AI must become core competence, not a side project

It should really give more leadership teams and boards pause for thought.

Why are so many organisations still stuck in talk, pilots and single tools when others are already moving AI into operations and core processes?

AI must become core competence, not a side project.

At individual level you can get somewhere with individual tools. But if organisations are to take real steps, create value and build competitive advantage, AI must be connected to more central tasks.

To value-creating processes.
To workflows.
To decisions.
To customer and user journeys.
To the competence the organisation itself must own.

The most important takeaway from yesterday's breakfast meeting with NOVA Consulting Group was not one demo or one tool. It was the pattern in hearing what lies behind what works in different companies, and where that can take them.

It gave me a real boost of inspiration. 💥

• Elkem ASA and Egde showed how many small use cases, short development cycles and close user involvement can become an internal AI platform with real impact.
• Nordic Corporate Bank ASA showed how AI agents can move work earlier in the process, from unclear requirements to better clarification, testing, code and documentation.
• Infra Group showed how unstructured HSE data can become better decision support, risk understanding and prevention.

Not every company should copy these solutions. But they showed that AI should not remain in pilot mode if the organisation wants to build competitiveness.

It is also interesting to see how much of what I build and explore myself points in the same direction. Through among other things the master's course GenAI for Business and the self-started AI Value Lab Oslo, I have worked across the full AI journey: from business needs, customer journey and use case logic to building apps, agents, AI architecture, visual content, governance and scaling.

The focus is not on technology alone, even though I also become well acquainted with models, tools and technical possibilities.

It is about how AI can actually be used to solve important business challenges. ✅

I encourage more people to focus on - and take part in - the full journey:
From idea to use case.
From use case to safe testing.
From testing to operations.
From operations to core competence.

Because if others can do it, more can do it. 💯

AI transformation rarely starts with the biggest idea.
It starts with enough structure for small ideas to be tested quickly, learned from and then scaled safely.

But then AI must stop being something the organisation tries on the side of the job.
It must become part of how the work is actually done.

Thank you to the Nova crew, meeting chair Michael Christophersen, and fellow BI students Thomas Holm and Dimitri Oetiker who also came along.

Together we continue exploring the potential of AI when it is placed in good systems. 📈

#GenerativeAI #DigitalTransformation #TechnologyLeadership #CommercialLeadership