The strategic importance of AI is growing at an accelerating pace. Many companies are reaping the rewards of AI now and will increase their investments as a result. Every board member and every senior executive must understand the key trends in AI that will impact their businesses. According to ResearchAndMarkets.com, the global artificial intelligence market is expected to grow from $40 billion in 2020 to $51 billion in 2021 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28%. The market is expected to reach $171 billion in 2025 at a CAGR of 35%.

A landmark battle raged in New York City on May 11, 1997. This contest was dubbed the brain's last stand and considered the proverbial human-versus-machine duel. In the end, IBM's Deep Blue routed the World Chess Champion at the time, Garry Kasparov. It changed the way humans looked at Artificial Intelligence (AI). Over the next two decades, AI has grown a lot smarter.

Both McKinsey and Bain surveyed companies with revenues of $500 million and above on their strategic planning, and the findings were not comforting. According to the McKinsey work, only 23% had a formal strategic management process (and only 13% said it played a meaningful role in their corporate strategy). The survey also found companies generally do not focus their process on new growth opportunities. Just 32% in the Bain survey believed they had a strong strategic planning process. The rest found it ineffective in gaining strong results when the plan was followed (which is, after all, the test of whether the strategic plan was indeed good or not).

Is your financial institution getting the most out of your strategic plan? The future of every banking organization depends on the development and implementation of a strategic plan that's well thought out. But strategic planning without commitment to action, and then the action, results not only in no progress ... but lost ground. Subscribe to The Financial Brand via email for FREE!The benefits of strategic planning are well documented. Done well, a strategic planning process allows organizations to set a direction, providing objectives and goals that are used for assessing progress across the organization.