Personal Gains Are More Visible From AI Than Company Gains

Over three quarters of respondents reported individual value findings from AI, compared to just over half of those who reported company-level value, in a new study.

Likewise, the study found that many of the respondents believing themselves to be critical components of company innovation were also creating resistance on AI initiatives.

Viacheslav Brui, Head of AI Transformation at Sombra, spoke with Tech.co about the survey’s findings, and gave his advice for businesses implementing and developing their AI strategy.

Companies are Seeing More Personal Value from AI Than Company-Level

Personal value from AI was more visible than company-level value in a new survey from Sombra. 87% of respondents claimed they had gained transformational, significant, or moderate value from AI in the last 12 months. Comparatively, only 55% of respondents said their company had benefited from AI implementation.

Viacheslav Brui, Head of AI Transformation at Sombra, told Tech.co in an exclusive interview that there are “multiple factors” that can influence whether a company is seeing benefits from AI.

24% of respondents admitted they hadn’t looked into whether their company has benefited from AI implementation, and 15% said leadership had never communicated any gains. As a result, the study suggests local benefits are more visibly seen, whereas company-wide benefits are not always clearly communicated.

The Danger of AI “Champions” and Individual Resistance

The study states, quite plainly, that “innovation has an ego problem.” This is evident in the findings: 79% of respondents saw themselves as a major force behind innovation at their company, and 64% believed innovation would weaken in their absence.

It’s quite common, Brui explains, for companies to select a few AI “champions”, or those that have adopted AI at a very high level. The problem is that this expertise is often not shared with the rest of the organization. “We have one champion, who is on the cutting edge: he knows everything about how to improve performance. But the department in the next room have no idea how to apply that,” Brui says.

The danger of this is that while some employees are seeing individual benefits, the organization as a whole is lagging behind. The best solution is to ensure knowledge is shared across departments.

At Sombra, Brui says, they pick enthusiastic people from each department, give them the tools and the training, and then ask them to share this knowledge with their colleagues. This is better than say, leadership giving general use cases across the business, because it means individuals can adopt AI while remaining “close to their workflows,” meaning overall benefits are far more likely, says Brui.

However, while respondents rated themselves highly on an individual level when it came to innovation, many of the same respondents also admitted to slowing innovation down. 22% had done so because of unreliable data quality, and another 22% said they didn’t see enough value in the project.

Sombra suggests this means innovation depends as much on “individual conviction, control, and willingness to let other people’s initiatives succeed” as it does on organizational support.

How Businesses Can Develop Their AI Strategy

In our interview, Brui broke down what he believed businesses should prioritize when implementing and developing their own AI strategy. He believes leadership should provide support to middle management, and keep them informed on business goals, ownership, and budget.

“Understand what are the company goals and which of those company goals can be achieved with AI, and actually give authority to middle management to decide what initiatives can support these goals.” Viacheslav Brui, Head of AI Transformation at Sombra

Likewise, it’s important for businesses to understand why they are adopting AI. This could be for better ROI or improved customer satisfaction, but “adoption for adoption won’t work,” Brui says.

Another big concern for respondents was data privacy and security, with 58% reporting they’d resisted AI initiatives because of this reason. On this note, Brui says, “I would put in place the policy and the rules of how AI can be used, and set up governance around AI to make sure we prevent data leakage.”

Businesses should also opt for a clear AI policy that details what employees “shouldn’t do with AI so as not to harm the business,” Brui adds.

Overall, businesses should start small. Give employees access to AI tools, and let them understand the basics, like reading documents. Then, maybe introduce AI agents. The main takeaway from Brui? “Don’t build a rocket ship if you cannot build a paper plane.”