The bond between AI ambitions and Organizational Capabilities: A Qualitative Study on the Interaction Between Incremental and Transformational Ambitions in AI Adoption and Organizational Capabilities in the Context of Client-Facing Work.

Sammanfattning

While Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption to drive business value is a growing practice, not only for process or efficiency improvements and automation, but also to drive competitive advantage and differentiation, existing research on the topic of AI strategy and realized business value is scarce. This thesis aims to study: How do transformative versus incremental ambitions practices in AI adoption interact with organizational capabilities in client-facing work? Data were collected through a qualitative approach, with eight semi-structured interviews, from Nordic organizations that implemented AI in their client-facing operations. Core findings of the study are that reaching satisfactory business results through AI adoption is highly influenced by having both high initial ambitions and strong capability building. AI ambitions were mostly influenced by industry pressure and technology advancements, but the experimentation began both through top-down leadership or bottom-up trials. A key capability identified is the strong emphasis on Human-AI collaboration, rather than the creation of an independent substitution through digital transformation. Furthermore, the importance of the AI initiative not being treated as a stand alone project and becoming a core part of the business strategy, which is effected in turn by the ambition level. While strong capabilities for a successful AI implementation were crucial, the influence of the initial ambition on the outcomes was also pointed out during the interviews.