The potential value of artificial intelligence (AI) is immense. In a 2020 IBM survey of global defense leaders, nearly three in four indicate that AI will be very or extremely important to their organizations’ strategy in the next three years.
To boot, 95% of respondents say AI has already positively impacted their ability to deliver the mission. That’s more than mobile technologies (94%), Internet of Things (88%) and process automation (76%).
With widespread adoption, AI will become a powerful companion to government decision-makers and leaders. But the technology alone won’t do much, said David Zaharchuk, Research Director for the IBM Institute for Business Value.
“Mission success is not solely reliant upon AI or any single technology,” Zaharchuk said. “Technology by itself does not deliver value. To be successful, organizations must think in terms of outcomes and mission and the people who have to execute that mission.”
To that end, here are two focus areas to ensure AI delivers value.
Create collaboration opportunities.
The National Security Commission on AI found that the talent shortage is “government’s most conspicuous AI deficit.” It identifies the skills gap as “the single greatest inhibitor to buying, building, and fielding AI-enabled technologies for national security purposes.”
A challenge of this scope and scale requires agencies to supplement their expertise by collaborating with peer agencies, commercial partners and other organizations.
The Defense Department’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), for example, models the power of partnerships in its efforts to accelerate the application of commercial solutions and strengthen national security. DIU is a DoD hub that invites the private sector to work together and rapidly prototype advanced technology solutions, such as AI, to tackle national security challenges. The goal is to reduce the time from identifying the problem to awarding the prototype contract from 18 months to 60 to 90 days.
Offer elbow room for innovation.
Although leaders often speak of the value and necessity of failure for innovation, it still makes many people uncomfortable. Only 13% of leaders surveyed say that failure is recognized as an inherent part of the innovation process in their organization.
However, agencies that are embracing experimentation can attest to the benefits. Nearly three in four say experimentation positively affected innovation.
The military’s special operations community is an example. Out of necessity, special operations units must be creative and adaptive. But when the mission has such high stakes, it’s better to test technology and concepts in a sandbox than during operational deployment.
Its Technical Experimentation events provide unique opportunities for new and innovative capabilities to be tested in a real-world collaborative environment for special operatives – and failure is accepted as part of the process. It’s what allows the units to find alternative solutions for challenging conditions. To advance AI, leaders must recognize the value of experimentation and foster cultures that accept failure as integral to innovation.
This article is an excerpt from GovLoop’s guide “Your Field Notes for Data-Driven Decision-Making in Government: Case Studies on Work Culture, Equity and More.”
