AI continues to be a flavour of the month for Chief Disruptor members and was the hot topic of conversation at Chief Disruptor LIVE in June. During breakout discussions, members shared fascinating insights on their AI initiatives and strategies to generate business value from AI. As ever at Chief Disruptor activities, we were joined by a wide range of roles, sectors and experiences, but despite this, four common AI use cases came up frequently in discussions:

#1 Automation (Learn more at 💡Plan, Align and Execute your Automation Strategy, 📅 Friday 10 January 2025 │ 08:45-10:00 GMT)

#2 Improving customer experience (Learn more at 💡Deliver Highly Connected and Personalised Experiences, 📅 Wednesday 11 December 2024 │ 13:00-14:00 GMT)

#3 Delivering new insights (Learn more at 💡Leveraging the Power of Big Data Analytics, 📅 Friday 20 September 2024 │ 08:45-10:00 BST)

#4 Boosting security and resilience (Learn more at 💡Mastering Secure Multi-Cloud Strategies For Resilience, Compliance and Flexibility, 📅 Friday 13 September 2024 │ 08:45-10:00 BST, and also💡RAF Counter-Intelligence & Security Conference 'The Security Continuum', 📅 Wednesday 9 October 2024 │ 08:00-00:00 BST)

Hearing members share their AI challenges and success stories provided the inspiration for our latest AI Insights poll question,

“What is your greatest use case for AI?”

‘Automation’ was the top response in the poll, unsurprising when you consider the relentless pressure on leaders for increased productivity and efficiency. The benefits of automation to businesses are very clear, replacing mundane or laborious activities that free up team members to take on more strategic activities. We spoke with Ben Legg, CEO, Co-Founder at Portfolio Collective and Chief Disruptor Members’ Advisory Board member, about the financial benefits of automation who told us,

“AI can take away all the repetitive tasks in which little learning happens, leaving people to spend their time dreaming, designing, building and improving, rather than just 'doing'. This saves money and improves job quality.”

But automation can also have negative connotations for employees, who may have valid concerns about humans being replaced by ‘robots’ in the workplace. But recent Chief Disruptor research suggests a more optimistic outlook among members: In April we ran a poll asking:

“Will disruptive technologies augment & elevate human experiences, replace humans, or innovate & create new jobs?”

The top response to this question was in fact, “augment & elevate human experiences”. However questions have been raised about the dangers of ‘automation bias’; the over-reliance on automated systems, and the tendency to ignore contradictory information which can lead to errors. Perhaps the lesson from this is that automation should be seen as a tool, rather than as a replacement for human judgement.

The second highest-rated response to our latest poll was ‘to improve customer experience’ (25%). The application of AI for customer experience is far-reaching; encompassing everything from customer support and sales to marketing initiatives. Personalisation is at the heart of delivering customer experience excellence, and AI facilitates highly personalised customer experiences through a variety of different tools including predictive analytics, natural language processing, and GenAI. These tools work together to elevate every facet of a customer’s interaction with a brand. We spoke to Andrew Podd, Industry Professional on why he selected this option in our poll and he told us,

“If the “Intelligence” in “Artificial Intelligence” is to be truly delivered, then gone should be the clunky nature of most interfaces between humans and computers (web forms and graphical user interfaces) such that computers mirror the intuitive interactions between humans that we call actual intelligence.”

Rana Ramnik Singh, Chief Technology Officer at BSJ Home Delivery, reinforced this point in the recent Chief Disruptor Report, ‘What’s preventing the realisation of CX ambitions?’, in which he told us,

“Customers expect the chatbot experience from businesses to have completely transformed since the introduction of ChatGPT.”

With fast-moving developments in GenAI and LLM capabilities, customers have high expectations for their chatbot experiences. So while chatbots will drive efficiencies and reduce operational costs and response times, organisations must continue to position customer experience, rather than efficiencies as the end goal. Ensure this aim is fully embedded into processes to avoid irritating or alienating customers with incomplete or incorrect answers.

Moving onto the third most popular response in our poll, ‘to improve human decision making’, we spoke with Jon Moon FIH, FRSPH, FLPI, Learner Experience Systems and Technology Manager (UK & Ireland) at Sodexo, who believes this is the most valuable use case for AI. He told us,

“For me the top AI use case currently is in its ability to quickly and reliably interpret qualitative data and provide thematic as well as detailed insights. Traditionally, qualitative data has almost been a nice to have, since it required a lot of specialist skills to interpret. The capability of AI now has opened up this new treasure trove of information, that organisations have held for years, to tell its story.”

The least popular response in our poll was ‘to boost security and resilience’. But AI is rapidly reshaping the cyber and risk landscape, impacting both offensive and defensive capabilities. In the past year, state-sponsored hacking groups from Russia, China and other adversaries have been caught using AI to improve their capabilities. Conversely, AI can help organisations detect and prevent cyber attacks, analyse vast amounts of data, automate threat response and continuously adapt to emerging threats. AI also helps detect and block malware, filter suspicious emails, monitor network traffic, and protect cloud services and endpoint devices. With the recent high-profile data hacks of the NHS and the payroll system used by the British Ministry of Defence, this area will likely grow in importance in the coming months.

As AI use cases continue to evolve and expand, the role of regulation will become more important than ever. The new Labour government’s Cyber Security and Resilience Bill will expand the remit of existing regulation, put regulators on a stronger footing and increase reporting requirements. We spoke with Harman Kaur, Vice President of AI at Tanium about how to navigate AI developments safely.

“Artificial Intelligence holds significant potential for transformative change. Nevertheless, it is crucial to understand the sources of data for AI as well as the consequences for the use of that data. It is also imperative that we stay transparent and adhere to regulatory standards as we push the bounds of innovation and capitalise on the opportunity created by AI."

So what’s your use case for AI? Let us know in the comments section.