As the impact and innovations of Artificial Intelligence (AI) grow, companies today must recognize its essential role in transforming business operations in 2024 and the year ahead.
In fact, according to a report from IBM, 65% of global businesses have adopted AI to reduce manual or repetitive tasks, which significantly boosts their productivity.
However, the successful implementation of AI initiatives requires more than just advanced technology; To truly harness the power of AI, organizations need a well-structured and collaborative team of experts. An AI team.
In this blog, we’ll explore what an AI team is, why it’s beneficial for your organization, and the steps to create one. We’ll cover the different roles within an AI team, the skills required, and how these teams work together to drive business objectives.
By understanding these elements, you can better plan for and implement AI initiatives in your organization.
So, let’s get started!
What is an AI team?
Before we dive into how to create the perfect AI team, let’s first understand what an AI team actually is and why it is essential for your organization.
An AI team is a multidisciplinary group of professionals with diverse expertise within an organization. They collaborate to develop, implement, and manage artificial intelligence solutions that drive business value for the organization.
The team works together to identify opportunities for the organization where AI can be integrated into products, services, and/or internal processes. Think about enhancing efficiency, automating daily tasks, improving customer experiences or generating insights from data analysis.
The success of an AI team depends on seamless collaboration and synergy among its members. Leveraging their combined specialized knowledge from various domains such as business intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, and generative AI enables them to overcome challenges and deliver AI solutions which align with the organization’s objectives.
Now that you understand what an AI team is, let’s discuss when your organization might need one!
When do you need an AI team?
An organization might need an AI team when it aims to leverage artificial intelligence to for example gain a competitive advantage, enhance efficiency and productivity, foster innovation, and future-proof its operations.
Let’s explore some detailed scenarios where your organization might require an AI team:
Building an AI-driven culture
Are you already implementing and encouraging the use of AI in your organization? Or are you in the early stages of adopting AI? Then you might need an AI team. Establishing such a team signals an organization’s commitment to AI and creates an AI-driven culture.
The AI team can promote AI adoption, upskill the workforce, and work with various departments to identify AI use cases. Moreover, they can help to identify new opportunities and push the boundaries of the possibilities of AI within your organization.
Preparing your organization for AI
Beyond having an AI team to build an AI-driven culture and generate enthusiasm among colleagues, it’s essential to ensure your organization is prepared for AI adoption.
AI models rely on high-quality data and proper infrastructure. Therefore, if an organization still lacks the necessary data quality, accessibility, and infrastructure, an AI team is important to set up. This team will address these prerequisites to ensure successful implementation of Artificial Intelligence.
Automating and optimizing processes
Organizations can harness AI to enhance their efficiency and productivity. You can think of automating repetitive tasks, streamlining operations, and optimizing decision-making processes.
An AI team can develop and implement AI solutions, like a customized chatbot, AI driven predictive analytics, and robotic process automation (RPA), allowing employees to focus on more complex and value-added tasks.
Gaining a competitive advantage
As AI adoption increases across industries, having an AI team enables organizations to stay ahead of the competition. According to a report by Accenture, 84% of global business executives believe AI will provide them with a competitive edge.
By continuously exploring new AI opportunities, driving innovation, and leveraging cutting-edge AI technologies, they can future-proof your organization and gain a competitive advantage.
Effectively managing AI initiatives
Implementing AI is a complex task that requires a structured approach. A dedicated AI team can provide centralized governance, ensuring all activities in the field of AI align with the organizational goals.
Moreover, an AI team can efficiently manage AI projects and mitigate risks associated with AI deployment, thereby streamlining the optimization of AI use.
After understanding when an AI team might be needed within your organization, we’ll next discuss the reasons for creating an AI team and its benefits.
Why do you need an AI team and its benefits
Forming an AI team can be a strategic decision for your organization, offering numerous advantages that drive innovation, efficiency, and let you stay ahead of your competitors. Here are some key reasons why you might need to create an AI team:
Risk management and ethical AI development
AI systems can have significant ethical implications and potential risks, including bias, privacy concerns, and unintended consequences.
Having an AI team inside your organization with expertise in AI ethics, risk assessment, and responsible AI practices is crucial. They can mitigate these risks and ensure the ethical development and implementation of AI.
Improve collaboration and engagement
An AI team can enhance your employees’ collaboration by automating routine tasks, clarifying next steps, and fostering a creative thinking and engaging work environment. By identifying impactful areas for automation, implement AI tools to manage workloads, the team can reduce time-wasting activities without disrupting workflows.
In fact, in a study from MIT Sloan, AI technology has been shown to increase business productivity by 40%, allowing employees to focus on more complex and value-added tasks, thereby improving overall performance and engagement.
Enhance scalability and efficiency
As AI opportunities are rapidly increasing, a dedicated team becomes crucial for efficient management, resource allocation, and scalability. An AI team can streamline processes, divide tasks, and ensure timely delivery of solutions.
While creating an in-house AI team can be costly, it offers benefits such as rapid response, direct communication, and complete control over projects, leading to significant time and cost savings in the long-term.
Leverage data-driven decision making
AI teams can leverage complex data to generate valuable insights, resulting in better decision-making and driving the business goals.
By analyzing large datasets, AI can uncover patterns and trends often missed when a human does an analysis. This data-driven approach reduces biases, improves strategic outcomes, and helps your organization to make more accurate and informed decisions.
Continuous learning and improvement
The world of AI is rapidly evolving, with the newest models and tools constantly emerging.
An AI team can make sure that your organization stays up-to-date with these advancements.
Moreover, they can attend relevant training and workshops, continuously improving their skills and sharing their knowledge with the rest of the workforce. Keeping your organization competitive and able to leverage from the latest AI technologies.
Overall, these benefits highlight why creating an AI team is essential for effectively leveraging the power of AI in a way that aligns with your organization’s goals and values.
Steps on how to create an AI team
Now knowing why having an AI team inside your organization is beneficial, it’s important to know the critical steps and considerations it involves to form such a team. Therefore, let’s have a look at the steps you need to take when you want to create an AI team.
Step 1. Define your AI goals
Before creating an AI team, it is crucial to clearly define what you as an organization want to achieve with AI.
Identify the specific challenges you want to address with AI, the expected outcomes, and the skills required to meet these goals. This will help to align the team’s efforts to the business objectives of the organization.
Step 2. Identify key roles and responsibilities
Secondly, an effective AI team requires a diverse set of roles. It is important to define the skills, experience, and qualifications needed for each role.
In addition, clearly defined responsibilities are crucial in order to ensure smooth collaboration and project execution.
Step 3. Choose between in-house and outsourcing
Following, it’s important that you decide whether you want to build an in-house team or outsource to AI experts. In-house teams offer better control and integration with existing processes since they understand the organization’s operations better.
However, outsourcing your AI team can provide access to specialized skills and reduce costs. Alternatively, you could consider a hybrid approach, where you create an in-house AI team with consultancy from experienced AI experts.
Step 4. Recruit top talent
Next, if you decide to form an in-house AI team, hiring the right talent is crucial. Look for candidates with technical skills, experience and a passion for concepts such as natural language processing, computer vision, machine learning, deep learning, and generative AI.
Key skills you could look at include programming languages (e.g., Python, R), familiarity with AI frameworks (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch), and sufficient knowledge about statistical modeling and algorithms.
Step 5. Foster a culture of continuous learning
Lastly, AI technologies evolve rapidly, so it’s essential to encourage continuous learning and development. Besides forming an AI team, it’s also important to make sure that you inspire your employees to use AI for their day-to-day activities, which ensures a smoother adoption and implementation of AI inside your organization.
Think for example about providing your employees the opportunity to participate in an AI Workshop to encourage the use of AI among your employees, or set up a feedback channel where employees can share their experiences, challenges and success with AI.
Now knowing how to create an AI team from beginning to end, let’s have a look at which roles are needed to structure your AI team.
The roles needed to structure your AI team
After defining your AI goals, identifying the challenges you want to address with AI, and outlining the necessary skills in step 1, it’s time to identify the specific roles for your AI team.
Structuring an AI team within your organization requires considering a variety of roles that cover different aspects of AI development and implementation. By carefully selecting these roles, you can ensure a comprehensive approach to your AI initiatives.
Let’s discuss some key roles and their responsibilities that are essential for building an effective AI team:
Data Scientist
Data scientists are the core of any AI team. They process and analyze data, build machine learning models, and draw conclusions to achieve the business goals. Their expertise in data manipulation, statistical analysis, and model building is crucial for developing effective AI solutions.
Data Engineer
Data engineers design, build, and maintain data pipelines, ensuring the efficient flow of information between different systems. They manage the data infrastructure, ensuring data quality, consistency, and security, which is essential for AI model training and deployment.
Machine Learning Engineer
Machine learning engineers focus on developing, optimizing, and implementing machine learning models. Their responsibility is to ensure that AI models are integrated into software systems effectively and can scale as needed.
AI Software Engineer
AI software engineers are responsible for integrating AI models into production systems. They design front-end systems, integrate data sources, establish APIs, and construct frameworks that enable AI functions. They ensure the seamless installation and integration of AI models into software applications.
Domain Expert
Domain experts have deep industry knowledge and understand the specific challenges and opportunities within the organization. They collaborate with data scientists and engineers to define AI objectives, validate AI solutions, and ensure alignment with your business goals.
Project Manager/AI Strategist
An AI strategist or project manager oversees the planning, execution, and monitoring of AI projects. They define project scopes and goals, manage resources and budgets, and facilitate communication within the team. Their role is crucial for ensuring that AI projects are aligned with business objectives and are delivered on time.
AI Ethicist and Legal Advisor
Ethicists and legal advisors ensure that AI initiatives adhere to ethical guidelines and legal requirements. They address issues related to privacy, fairness, and transparency, ensuring that AI systems are developed and used responsibly.
Notably, according to a report of the Capgemini Research Institute, nearly 90% of corporate executives have reported encountering ethical issues with their AI systems, highlighting the crucial role of an AI ethicist and legal advisor in navigating and mitigating such challenges.
UX Designer
UX designers ensure that AI systems provide a great user experience by being user-friendly and easy to interact with. They create prototypes to demonstrate new AI capabilities and work on making AI models understandable, to build trust between human users and AI systems.
Structuring an AI team involves assembling a diverse group of professionals, each with specialized skills and expertise. The roles mentioned above are just a few of the many you could include in your AI team.
You might also consider adding operations professionals, software developers, product managers, IT leaders, business analysts, product designers, QA specialists, and testers.
Overall, having a diverse set of roles ensures that your AI projects are well-rounded, ethically sound, and aligned with your business objectives.
Get started with an AI team for your organization
This blog has provided you with a comprehensive overview on creating an effective AI team within your organization. We discussed the importance of AI teams, when your organization might need one, the benefits of having an AI team, and the critical steps to form such a team.
By understanding these aspects, you can better harness the power of AI to drive innovation, efficiency, and competitiveness in your business.
If this blog has inspired you to integrate an AI team into your organization and you need further advice or support along the way, we at DataNorth are here to assist you at every stage of your AI adoption process.
We offer consultancy from the initial planning stages all the way to developing and implementing custom AI solutions for your business.
Are you ready to transform your organization with the power of AI? Contact us here for expert advice and support!
