AI in the enterprise has proven to be a slow-growth and experimental journey for companies that don't fall into the category of massive tech giants and Fortune 500 businesses. In the early stages, companies have toyed with machine learning-its capabilities and how they can apply it to their business. This stage is dependent on digital readiness, the skills in an organization and the business problem that needs to be solved. However, many companies have become overwhelmed and distracted with the constant buzz around the latest advancements in machine learning algorithms; leaving missed opportunities for right-sized, tangible implementations and progress. In 2020, AI will be found in an expanded pool of business roles, use cases and companies of all sizes.

In the last years, technology has gradually become invisible and digital ubiquity is arising in our daily work and private lives. This is also true for artificial intelligence and its impact for companies to succeed in the digital age. Organizations must foster their digital readiness, which decides about their future business model and which encompasses a range of aspects: it comprises the capability of companies to obtain the benefits which arise from information technology, including their successful transformation into truly digital enterprises and using innovative technologies like artificial intelligence, and people's individual preparedness to embrace and use the new digital technologies for their jobs. Although there is substantial evidence that digital readiness positively influences company outcome in the digital world and employees have to be ready, studies show, that the associated capabilities are only rarely in place. This goes along with a perceived lack of digitally skilled and experienced managers, who do not have enough knowledge about innovation and major digital trends and who are not yet able to fasten reaction speed and to foster an innovation culture of their firms, which is seen as one of the most important innovation barriers by many employees.

In late 2018, digital readiness ranked as the top concern in enterprise C suites in a survey conducted by North Carolina State University's Poole College of Management. That's not a surprise considering that enabling digital readiness is more than just digitizing information. Work processes must be retooled to work in a digital environment, employees must be trained--and digitized information must be trusted. SEE: Digital transformation in 2019: A business leader's guide to future challenges and opportunities (Tech Pro Research) What best approaches and projects should IT leaders pursue to facilitate digital transformation? CRM, sales, products and service systems should be cross-linked so that personnel in customer-facing departments have complete and consistent information on customers.

I spoke with Peter Quinn, who orchestrated the highly successful Robotic Process Automation (RPA) implementation at a large wealth management firm, about some of his insights and lessons learned. In that discussion, two of his methodologies stood out to me. His methodologies for funding the implementation and for change management led to capturing greater ROI from RPA. In our Pinnacle Model research at Everest Group, we investigated more than 200 leading companies undertaking RPA adoption. While the cost savings from RPA were similar across all the enterprises we studied, we found that Pinnacle Enterprises – those that achieved superior business outcomes – achieved a significantly higher (4X) return on investment.