Every company seeking a competitive advantage is likely to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into their business –but the how is not always so simple. As companies navigate AI adoption, it’s important that they develop an effective AI transformation strategy. Informed AI strategy, cross-functional collaboration, and organizational buy-in are key pillars of successful AI transformation, and central to these pillars lies an important concept: AI literacy. Building an AI literacy program within an organization is critical to successful AI adoption.

AI literacy is the ability to use and apply AI tools effectively and responsibly across contexts, along with a conceptual understanding to identify potential impacts on efficiency, innovation, and strategy. AI literacy requires more than just a basic comprehension of what AI is and expands beyond mere technical aptitude. True literacy includes the skills required to apply AI effectively across contexts and to think through the ethical considerations of that use.  

Creating an AI Literacy Program  

AI Literacy Program Core Components 

Effective AI literacy programs should be comprehensive and touch on the following four categories: AI foundations, AI product delivery, AI governance, and AI value.  

1. AI foundations should explore the fundamental concepts and techniques at the core of AI, including techniques, methods, and practices. For example, an AI foundations module may cover basic machine learning vs. generative AI concepts with overviews of supervised and unsupervised machine learning. 
2. AI product delivery digs deeper and includes components of design, data, training, and validation in AI models. For example, it may build off an introduction to generative AI by defining various models like generative pretrained transformers (GPTs) and generative adversarial networks (GANs).
3. Governance topics are critical to ensuring that AI foundations and product concepts are applied responsibly, and they should provide tools to understand and address the ethical concerns surrounding the use of AI. For example, many organizations handle sensitive customer data like personally identifiable information (PII). When using this data to make decisions, AI models may reproduce human biases or introduce new forms of bias. To mitigate the risks accompanied by letting machines make sensitive decisions, human oversight may be required. For instance, organizations tracking online activity to predict employee retention, analyze exclusions from customer loyalty programs, or outline shoplifting and loss prevention tactics are all sensitive cases where human oversight safeguards from harm. 
4. AI value focuses on exploring the diverse range of use cases for AI and where the greatest impact can be made within an organization. Many organizations recognize the value of major AI applications, like multi-level-marketing (MLM) or prescriptive analytics. Though these applications can bring major benefits, they are often highly complex and thus require significant time and resources to fully implement. As a result, it may take some time before organizations fully realize the benefits and value-add of these sophisticated AI applications. On the other hand, there are many opportunities for quick wins with minimal initial investment required. Clarkston, for example, has received strong positive feedback on delivering quick value-add through training on ChatGPT for Excel.

Essential Participants for an AI Literacy Program  

AI literacy requires multidisciplinary collaboration. Subject matter experts, employees, everyday users, executives, as well as AI leads and experts should be integrated into an effective AI literacy program. To answer the question, “What do we want to do with AI?,” collaboration between these roles will be essential. However, not every member of an organization should be expected to have the same level of expertise across the four tenants.  

The case for involvement of AI leads and experts within an organization is quite clear. They should have the highest level of understanding of AI foundations and engineering to build, validate, and deploy AI tools successfully across the organization. However, AI experts should also have solid understandings of both the immediate and long-term value that AI tools can bring to the organization, as well as the potential risks and costs involved—where AI value and governance come to play.  

While executives should primarily focus their attention on AI value, an understanding of AI foundations, engineering, and governance will give executives the best insight on how emerging AI technologies will impact business strategy and empower them to make the best decisions while enthusiastically championing AI adoption.  

Employees and subject matter experts also benefit from AI literacy. Aside from improving the day-to-day user experience and efficiency through AI literacy, empowering “everyday users” opens the door for potential use cases that may have otherwise not been unearthed. For instance, an AI-literate marketer may spot the potential to quickly generate content for social media posts or automate marketing communications using AI.   

The more diverse your AI literate population is, the more diverse AI use cases your organization will uncover. AI literacy programs should aim to be as inclusive as possible, as empowering users with diverse backgrounds, roles, and experiences with AI literacy creates more opportunities to identify new use cases for AI.  

Promoting AI Literacy within an Organization 

For companies bringing AI into their fold, establishing and promoting AI literacy within their culture is pivotal to successfully introducing and promoting AI. Whether it be through independent self-study modules, lunch-and-learns to explain AI and benefits, or small group trainings centered around applying AI to a small-scale project, creating an AI literacy program will look different across organizations. At the bare minimum organizations should consider their enterprise’s vision, strategy, and culture when creating an AI literacy program.  

Those wishing to boost AI literacy across their organization should consult with our change management experts to align on the best methods to communicate and engage essential participants on the core components of AI literacy. Reach out to us today. 

Contributions from Katelyn Turner