Maximizing the Benefits of AI: Best Practices to Safely Manage Its Use

Machine learning touches nearly every part of our world and is transforming the way we live, work, and interact with each other, and it isn’t slowing down. However, with its unprecedented growth, it isn’t without risk. It’s essential to understand the potential risks associated with using AI, so you can take the necessary steps to set up processes and guardrails to minimize the risk to you and your organization.

Below are five steps to mitigate risks proactively and safely manage using AI. 

Step 1: Appoint a single lead or a committee to manage the use of AI 

Form a committee with representatives from different teams, such as operations, security, legal, and marketing. This helps ensure all areas of your business are represented, and policies and procedures are comprehensive and effective. 

Step 2: Define your initial use cases 

Define your initial and follow-on use cases. Are you looking to automate routine tasks, generate scripts to address technical issues, provide faster responses to customer queries, or improve customer satisfaction? Most organizations start with a single initial use case and expand from that success. 

Step 3: Where to implement AI 

Initially, you may use the browser-based prompt user interface from OpenAI, ChatGPT, or some of the upcoming Bing tools. Depending on the use case, it might be more advisable to use OpenAI or Azure APIs to integrate AI more directly into your workflows. It’s important to note that any AI tool should not entirely replace human customer service representatives. Instead, it should be used to supplement their efforts and provide faster, more efficient customer service. 

Step 4: Set up guardrails 

Establish guardrails to manage the use of AI. This includes setting up policies and procedures for access to data, training staff to identify potential security threats, and establishing a clear incident response plan. Most importantly, maintain a human in the middle to review, edit, and test any generated script or customer response before it is used.

Step 5: Monitor and refine your processes 

Monitor and refine your AI processes continually, including regularly reviewing policies and procedures, evaluating prompt engineering and the effectiveness of your solution, and ensuring that staff members are trained to use it effectively. It’s important to remain current with industry trends and developments in conversational AI technology to ensure you’re using the most effective solutions available.

By setting up processes and guardrails to take advantage of AI technology, you can improve customer service capabilities and minimize risk. With the right policies and procedures in place, you can use AI to automate routine tasks, provide faster and more personalized responses to customer queries and enhance their overall service offerings.  

Information used in this article was provided by our partners at ConnectWise.