AI is part of our everyday lives, but its true potential lies in the future. For companies to effectively use AI, they need a culture of experimentation and continuous learning. At best, leaders will see their organisations thrive on new business opportunities and more efficient working methods. At worst, things will continue as they have always been, and progress will slip away.
Already, AI is helping, for example, to summarise vast amounts of data into easily digestible form and translate texts or speech from one language to another in the blink of an eye. It can transcribe speech, refine text, generate images and videos, and assist customer service agents in real time.
For example, AI can answer personal phone calls for us and find out what's up, so we know whether we should jump in personally – or let the AI handle it on its own.
“There's still a bit of hype around the AI talk, but the revolution will be big. We certainly don't yet know the extent of the change coming,” says Anna-Mari Ylihurula, SVP, Corporate Business at DNA.
Real benefits will be uncovered through experimentation
The best way to discover AI’s potential is to experiment. Executive boards must actively encourage the adoption of new tools and ensure that their opportunities and threats are understood. While AI raises ethical, financial and regulatory issues, it also offers business opportunities and efficiency gains.
Even a failed experiment is a valuable result and a learning experience for the future.
“Every business leader should be interested in learning how AI is already used in different industries and companies. Different use cases can provide surprising inspiration for your work,” Ylihurula encourages.
Rapid experimentation minimises risk, accelerates learning, fosters innovation, and supports cultural change. The fastest developing companies are those that first test new, interesting AI solutions on a small scale, analyse the results, and then decide whether to develop them further or abandon them.
“Experimentation is affordable, so it pays off. In AI experimentation, it is important to learn from each step and iteratively improve the outcome. It's good to remember that even a failed experiment is a valuable result and a learning experience for the future. It's not just the management's job to dictate the use of AI tools; the whole organisation needs to remain curious, active, and self-directed,” Ylihurula adds.
Sharing learnings contributes to collective development
Of course, experimentation alone is not enough. Sharing the lessons learned from experimentation is key to organisational development. A culture of knowledge sharing requires active participation from managers. Leaders can lead by example by sharing their learning experiences, whether successful or unsuccessful.
Our staff use the same solutions we offer our customers.
“Technological innovations not only affect business but also the organisation's culture. Today, everyone from trainees to managers must be willing to learn and share their learnings,” says Ylihurula.
As AI tools began entering businesses’ everyday lives, DNA was at the forefront of experimenting with how best to use them in its own work. DNA's staff have long used its own support intelligence developed specifically for DNA and Copilot tools as their own internal support intelligence. AI is also widely used in customer service, sales, and marketing.
“It is important that our staff use the same solutions we offer our customers. Through our learnings, it is natural for us to share with customers how we have benefited from the solutions and to share use cases and deployment experiences. Of course, we also actively share information across the Telenor Group,” says Ylihurula.
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