If you are the CEO of a food company there are some questions you should ask yourself, when it comes to Artificial Intelligence (AI) Adoption:
Have I given my employees the resources to cope with this revolution?
Have I set up clear governance rules for my company?
What should I use AI for?
Am I aware about the opportunities it offers and the risks it conveys?
For those of us who already lived six decades in this world, the AI revolution is probably the biggest one we have experienced in our lifetime. At least it is for me.
Not only because it makes all the existing knowledge in this world available for any of us, but also because of the exponential changes happening in this field on a weekly basis since the launch of ChatGPT in November 22, when generative artificial intelligence was made public.
Yes, as it is the case with Food Safety Culture, it starts with Leadership and Governance
Do you know what your main responsibility in terms of AI as a CEO of your company is:
Isn’t it to help your employees to cope with the most radical transformation they have experienced during their career, not to say during their life, so that they can better serve the purpose of the company, the expectations of the customer, making sure, for a food company, that the products we deliver are healthy and safe?
The second step in AI adoption for a company should be training of everyone and not of a happy few.
If you have been working on your team members’ employability and have already invested to allow them to grow within the company, then helping them acquire the necessary skills to deal in the smart and responsible way with AI seems like the right thing to do.
As leader of the company, your second step should be to clarify the governance rules in relation to the use of AI within your company.
You should be aware of the risks if you don’t work on the governance, because AI is a reality that is present in most households. If this is not enabled within the company, you can be sure that your employees will be tempted to use it at home to reduce their workload.
Define the Why
In terms of culture, defining and sharing the “why” we do things the way we do them within the company is the key success factor and the third step.
AI is not just a tool; it is what enables everyone within the company to be better, to focus on their areas of excellence, and to speed up processes with limited added value.
The benefits are invaluable, especially when we are talking about making our food safer.
One of the reasons why if more than 80% of the AI projects fail, it is because the “why use A.I” is not defined and the expectations in terms R.O.I are not realistic.
I learned recently that there is much more to expect in terms of combined individual productivity than in complex projects that try to connect everything within the company, with uncertain outcomes.
A good way is to start what “internal AI challenges”, facilitating sharing “AI” experiences within the different departments of the company. Then you can make visible the potential of artificial intelligence for the different areas of the company
Prepare the “what”: AI needs reliable Data.
Streamlining processes, getting rid of low-value tasks, is one of the benefits of AI, but probably the most important one is to help us analyse data and accelerate the decision processes based on them.
Managing (Collecting, Cleaning, Updating) Data is our fourth step.
Finance, HR, Marketing, Purchasing, Supply Chain, Maintenance, Production, Quality: you name it.
In all these departments, work on data must be done to optimize the analysis with AI:
which data do we have?
how reliable are they?
which data de we need?
Only then can you harness all the potential of artificial intelligence for the benefit of your customers and your company.
Choose the how: The right AI model and tools
After the first steps and some phases of trials and errors; yes, you should allow yourself to fail, it will be easier to choose the models, the tools that will better fit your purpose and that will guarantee the best security for your data.
Choosing the right model is the fifth step
The choice will depend, of course, on the business cases you will choose to explore.
Be aware that it is better to start small and to scale up after. This is a recommendation that applies to all projects related to systems implementation, but it is even more true in the field of AI due to the constant evolution in the capabilities of AI models.
So, tell me how far you are in your company in setting up the AI strategy that you will need if you want your company to survive?
Don’t hesitate to reach out if you want some help in this process.