AI Can Grow Both Your Company And Your Headcount
While most companies are eager to bring enterprise AI to a host of different functions, a new study from AI search and product discovery company Lucidworks indicates that some of them might be better off tapping the brakes. In a new study, featuring data from the company’s agentic AI “Guydbot,” which explored and evaluated digital experiences at more than 1,100 companies, Lucidworks found 65% of companies do not currently have a solid foundation on which to build more AI into their platforms.
“If you think of agentic AI—AI that performs tasks—as a car, then you can imagine generative AI as the engine, and data as the fuel,” Lucidworks CEO Mike Sinoway said in a statement. “Our report finds that too many e-commerce companies are trying to build Formula 1 racers around go-kart engines—and they might not even have enough gas to fill their tanks.”
Lucidworks’ bot examined which companies are actually utilizing AI-powered solutions on their websites. More than seven in 10 have some form of AI capabilities—including AI summarization, guided selling, interactive Q&A and dynamic personalization. But just 6% have fully deployed an agentic AI solution. And while company leaders may be able to speak confidently about their progress in AI, a survey done by Lucidworks to add to its report shows that many of them know just how behind they are. About 83% said they felt major or extreme concern about their progress in AI—an eight-fold increase from the amount who felt that way two years ago.
Lucidworks’ recommendation to the companies that aren’t quite there with AI adoption is pretty basic: Stop worrying about the huge picture of what AI can eventually do for your company, and concentrate on succeeding in one area at a time. There are relatively easy and fundamental places to improve. For example, only 37.5% of companies are using AI to support multiple language translation on their site, which is a basic AI function. And AI-powered recommendations can give customers what they are looking for—intentionally or not.
More AI can improve your company’s efficiency, finances and services, but it doesn’t have to lower your headcount. Hristo Borisov, CEO of fintech software platform Payhawk, has been hiring more employees in his engineering department as he uses AI to help scale. I talked to him about how more AI has meant more people at his company. An excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter.
We’re taking a summer break and will not be publishing Forbes CIO next week. We’ll be back on Thursday, July 17.
The U.S. Capitol building last week.
While President Donald Trump’s signature policy bill appears to be on track for passage before the July 4 holiday, the Senate removed one of its controversial tech-related proposals during their markup earlier this week. There is no longer a 10-year moratorium on state-level laws........© Forbes
