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Is it only about the technology department when it comes to AI? Is it only about cost reduction and efficiency improvement (layoffs)?

Can't one operate AI without big data?

Does it mean that if all employees can use AI, it is an AI organization?

If you hesitate even for a moment when answering, you may be on the verge of being left behind by the times.

This morning, Shen Pan, a teacher of chaotic innovation and mentor of the AI innovation facility, dissected the growth path of AI implementation from L1 to L5 and explained the transformation methods for six business scenarios. This is not only a revolution in efficiency but also a paradigm shift that concerns survival.

01 Core Framework for AI Implementation - The Growth Path from L1 to L5

Professor Li Shanyou said in a large - scale course in Hangzhou: We are in history without realizing it. We are used to understanding the past retrospectively, but we often can't perceive it at the moment. Ten years ago, a far - reaching era began. In 2010, there was Meituan, a group - booking tool that exploited business opportunities. In 2011, people could share pictures and voice messages on WeChat. In 2012, Didi, a copy of Uber, went online. In the same year, there was Jinri Toutiao, a content website that recommends content based on users' behavior. In 2015, the e - commerce player Pinduoduo was founded, which offered cheap goods through “splitting”.

How many people predicted that these companies would become giants in a few years, overturning the business model? If you look at the Chinese consumer landscape in the past twenty years, you can find that the Internet industry has penetrated into all fields and has become an important driving force for Chinese consumer growth. In 2010, Alipay introduced scan payment. In 2012, Tmall was founded. In 2013, WeChat Pay went online, and the number of Alipay users reached one billion. In 2014, the WeChat Red Envelope was introduced. In 2015, Pinduoduo was founded. In 2016, Douyin and the Taobao Live - shopping platform went online. In 2018, the daily turnover of Li Jiaqi's livestream shop already reached one billion yuan. In 2020, the turnover of livestream e - commerce reached one trillion yuan. In 2023, in - house livestreaming by businesses has become commonplace. If we go back to 2015, we should have started doing livestreams because we already knew it was the era of short videos and livestreams. So, can we predict the future in the present?

Many people say that the world is constantly changing and unpredictable. But many seemingly intractable problems stem from lack of knowledge or insufficient thinking. When you are stuck in traffic in your car, you may not know what's going on ahead, but if you climb a high - rise building and overlook the whole city, you will naturally know where the traffic jam is and how to get through it. In times of discontinuous growth, we often feel jumpy and interrupted, and the reason often lies in the technological revolution.

At the beginning of each technological revolution, the existing value network - positions, business processes, products, and technologies - changes first. At the beginning, you can't recognize the long - term potential yet, so it is first used to increase sales and efficiency. For example, after James Watt improved the steam engine, it was first used to drive the spinning machine to meet the then development trends. L1 means using it as a new tool to strengthen the functions of positions. L2 means regarding it as a new ability and applying it in business scenarios. L3 means seeing it as a new technology and achieving product innovation. When the first principle becomes clearer and clearer, L4 self - developed products and L5 self - developed platforms begin to emerge and create a new value network.

02 L1 - Position Empowerment: AI as a New Tool to Improve Individual Efficiency

L1 is based on positions and aims to improve individual work performance by mastering AI tools. One of the misunderstandings in AI implementation is the priority of cost reduction and efficiency improvement. If you focus on costs first, employees will feel that it's about “cuts” and “reductions” and will naturally resist. However, if you first increase sales and let employees see new opportunities, and then improve efficiency and reduce costs, it's a “sweet reward”, and employees will embrace this change. Companies don't move forward by saving but by earning.

Therefore, when implementing AI, you should first start with the sections that can generate sales, such as sales, marketing, planning, and brand building. If there is sales, employees will take it up. Many companies like to start with the AI - efficiency sections, such as human resources, design, or finance. The human resources department has the function of organizational management and internal lubrication. Excessive cuts can affect the company's functions. The design team can actually be easily replaced by AI, but design is not a profitable department, and you can't save much on costs. Instead, it may lead to discussions about massive layoffs. The finance department has access to a large amount of data, and AI currently still has deficits in accuracy. A hasty replacement can cause a lot of trouble.

For the L1 section, three aspects are the most important. First, you must master some common position - related AI tools and compile your own toolset. Some of these tools are used for drawing, others for data analysis, and still others for creating presentations. After repeated iterations, they are very easy to operate and can significantly improve the efficiency of the daily work process.

Second, you must master multi - dimensional tables. Multi - dimensional tables integrate data collection, AI analysis, and visualization. For example, if you want to analyze and copy different models of successful texts, you only need to insert the links of texts from different platforms into the multi - dimensional table of Feishu. The system can then extract data on likes, comments, and shares and use the Large Language Model to analyze the selling points, use cases, target groups, and the structure of successful texts to produce successful content in series. In another example, when you visited businesses in the past, you had to record the on - site business situation, take photos, and share them in a group, which might take a week. Now you can synchronize the photos directly into the multi - dimensional table, and the AI can automatically recognize and verify the information in a few minutes. Multi - dimensional tables can also create a kind of “sales manager copy” to quickly compile sales reports. Customer service records can be collected in real - time, and it can also provide advice on adjusting the conversation. At the same time, multi - dimensional tables can also automatically generate visualized diagrams based on the data, so that companies can recognize trends at a glance and significantly improve the quality of decision - making.

Third, you must master RPA, robots for monitoring opinions or competitors. If you select the type of data to be collected, it can act like a robot and simulate human actions such as clicking, copying, pasting, searching, collecting, downloading, and verifying and automatically repeat these steps. With RPA, you can easily collect business data, analyze livestream bulletins, and even automatically reply to comments in livestreams to realize an unattended livestream.

03 L2 - Business Empowerment: AI Drives the Transformation of Six Business Scenarios

L2 involves mastering use cases and mainly includes six business scenarios: business strategy, customer evaluation, product innovation, brand marketing, overall corporate governance, and organizational performance.

I. Business Strategy

(1) Insight into the Business Nature

One of the important modules in AI - supported business strategy is insight into the business nature. Understanding the business nature determines the entire business logic. Peter Drucker said that strategy is not about investigating what you should do in the future but what you must do now to have a future. He asked three classic questions: What is my business? What will my business be in the future? What is my business actually?

The market boundary of a business is determined by the selection of customers and value perception and is a strategic assessment. The growth boundary is determined by implementation capabilities such as marketing coverage, service management, product development, and ecosystem connection. The implicit boundary is related to value assumptions and depends on the company's values and the leadership ability of the founder.

Let's take the business nature of pet food as an example. The first question you must ask is: Why do people keep pets? Some say that when you come home after a long day at work and pick up your running dog, stress and fatigue disappear. Others say that when you are exhausted after a strenuous overtime and look at your cat for a moment, you suddenly feel happy and have the energy to keep working. Still others say that when your five - year - old son lovingly takes care of a sick kitten, you feel that he has suddenly grown up. Companionship, stress relief, love and responsibility, education and development... These are the reasons why people keep pets.

If you only see pet food as dog food, consumers strive for cost - efficiency and convenience. But if you recognize the fact that pets are members of the family, pet food must be nutritious, healthy, and diverse, similar to when you choose food for your own child. Saving is no longer the core goal. This is very similar to the mother - to - be market industry. In both industries, the users and consumers of the goods are separated. The buyers don't use the products directly, and their judgments are based on the brand and reputation. Many dog food products have a DHA formula, and the demand for DHA for dogs comes entirely from the owners. In other words, the real consumers of pet food are pet owners. If you understand this, the nature of the industry changes completely.

Let's take the example of selling phone cases. A phone case costs 30 yuan, and if you sell one million phone cases a year, the sales are about 30 million yuan. If you want to achieve sales of 100 million yuan, you have to go abroad. Abroad, you can sell the same phone case for a few dollars, and with the same sales volume, the sales can exceed 100 million yuan. However, if the goal is over 300 million yuan, the average selling price must be increased to 500 - 800 yuan. At this price, it is no longer just a phone case but like CASETiFY, whose designs are mainly created in cooperation with artists and has become a platform where young people can express themselves and show their creativity. The sales reached over 300 million US dollars in 2022. This shows that the business nature determines the upper limit of the business.

The core question in insight into the business nature is therefore: Why do consumers pay for a product? If you question this answer again with “Why?”, what is the product in essence and what is not? What is the core of value creation? On which key assumptions is the business logic mainly based? How does this differ from the traditional view? Which assumptions may be broken in the AI era? Summarized in one sentence: What is the nature of XX products?

Many companies find it difficult to think about the business nature, but with the support of AI, this problem becomes easier. A participant dealing with non - ferrous metal profiles and composite materials targets consumer electronics and new energy companies. The AI has achieved the result that the business nature is to “provide high - performance and customized” non - ferrous metal profiles and composite material solutions for consumer electronics and new energy companies to strengthen the core competitiveness of end - products such as lightness, battery life, and energy efficiency as the “supporting foundation for function fulfillment”. This participant was very impressed. In the past, they constantly discussed cost - efficiency and cost problems with their customers and got involved in a price war. However, if you align the business direction to strengthen the core competitiveness of customers, everything changes.

(2) Industry Research

After a clear understanding of the business nature, in the AI - supported business strategy, it's about another important module - industry research. In the past, people often used the pillar - thinking method and predicted revenues based on a fixed growth rate. If the business volume was 80 million yuan last year and 100 million yuan this year, you would expect it to be about 120 million yuan next year. This calculation has a certain...