in 2024? Click this link to register for an upcoming broadcast featuring Chief AI Officer Jeff Boudreau and Accenture Chief AI Officer Lan Guan on demystifying generative AI and key advice for the year ahead.
Lead photo by iStock