Leveraging AI Consulting for Effective Decision Making

As businesses grow and react to market and industry changes, decision-makers must tackle critical and time-sensitive choices to accelerate growth. The outcomes of these decisions are significant, and many businesses are integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics to assist in decision-making.

AI is already revolutionizing how we do business, with 53% of companies using it to help improve production processes and 55% deploying it for personalized customer services. Recent AI advancements have resulted in more precise insights, allowing organizations to identify opportunities and potential risks more effectively. In short, AI is elevating decision-making across industries. As businesses integrate AI across their operations, AI consulting services provide significant value in navigating and leveraging this growing technology. 

Understanding AI Decision-Making

Effective decision-making is a cornerstone of business success. The more data you give AI, the more it learns. Algorithms are the instructions you provide AI so it learns to operate independently. It takes in data and uses it to learn how to give the consultants relevant and structured data for fast decision-making.

Through its vast capability to analyze data and identify trends, AI can help businesses forecast future trends, make informed decisions in the present and drive sustainable growth in the future. AI employs different analytics techniques at various stages to inform decision-making. The different degrees of AI in decision-making include:

  • Decision automation: Automation involves making decisions with prescriptive or predictive analytics. 
  • Decision augmentation: Augmentation means AI recommends a decision or some alternatives to people using analytics to create a balanced outcome. 
  • Decision support: This AI supports employees' decisions with predictive, descriptive or diagnostic analytics. 

In the past, decision-making was mainly based on intuition. Today, more businesses are making data-driven decisions, leveraging AI algorithms and techniques. Of course, AI is only as effective as the data it receives, so it has to collect and analyze quality data — the more quality data AI gets, the better the decision-making.

Using AI for decision-making has significant advantages, such as removing bias, making efficient choices and reducing costs. Like any strategy, it presents challenges. Some people find the concept threatening, and integrating AI into your operational processes could be met with resistance. Other potential challenges include the quality of available data, data security and the shortage of people with the technical skills to help optimize AI's effects. 

While integrating AI is part of an overall digital transformation necessary for many businesses to survive, it requires a sound strategy and experienced professionals to help your business achieve its objectives. 

The Advantages of AI for Businesses

Digital innovations have shaped an ever-changing business landscape. For most companies, incorporating AI and embracing digital transformation is necessary. AI provides many considerable advantages to businesses, some of which include:

  • Data insights: Using AI gives you insights into your data so you can make informed and time-sensitive decisions. 
  • Efficiency and productivity: Handing repetitive tasks to AI allows your team to focus on core competencies and frees up time for business growth. 
  • Speed: Moving from one business phase to the next keeps customers satisfied and often delivers a better return on investment (ROI). 
  • Customer experiences: Delivering a personalized and user-friendly customer experience is essential. AI can customize customer experiences to speak directly to each individual. 
  • Innovation: Working with AI leads your team to use the tools to spark creativity and assist in innovation.

The Role of AI Consulting Services

AI consulting services are skilled professionals who leverage AI skills to help businesses identify opportunities to integrate AI and implement and manage these options. They provide strategic insights and support to companies navigating AI integration. Some of the key roles of AI consultants include:

  • Keeping up with the latest insights and trends so you can use this information in decision-making. 
  • Addressing complex business challenges using algorithms and AI. 
  • Streamlining change management initiatives. 
  • Designing prognostic and prescriptive AI models to assist in strategic decision-making. 
  • Developing AI use and implementation strategies. 
  • Providing technical assistance. 

Making the right decision for your business can be time-consuming and complex. AI can simplify decisions and quickly assess massive amounts of data, making it an excellent decision-making tool. Knowing how to use AI to make effective strategic decisions is essential. AI consulting services can help you create, choose and implement decision-making AI with your desired outcomes in mind, helping to achieve excellent business results and boost ROI. 

Leveraging AI Consulting for Effective Decision-Making

Navigating AI for business can be challenging, particularly considering how often it changes. Working with an AI consultancy service gives you the confidence to tackle the changes, leading the way in digital transformation and leveraging the immense power of AI. An AI consulting service can aid in effective decision-making in the following ways:


1. Identifying Your Business Needs and Goals

Before leveraging AI in your decision-making, you must identify where it can add value to your business. AI consultants can help you pinpoint these areas with a thorough assessment and suggest areas where AI can best assist decision-making. 

2. Selecting the Right Technologies and Tools

Depending on your business needs, your AI consultant can leverage their vast experience to help you select the most applicable tools and technologies to reach your goals. Together, you can create a tailored strategy to align with your goals, budget and business size.


3. Customizing AI Solutions for Specific Decision-Making Processes

Once you have a strategy, your AI consultant can help you through implementation. Every business has distinctive needs, and consultants can develop customized AI options to help you make decisions specific to your organization, industry and goals. AI is fluid, which means it functions best with continuous optimization. Your AI consultancy supports your customized software solution so your AI continues to deliver good results. 

Future Trends and Opportunities for AI in Decision-Making

AI can transform the future of work, from predictive maintenance to data management and analysis. With predictive modeling, scenario analysis and optimization capabilities, AI can assist in making data-driven decisions and deliver insights into market trends, customer behavior and business landscapes. Engineers continue to innovate, and future trends in AI could provide more significant advantages in the years to come. 

Some future opportunities to consider include:

  • Explainable AI (XAI): AI makes rapid, data-driven decisions, and explaining the reasoning behind these decisions can make using AI more ethical and transparent, especially as these decisions can significantly impact your business and customers. 
  • AI in healthcare: AI is already revolutionizing healthcare and can continue to help professionals make correct diagnoses, create personalized treatment plans and provide better patient care. Automating tasks in healthcare frees professionals up to care for patients. 
  • Edge AI: Until now, AI relied on cloud computing. Edge AI — or AI that runs on local devices such as smartphones and laptops — allows for more privacy and efficient processing. 

Alongside AI, other emerging technologies like blockchain, hyper-automation and big data analytics are also evolving. For example, big data analytics involves collecting more data of a higher quality, which requires more powerful AI tools to analyze. In truth, AI can automate or augment many emerging technologies, compounding their positive impact on business operations. 

As future trends become more accessible, they also become more complex. AI consulting takes a primary role in helping businesses leverage AI and other emerging technologies. Consultants are precisely positioned to enable enterprises to stay ahead of the curve, and more organizations can rely on their services to navigate a rapidly changing technological landscape. 

Leverage AI for Decision-Making With BDO Digital Today

Leveraging AI in decision-making can sustain and accelerate growth for your business, help you predict future trends and refine your strategies throughout your company. BDO Digital AI consulting services can help you integrate AI into your strategic model, providing your business with the best tools and technologies and supporting their use with consistent feedback and professional input. 

Every business is different, and we pride ourselves on getting to know our customers, so we can help them optimize every aspect of their technology and reach for higher possibilities. Contact us today to elevate your decision-making processes with the power of AI consulting.

Ready to start effectively using data and AI to achieve significant returns on investment? Get a Data and AI Blueprint Today!

Our practical executive strategy session will help you identify the business needs and priorities where you could use data and AI to grow your business with established first steps and ongoing support.