Your Business Needs a Fractional Chief AI Officer
You have heard that most AI projects die at infancy, and you are committed to figure out how to do it right!
Here are some facts about you:
You are excited about what AI can do for your business.
You have built a business around your wealth of domain knowledge but AI hasn't been your priority yet.
You have heard that most AI projects die at infancy (POC or MVP stage), and you are committed to figure out how to do it right.
If the above describes your general thought process, you are in the company of many other business owners and startup founders who realize the value of AI but also don’t want to overlook the risks.
The AI Adoption Paradox
In a recent Deloitte report, 79% of the participant organizations thought that their businesses will be drastically impacted by generative AI in the next 3 years. However, in the same report and a similar one by IBM, participant organizations indicated their biggest barriers to AI adoption as follows:
Can we sustain a strategic edge with AI? 66%
How can we use AI with data security in mind? 53%
How can we use AI with data privacy in mind? 51%
How can AI achieve our desired business grade accuracy? 47%
These are all very important concerns, but guess what was by far the largest concern of all? 78% of the organizations felt unprepared in terms of access to the right AI talent to execute their vision. This is a big deal because unlike what some vendors might try to convey, doing AI properly inside your business is not a trivial activity. It requires strategic thinking about your data, your software systems, and the talent available in your business currently and in near future. Who is most suitable for this then? A person who has done it a few times in a few different contexts.
The Role of a Chief AI Officer
The title itself is less important than what this person should do for you:
Meet you where you are in terms of business objectives and concerns, denoise through the hype, and translate what trendy topics mean for you, and what you should pay attention to.
Strategize and create a concrete roadmap of data, software, infrastructure, and AI capabilities that need to come together to build and maintain AI integration into your business workflows.
Brings enough technical chops to the table to oversee the execution and implementation by your current talent or any newly hired ones (that they help vet).
Perhaps, why the Linkedin report on Future of Work observed that the “head of AI” title has tripled over the past 5 years!
Well, at this point you might say, yes, yes, and yes, but first of all, I don’t know how to fill up 40 hours a week of work for this person, but also I doubt I can afford this person for 40 hours a week! You are in luck, my friend! Read on!
Understanding Fractional Work
Fractional work refers to a professional arrangement where an individual provides services to multiple clients on a part-time or project-based basis. In essence, they offer their full range of expertise to you in a "fraction" of their time. Key benefits of fractional executives include:
Lower overhead compared to full-time executives.
Speed and Agility to address specific challenges or opportunities.
Offer a fresh, objective perspective on the business and technological opportunities.
Factors Driving Fractional Work Popularity
Several factors contribute to the increasing popularity of fractional work, particularly at the executive level:
Companies are becoming more cautious about committing to full-time, high-salary executive positions. Fractional work offers a flexible and cost-effective alternative.
In many industries, finding qualified executives can be challenging. Fractional executives provide access to a broader talent pool by themselves or through their often large networks.
Companies often require specific skills or experience for short-term projects. Fractional executives can be brought in to address these needs without the overhead of entertaining a full-time hire post project.
In the current climate where the technology landscape rapidly shifts and in turn results in sudden changes in business opportunities and risks, fractional work is likely to become an even more prevalent model for organizations seeking to optimize their talent and resources.
Fractional CAIO vs. Consultant: Understanding the Difference
While similar in capacity of engagement, aka both roles being at arms length to a company, there are differences: Fractional workers typically take on specific roles within an organization for an extended period, often acting as part-time executives. They are involved in day-to-day operations, while consultants are usually project-based, offering advice and recommendations without long-term commitment or deep integration into the company. Consultants, in a lot of cases, engage with companies in a serial monogamy kind of way, while fractional execs split their time amongst several companies at any given time. There is no right or wrong answer and the question is what your business needs.
The very simplified decision heuristic is something like this: if you know what to do and need more of a worker bee type, you need a consultant, but if you need someone with a broad range of knowledge to strategize with you, then you need a fractional exec. Of course, like everything in life there’s a gray area in the middle where you could have a bit of both, but that comes with trade-offs as you can imagine. So, it is important to be very clear about what can most help your business at this time.
Finding Your Fractional CAIO
Well, the usual places!
Freelance marketplaces like Upwork.
Specialized fractional platforms offering a curated pool of talent.
LinkedIn is an excellent resource for finding experienced tech professionals.
Tech conferences and meetups.
Finding the Right Fit
Yes, the internet is full of guidelines for how to do this, but I think it’s pretty simple: is this a person you can trust to help you achieve your business goals? There are a few observations you can make: a) is this person a recognizable authority on the topic? b) are they a “yes-person” or do they challenge your assumptions in a constructive way? c) do you see yourself brainstorming with them for hours about a problem you need to solve?
Of course, these might be a bit tough to judge, but you need to be honest with yourself about these and spend enough time with them to determine if this is the right arrangement for your goals or otherwise the opportunity cost would be high. Here are some questions and topics you can discuss with them to facilitate uncovering insight about the above:
How do you see AI driving our specific business objectives? This question explores their AI knowledge but importantly within the context of your industry and vertical.
What are the steps of your approach for developing and implementing an AI strategy for our organization? The most important function of this question is to see if they have done it before.
What are the biggest risks projects like this face, and how have you helped mitigate them in the past? Risks are abundant, so this explores how aware of those they are and how much experience they have dealing with them. Hint: if they’re not concerned about your data and its quality, big red flag!
Ultimately though, these aren’t yes and no questions and the goal is for you to assess how comfortable you feel with their thought process, communication, and potentially working with them.
Can I Hire you as our Fractional Chief AI Officer?
Ah! I thought you’d never ask! Yes, you can. Let’s see what those who did, say!
“We engaged Amir and his team when we had a prototype of our gen ai product. Our goal was to increase the reliability and generalizability of our product to ingest a larger breadth of Canadian immigration law documents. They helped us navigate advanced AI techniques and strategies to organize and modularize our software to add new features without compromising the existing ones. Their domain expertise, effort, and clarity of communication enabled us to scale our immigration law chatbot from handling hundred documents to several thousands, and growing confidently.” -Josh S. CEO, Visto AI
What makes me unique is this:
As someone who has run a business for nearly 6 years, I understand the importance of ROI and the real challenges preventing businesses from realizing their tech dreams.
As someone who has built a community of more than 5000 AI researchers and engineers, I can bring in a wide range of talent to the table to deal with any emergent technica challenges.
As someone who has been deep in the trenches of technical details of AI for the past 10 years, I know how to translate and connect business and tech worlds in the most effective way.
Hopefully this article helps you understand another option that is available to you, regardless of me being that option!