Our old data strategy is from 2023. Back then, AI had a small box in it, labelled Innovation.
I've admitted it before: I failed to deliver a new data strategy this year. But something happened that made me look at the old one differently. We introduced an AI platform in our company. And honestly, it changed my perspective in a way I hadn't expected as a technical person.
Colleagues can now upload work documents, build their own knowledge bases, explore use cases and use AI in their daily work. Before, if you needed information, you searched in Teams or SharePoint, or asked a colleague. If you wanted to build an AI use case, you typically turned to the data or AI team for a prototype.
Now, more and more colleagues can build things themselves. That changes what a data strategy needs to address.
- Data foundations: Is our data accessible, reliable and of sufficient quality for AI?
- Governance and security: How do we protect sensitive information when more people can upload documents and build their own solutions?
- People and skills: How do we build AI literacy and support colleagues as they explore their own use cases?
- Business value: How do we know whether AI is actually improving our work?
Looking back, AI as an innovation topic made sense in 2023.
Today, it is becoming part of how people work. So, in our new data strategy, AI won't be a small box anymore. It will have a central seat.
Do you have AI in your data strategy?
This is part of my "100 Days of Year One" series. Follow along as I share what I've learned in my first year as Head of Data and Cloud.