While many organizations have been investing in artificial intelligence under the radar, we’ve seen unprecedented adoption in the last few years. One field has captured everyone’s attention. Thanks to ChatGPT and other early headline grabbers, the world has woken up to the incredible potential of Generative AI. According to a recent McKinsey survey, 65% of organizations regularly use Gen AI in at least one business function, up from a third last year1.
From automating repetitive tasks to creating and bringing the right info to the right people at the right time, Gen AI promises cutting-edge innovation, faster time to market, more productive workers, and happier customers. Use cases range from life sciences and financial services to retail, automotive, manufacturing, and beyond. Virtually all verticals and business functions stand to benefit, with Gartner reporting efficiency gains as the current top driver for most organizations, followed by increased revenue and improved risk management2.
So far, so good.
Not so fast?
Although several organizations are already reaping the benefits, others are struggling to scope, deploy, and scale AI across their operations. Many more aren’t sure where to begin – or understand if they’re even ready.
Identifying achievable, high-value use cases is a common hurdle. Building up high-performance infrastructure and expertise is another. What exactly do you need? And how much can you afford to invest in innovation and experimentation while maintaining everyday operations? Optimising your resources to do both is a constant challenge. Organizations must modernize their data and IT and deploy AI solutions in a seamless, integrated whole.
The good news is all of this can be overcome. We know from first-hand experience.
We’ve been there
Lenovo started its AI journey in earnest over 15 years ago. You could say we were laying the groundwork from 1984 with our commitment to pioneering IT innovation.
Once we recognized AI’s potential there was no time to waste. We set about determining what we could achieve and what it would take to make this a reality. Our extensive supply chain provided a real opportunity for AI-driven insights and optimization with plenty of trial and error and refinement along the way. It was – and still is – very much worth it. We’ve amassed a wealth of valuable insights and ROI on our journey. Not to mention developing extensive new technology, services, and specialist AI resources to help our customers unleash their IP and do the same.
If there’s one thing we know for sure, it’s that…
Pocket-to-cloud is the way to go
Fewer limitations, more integration
Why choose? AI can and should operate everywhere.
While some workloads like training and inferencing demand racks of compute, AI doesn’t have to be confined to the data center or cloud. In fact, thanks to the latest smartphone technology, you can access and even run it from the palm of your hand. The market leaders of tomorrow will span AI across personal devices, including tablets and PCs, all the way to edge facilities, data centers, and the public cloud. Collaboration, efficiency, and ease of use are reason enough for the pocket-to-cloud Hybrid AI approach.
How to make it happen
To realize the vision of Hybrid AI, organizations need integrated end-to-end solutions built on solid foundations—in other words, the right data, infrastructure, and devices as well as effective AI models and software and auxiliary services. If all this seems a little daunting, you’re not alone. AI is not simple. But it is doable, with the right insights and support.
We’ve found that almost all customers benefit from advice or hands-on support throughout the process. Lenovo Adoption Services help you kick off and continue your journey, plugging in essential tech, insights, and use case accelerators along the way. We meet you where you are to get you where you’re going. For many customers, that means beginning at the beginning.
During the discovery and advisory phases, we identify how AI could create value for your organization and determine outcomes before creating a robust value case with a well-thought-out plan and roadmap to realize it. After that, we help you design and build your critical AI use case to showcase outcomes. (That’s where Lenovo AI Fast Start comes in – we’ll unpack this in the next article.) Then it’s on to deployment, scaling, and, ultimately, continuous management and optimization.
How we did it: Lenovo Powers Lenovo
Cutting cloud costs, boosting cloud availability, and accelerating cloud management
Here’s one great example of how we harnessed AI for our own business.
Lenovo used to rely on off-the-shelf virtualization and containerization tools to drive its private cloud environments. With demand for cloud services rising and increasing complexity in managing in-house environments, we saw an opportunity to develop a new hybrid cloud management tool.
xClarity One empowers internal users to rapidly build, migrate, utilize, and manage private and public cloud environments, streamlining and accelerating key cloud management tasks. And AI-powered automation lies at its heart. Our intelligent solution enables teams to pinpoint the root causes of potential issues rapidly and achieve the optimal balance of computing, storage, and networking resources for cloud workloads. The AI element also helps us analyze and optimize public cloud usage and spend and reallocate workloads to the most cost-efficient platforms.
The results speak for themselves.
- 60% reduction in management time
- Boosts availability from 99.95% to 99.99%
- 35% reduction in public cloud costs
And, crucially, what began as an internal-only tool is now available to our customers as an enterprise-class solution for hybrid cloud management. An AI proof-of-concept that is now a commercial product.
No time like the present
We’re continually delighted that our customers are future proofing their organizations and turning AI into real value today. Hopefully, the above has given you a taste of the possibilities and processes for developing and operationalizing your own AI initiatives. Reach out to Lenovo to find out more.
Next time: Lenovo AI Fast Start. For when you need AI yesterday.
Find out more about Lenovo AI Services.
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