When I talk to clients, they often struggle greatly and waste a lot of time trying to identify valuable business use cases they want to pursue. For many, this is because “AI” and “ML” are big, nebulous concepts that they can’t get their arms around. When this happens, I help them break their thinking down into two main types of use cases.

Efficiency Use Case: Efficiency use cases do something clients already do, but “better”. Better can mean many different things: faster, less cost, less waste, more reliably, higher accuracy, grander scale, more personalized, whatever. AI makes these use cases “better”.

Innovation Use Case: Innovation use cases allow clients to do something they have never done before. Perhaps they didn’t have the technology. Perhaps it would have been too costly. Perhaps they didn’t even have the idea. AI breaks through previous roadblocks.

It’s certainly possible for a use case to have elements of both, but if you’re struggling, start with just one or the other. It is easy enough to add in additional elements as the use case evolves.

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