Artificial Intelligence (AI) is advancing at an unprecedented pace with breakthroughs and disruptions occurring almost weekly. From large language models to advanced automation systems with agentic AI, AI's impact is rapidly reshaping industries and redefining how businesses operate.
Based on CGI Voice of Our Clients (VOC) research, GenAI is the top innovation investment priority over the next three years. Many top-level managers, however, are challenged in fully understanding the intricacies of AI and its strategic implications. This lack of understanding often hinders their ability to use AI effectively. Research published in Fortune shows that 75% of AI projects are currently unsuccessful, primarily due to a lack of strategic direction and understanding.
To navigate this complex landscape, organizations need to be proactive rather than reactive. This means anticipating AI trends, understanding their potential impact, and using this knowledge to inform strategic decisions on how best to use AI. These critical endeavors are ideally suited for a strategic AI foresight team.
What is a strategic foresight team?
A strategic AI foresight team is a dedicated group that scans the AI landscape, identifies emerging trends, assesses their potential impact, and advises on strategic direction. Imagine it as an AI compass for your organization, offering clarity and direction based on responsible AI principles amid the unpredictable waves of AI innovation. This team helps to navigate complex advancements, ensuring you stay on course and seize the best opportunities.
The need for such a team is more critical than ever, given the risks and opportunities of disruptive AI technologies. For instance, AI advancements like ChatGPT and generative models have fundamentally changed industries such as media and customer service, altering workforce needs and competitive dynamics. Without a dedicated foresight team, organizations can be unprepared for the rapid advances AI brings.
How does a strategic AI foresight team operate?
A strategic AI foresight team follows a comprehensive work process to stay ahead of the AI curve. This process includes:
- Trend analysis: The team constantly monitors emerging AI technologies, tracking trends and forecasting their potential short- and long-term impact on internal business operations, competitors, clients, and society. This helps the organization understand how AI developments might evolve and influence different stakeholders.
- Scenario planning: The team develops multiple potential scenarios to assess how AI might reshape the business landscape. These scenarios include conservative and progressive approaches, helping visualize the outcomes under different conditions and levels of adoption. For instance, a conservative stance might involve cautious adoption of new AI tools, while a progressive scenario might envision leading-edge integration of the latest AI advancements.
- Consequence analysis: For each scenario, the team conducts a thorough consequence analysis to evaluate how different AI developments will affect the organization, clients, competitors, and society. This analysis helps anticipate both positive and negative consequences, preparing the organization for any eventuality.
- Risk assessment: With potential AI-driven scenarios mapped out against best practices for responsible AI, the team then identifies risks and opportunities and develops AI strategies. This includes evaluating potential threats posed by competitors that adopt AI faster, as well as workforce implications. By identifying risks early on, the organization can take proactive measures to mitigate them.
- Recommendations: Once the analysis work is done, the team offers actionable recommendations. These recommendations guide leadership in making informed decisions about when and how to integrate AI technologies into the organization, whether to take a conservative or aggressive approach, and how to align these actions with the overall organizational strategy.
- Active feedback loop: The team establishes an active feedback loop to update their analyses and recommendations continuously. As new data and trends emerge, the foresight team revisits earlier assumptions and scenarios, ensuring the organization’s AI strategy remains agile and responsive to real-world changes. Through this iterative process, decisions remain relevant and practical, adjusting to the dynamic nature of AI advancements.
Enhancing the value of a strategic AI foresight team
To enhance the value of a strategic AI foresight team, first develop clear execution frameworks, including roadmaps and success metrics, to ensure the team’s insights lead to tangible outcomes. Establishing touchpoints with leadership and operational teams for seamless integration and cross-functional collaboration is equally essential.
Further, it’s important to address ethics and governance based on an evaluation of the societal and regulatory implications of AI initiatives. Additionally, the team should focus on workforce transformation by promoting reskilling programs and fostering cultural adaptation to AI-driven changes.
The foresight team can also strengthen its role and impact in the following ways:
- Engaging with external ecosystems, such as academia, startups, and policymakers, to access innovative tools and influence industry standards
- Guiding the selection of AI technologies and vendors to ensure alignment with strategic goals while avoiding fragmented adoption
- Defining key performance indicators, such as adoption rates and return-on-investment (ROI), to measure success and refine strategies over time
- Tailoring insights to customer needs and ensuring scalability across diverse regions
Building a strong strategic AI foresight team requires AI expertise, strategic thinking, business acumen, and trend analysis to align AI initiatives with business goals. Cross-functional collaboration also is important to ensure diverse business, technical, data and governance expertise and well-rounded insights. In addition, the team should invest in tools for trend tracking, scenario planning, and strategic analysis to support informed decision-making.
Benefits of a strategic AI foresight team
A dedicated foresight team anticipates AI developments, preventing disruptions and ensuring resilience in the face of unexpected changes. By spotting trends early on, the organization can leverage AI advancements ahead of its competitors, gaining an edge.
Through data-backed insights, the team can also drive more informed decision-making that aligns with emerging AI trends. This enhances adaptability, ensuring the organization can pivot quickly as AI evolves and maintain relevance in a fast-changing environment. In addition, the team’s scenario planning helps the organization determine when to adopt a conservative or progressive stance, balancing innovation with risk management.
Conclusion: Be proactive, not reactive
The rapidly evolving AI landscape requires organizations to be proactive, not reactive, by investing in strategic foresight to stay ahead. A strategic AI foresight team helps anticipate trends, mitigate risks, and seize opportunities ahead of competitors.
If you’d like to learn more about the value of strategic AI foresight or our work in this area, feel free to reach out to me.
Also, learn more about CGI’s AI advisory consulting services.
About this author
Jonas Forsman
Director, Consulting Expert
Jonas Forsman has more than 20 years of experience in designing, developing, testing, and implementing advanced technology solutions across industries using artificial intelligence, big data, data analytics, and business intelligence. He also has significant experience in research and innovation project management both within and outside ...
