AI and Enterprise Platforms

In this episode of the Business Excelleration^® Podcast, we explore how generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) is reshaping industries and opening new pathways for innovation. As businesses embrace the potential of Gen AI, what challenges will they face? What opportunities should they take advantage of? A discussion with Kyle McNabb, vice president of research, and Associate Principals Rob Donahue and Joe Nathan in our transformation practice.

Welcome to The Hackett Group’s “Business Excelleration^® Podcast,” where week after week we hear from AI strategy consulting experts on how to avoid obstacles, manage detours and celebrate milestones on the journey to world-class performance. This episode is hosted by Kyle McNabb, vice president of Research at The Hackett Group. He is joined by Rob Donahue, associate principal in The Hackett Group’s Transformation practice and leader of the Enterprise Platform Strategy, and Joe Nathan, associate principal in The Hackett Group’s Transformation practice who also leads work in cloud and Gen AI.

Today, we explore the impact of Gen AI on core enterprise platforms. We’ll discuss key trends, benefits, challenges and what the future holds for organizations looking to leverage Gen AI solutions in their operations. Organizations have billions of dollars invested in skills and operations based on core enterprise platforms. To begin, Joe explains what platform vendors today are doing with AI and why. Common use cases in the market for AI include creating new product designs, writing articles, doing research and predicting outcomes. These are all incentives for vendors to begin embedding Gen AI, which makes it easier to integrate it into enterprise platforms. This helps by automating processes and providing personalized customer experiences.

Although AI is a hot topic right now, Rob explains that AI and machine learning have been within our enterprise platforms for several years. They are becoming much more functionally and process focused as embedded Gen AI platforms are being brought in. In enterprise platforms, Gen AI is commonly being used in the areas of power business intelligence and intelligence platforms, Customer relationship management engagement and customer service. Some platforms are embedding AI just in interactions with the applications, such as Copilot embedded in Microsoft Dynamics. This trend will only continue to rise over time. Platforms are moving to be less transactional and more conversational.

Organizations have been using machine learning to predict trends in supply chain demand for a long time. For the last few years, vendors have been focusing on automation to drive this area. Gen AI will lean on this existing data to make direct and actual recommendations on its own. Large vendors – such as Microsoft – are putting so much energy and money behind developing Gen AI tool sets for processes like supply chain and finance. Finance companies have been using machine learning for almost a decade to advance their tool sets. Now, they are taking it even further to embrace interactive models to drive efficiencies even further. Information technology organizations also benefit from embracing Gen AI in a number of areas, including monitoring platforms, cloud optimization and more. The predictive and proactive nature that AI tools are bringing to the tool set are actively changing finance functions today. Joe highlights Microsoft Copilot’s Gen AI capabilities, which helps to improve developer productivity overall.

With so many different vendors emerging on the market to offer solutions, platforms are trying to renovate themselves with continuous improvement and innovation in order to stay relevant. If vendors don’t start embedding Gen AI capabilities in their platforms, there is a big risk that they will lose their comparative edge. Taking advantage of embedded AI solutions helps the enterprise run smoother overall. Some organizations haven’t kept up with evolving technologies and don’t recognize the benefit of moving their data to a current platform. However, enterprise platforms are offering embedded solutions to help with modernizing businesses. With any new technology, there will be some risks and challenges involved. Organizations should be careful about keeping their data private by enforcing policies and data classifications to protect themselves. Another challenge is around skills and talent acquisition. Ethics and regulatory compliance are also factors to consider when selecting the best AI solution for your enterprise.

Finally, hear Joe’s best advice in regard to getting started on your AI journey. He often recommends clients to not start with a long list, but rather with something that will be easy to adopt. Once you see benefits from this initial AI adoption, you can begin to explore other areas that may be helpful. Looking toward the future of Gen AI, Rob predicts that these platform providers will change how these users and customers alike engage with enterprise platforms. It will change how we get and interpret data, and how suppliers and customers interact with us from a data perspective. Gen AI is here to stay and actively creating the path for new platform vendors.

Time stamps:

0:49 – Welcome to this episode hosted by Kyle McNabb.

2:13 – What are platform vendors today doing with AI and why?

4:31 – The functions that are becoming more AI-enabled.

6:13 – Which process areas are more mature than others?

9:43 – How AI is being used in IT.

13:50 – The risks of not taking advantage of embedded AI capabilities.

17:32 – Safety, ethical and skill concerns of Gen AI.

19:55 – How to start your AI journey.

21:55 – Looking toward the future of Gen AI.