Theme 2: Ready, Fire, Aim

Disciplined AI investment isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessity in 2024. It’s time to go beyond experimentation and focus on impact.

In 2024, it’s tempting for companies to jump into AI with flashy, consumer-facing projects. Customer service, engagement, and experience are often the first areas where businesses apply AI, and with good reason: personalized interactions, real-time insights, and seamless customer journeys have become essential in today’s market. Consumers now expect brands to deliver hyper-personalized experiences, and AI offers powerful tools to meet that demand.

However, while AI-enhanced customer engagement is a strong use case with clear benefits in loyalty and brand perception, it isn’t necessarily the highest-ROI use case for every organization. This is where many companies fall into the trap of “Ready, Fire, Aim.” By rushing into customer-facing AI projects without a structured roadmap, executives risk missing opportunities for AI to create value in other parts of the business—where its impact could be even greater.

With AI maturing at an unprecedented rate, it’s no longer acceptable for executives to chase the latest trends without a clear business purpose. We’re at the point where every dollar spent on AI must yield measurable value. The hype-driven “experiment phase” is over, and it’s time to deploy AI in ways that create real competitive advantage.

This year, more than 77% of executives say AI will be a key differentiator for their business (Deloitte), yet only 15% feel confident they’re investing in the right areas. The truth is, without a disciplined approach to AI prioritization, many of those investments will end up wasted.

The “pilot purgatory” phenomenon—where AI projects stall without scaling—is a very real risk. Companies that aren’t intentional in their investments may find themselves locked in endless experimentation, with little to show for it.

• AI pilot projects fail to scale 85% of the time (Gartner), largely because of a lack of alignment with core business outcomes. Is your AI strategy focused on sustainable, high-impact projects, or scattered across shiny new tools?

• Executives who establish clear decision-making frameworks for AI prioritization have the highest success rates. What metrics are you using to filter out hype from meaningful opportunity?

• Case Study of Effective Prioritization: Just because customer experience applications are popular doesn’t mean they’re right for every business. Mastercard’s AI strategy focused on a specific goal—fraud detection—rather than implementing AI across multiple scattered initiatives. This focused investment helped the company reduce fraud by 50% in certain segments, directly impacting the bottom line.

“Ready, Fire, Aim” is about balancing immediate wins with a long-term perspective on AI. For many companies, AI-driven customer engagement will be a valuable entry point, offering a quick ROI while building foundational AI capabilities. But the goal is to look beyond these initial wins. Executives who take a strategic, ROI-driven approach to AI will uncover higher-impact applications across the organization that go beyond consumer-facing features, establishing AI as a true driver of competitive advantage.

2024 demands that companies apply AI with purpose. For those who can, the rewards will be transformative.

To learn more about HumanX’s unique programming and how it will help you excel with AI, visit https://www.humanx.co/who-attends or download our event brochure.