How might we...use generative AI meaningfully, to establish our credentials in that domain

Generative AI was becoming the ultimate fashion and buzzword in the business world, with the release of Open AI's ChatGPT. A client was playing in the consulting world, and every conversation with their own clients was beginning and ending with discussions around the possibilities that Gen AI affords. The CTO we worked with had hundreds of consultants producing frameworks, theories and white papers - they even had an org-wide sandbox set up for their people to play with the OpenAI service.

What they didn't have though, was a meaningful demonstration of how they were using generative AI to optimise their own business. The Spike Squad brief essentially boiled down to the following - help us build something that allows us to ask our clients to 'follow our lead' on Gen AI, rather than relying on 'do as I say, not as I do'.

With a shared vision for what we could do, we worked on a Proof of Concept, using a sample of real data from an existing user-facing product. We delivered a working prototype of a Gen AI powered online assistant that provided navigational and content searching capabilities, as well as the ability to hold simple, focussed, analytical conversations with users. Arguably more importantly though, we provided an analysis of the significant technological, strategic and business challenges/risks that would need to be worked through for a productionised version of the solution to be able to represent our client publicly. Ultimately, we armed the CTO with a stunning prototype to excite his stakeholders, and the information required to make the decision about what to do next, with full sight of the risks involved.

Why the Business loved it

• Allowed them to get ahead of the curve and demo real capability using real code
• Intensive collaboration, resulting in genuine speed from 0-1
• Clear next steps and a view of potential challenges to get to a stable live feature

Why the Engineers loved it

• Investment in AI is exciting, demonstrates innovation and shows a commitment to keeping pace with new tech
• Having access to a code repository which implements AI concepts provides new learning opportunities
• The PoC demonstrated a first step on the ladder, but also a platform for developing with AI