Artificial Intelligence is high on the agenda of CEOs in many prominent organizations worldwide. The adoption of AI by business leaders continues apace, and its impact on the bottom line is growing. McKinsey research shows that most firms have adopted artificial intelligence in at least one of their business functions—up from 50 percent in 2020.

Moreover, nearly two-thirds of respondents say their companies’ investments in AI will continue to increase over the next three years, suggesting we’re just in the early stages of the AI revolution. Only 11 percent of the businesses succeeded in bringing AI into the production phase, scaling it within their companies and integrating it into their DNA.

Businesses are already adopting AI, not just to improve their bottom line, but also to carry out their core competencies in a more sustainable, inclusive, and efficient way. “When we talk about helping our clients achieve sustainable and inclusive growth, artificial intelligence is naturally part of the conversation,” says senior partner Alexander Sukharevsky, who, alongside Alex Singla, globally leads QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey. “It’s transforming all businesses, including the way we serve organizations,” says Sukharevsky.

QuantumBlack helps businesses to transform faster and innovate smarter with a mix of data scientists, engineers, product managers and designers. QuantumBlack Labs is the centre of learning dedicated to driving innovation and experimentation in AI and where cutting-edge tools accelerate impact at every stage of the AI transformation journey. QuantumBlack is there to track those shifts as the world changes, with more than 4,000 AI-fluent industry experts and over 1,000 data science and engineering technologists working on over 10,000 AI-related projects over the last three years.

While most companies are experimenting with or actively deploying AI in proofs of concept across their organizations, not everyone is as forward-thinking. Many business leaders are investing in yesterday’s technology or installing complex tools without also retraining or upskilling their teams. These organizations often expend valuable time, money and human labour while failing to scale—and maximizing the true potential of AI.

Because artificial intelligence isn’t a quick fix, nor is it a one-size-fits-all solution, a holistic program is needed to accompany any AI implementation, if it is to successfully achieve a fundamental business transformation. “Putting AI into production requires a change management program that brings every team member into the journey, in order to achieve the most out of technology,” explains Alex Singla, senior partner and global co-leader of QuantumBlack. “And, as AI evolves, the technical talent required to help harness its power is also growing and developing with it.”

Those high-performing companies that know how to use AI properly have the capability to unlock huge returns with the right level of human oversight. Companies that see the most significant returns from their use of artificial intelligence are more likely to use a product management mindset when developing AI tools, testing the performance of their AI systems internally before rolling them out to a live production system, and then carefully tracking the performance of those AI models to ensure they’re making a real, meaningful difference.

Human oversight of artificial intelligence is needed for a variety of reasons. It can help businesses ensure they get the most out of AI, and provide a guiding hand and a sense check for where AI can—on occasion—get things wrong. It’s therefore vital that someone with knowledge of how artificial intelligence works, and of both its potential and drawbacks, has oversight of your AI transformation.

QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey, blends the creativity and expertise in an organization’s people, with the strength and capability of artificial intelligence technology. The company has developed more than 25 proprietary tools across thousands of projects that accelerate impact, improve quality, and reduce risk in their client’s business. The result? Real-world impact that sticks.

“One thing that hasn’t changed: our original principle of combining the brilliance of the human mind and domain and industry expertise with innovative technology to solve the most difficult problems,” says Alex Singla. “We call it Hybrid Intelligence, starting from day one.”

Hybrid Intelligence allows clients to feel more confident in the insights and lessons they learn from AI—and the changes they enact. And that confidence radiates from companies to consumers. Consumer faith in cyber security, data privacy, digital trust, and the deployment of responsible AI has taken a hit in recent years, and restoring that trustworthiness depends mainly on the decisions that companies make today to ensure confidence in the future. Establishing digital trust—and evidencing it—allows companies to have a prime advantage in a world that can be transformed by AI, but which needs to trust it.

Because no matter how much the world changes and how far the inroads into our lives AI makes, there must be a human in the loop—one who has domain and industry expertise in order to enable businesses to scale their insights and reap the benefits. After all, when it’s your bottom line at stake, you want to ensure the risks don’t outweigh the potential rewards.

This article was originally published by WIRED UK