Why you should stop looking for Generative AI use cases

Build a GenAI Centre of Excellence
What we are advocating for is a GenAI Centre of Excellence that can orchestrate and drive the enablement, ideation, prioritisation, and execution of GenAI delivery at the required size. It does not matter if your Centre of Excellence consists of 20 or 2 people. The important thing is that all initiatives originate from the same structured plan.

In Deloitte, we define a GenAI Centre of Excellence as a new business unit with the purpose of:

• Forming a clear plan for GenAI embedment into the core business and strategic plan
• Focusing on orchestrating ideation, use case prioritisation, observable impact and value realisation
• Defining the governance framework and decisioning rights for enterprise GenAI and ensure capability delivery
• Producing a comprehensive view on foundational GenAI technology stack and platform within IT functions
• Evangelising and educating GenAI across the organisation while rapidly sharing key learnings and best practices to foster GenAI literacy

In short the GenAI Centre of Excellence must ensure corporate collaboration to drive efficient and effective GenAI at scale from ideation to industrialisation instead of having scattered teams trying to do the same.

The special contract with consumers
As a consumer brand or retailer the use of AI not only has the potential to change the future of work and how you can automate your product design process; it can also transform the very identity of your brand and the way consumers interact with you. GenAI can deliver products and digital customer journeys that are tailored to the individual preferences and needs via automation technology. Chatbots – be it in text, by voice or as an avatar/digital human – can simulate real-life interactions and communicate in everyday speech with a customer. Think about it for a second. How does your brand sound, or what is the voice of your brand? What would your digital consumer service assistant look like?

The tricky part is that GenAI consumption is fuelled by data. Your data. Which for consumer brands and retailers mean customer data. Therefore, there is an even greater responsibility for consumer companies to put up the right security guardrails of defined controls and standards before data is fed to an AI robot. Because if you get that wrong, and the AI model unintentionally starts exposing sensitive data or inappropriate messaging, it can severely damage your brand. It is a delicate balance: Consumers want relevant and tailored interactions but to deliver that experience, we need to know them and their preferences. Engaging with customers in a hyper-personalised manner is all about earning trust and living up to that responsibility. You do not want GenAI to jeopardise that bond.

The GenAI technology landscape is evolving at a breakneck speed, and there are many opportunities across the BU/function level to realise immediate value. However, rather than getting caught up in a use case discussion, we recommend that you start your journey of transformational change with GenAI consumption by addressing the required guardrails to innovate quickly and responsibly, and that you apply a streamlined approach to enterprise data, technology, and domain expertise. A GenAI Centre of Excellence can deliver just that.