Harnessing AI to Unlock New Forms of Customer Value

Introduction

As artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities rapidly mature, most companies pursue AI without connecting efforts to real customer value. By taking a strategic approach anchored in customer needs, however, AI offers possibilities for innovation creating differentiated user experiences. This white paper shares a framework for applying AI to unlock new forms of customer value across key business priorities.

Focusing AI Through the Lens of User Value

Instead of generic AI deployments, companies should pursue high-value AI defined as:

Capabilities elevating user experiences by addressing unmet needs, removing friction, and enabling new outcomes.

Realizing such possibilities requires examining problems through the lens of user value across three dimensions:

1. Automating Manual Work

  • Personalized in-product guidance

  • Contextual help and recommendations

  • Streamlined workflows

2. Generating Insights

  • Discovering unmet user needs

  • Validating product direction

  • Quantifying business impact

3. Achieving Outcomes

  • Optimizing key metrics

  • Personalizing user journeys

  • Accelerating transformations

Pursuing high-value AI mandates not technology for its own sake but deliberate needs-driven innovation placing user goals first.

By connecting AI to priority customer problems across these dimensions, companies can deliver magical experiences that affordably scale.

Guiding Principles for Impactful AI

Effectively harnessing AI to transform user value relies on four guiding principles:

  1. Validate with Real Users

  2. Measure Business Value

  3. Prioritize Integration

  4. Champion Adoption

AI should ultimately collapse behind the user experience, not distract users. By tying AI to real problems and anchoring on adoption, companies can sustainably scale AI delivering tangible user benefits over marketing hype.

The Possibilities of Purposeful AI

With a strategic approach, AI offers boundless potential to remove friction, enable outcomes and exceed user expectations across virtually every domain. But possibilities emerge only when grounded in genuine user needs and focused on adoption. The principles for High-Value AI provide guideposts to harness AI for human good. By championing such responsible innovation, companies can unlock new forms of customer magic at scale.