Maturity diagnosis of the dimensions of AI evolution
Is your organization ready for artificial intelligence (AI)?
Assess your operational readiness to adopt and integrate AI and get customized recommendations to move your organization forward.
Only takes 10 minutes
- Leaders, managers and professionals at organizations in all industries who would like to leverage AI to improve their operations, and
- Consultants or economic development officers who support these organizations.
Artificial intelligence is a term used to describe computer programs (algorithms) that can mimic human problem-solving and decision-making abilities.
To achieve this, algorithms must first analyze vast amounts of data related to the problems they seek to solve. This data can be textual, visual, mathematical, geographical, etc. This is what’s known as big data.
Algorithms detect patterns, sequences, and links within this data, which they use to develop models in order to make predictions, formulate optimized recommendations to help meet specific goals, decode and reproduce language or solve complex problems.
One of the most successful AI techniques today is deep learning. Breakthroughs in this area include spectacular advances such as the development of increasingly powerful machine translation tools; image recognition software that can spot skin cancer as accurately as a doctor; robots that operate off of voice commands; self-driving cars; applications that can predict the cost of a ticket from Montréal to Paris three months in advance; automatic filters of hateful Facebook messages; and much more.
When it’s used to resolve business problems, AI has the potential to improve the productivity and competitiveness of Québec organizations. It can also support the creation of new products, services, processes and even new business models.
Strategy
Do your organization’s vision and strategies enable it to fully leverage AI and reach the desired level of AI maturity?
Data
How does your organization manage its data and ensure adequate access to it?
Technology
Has your organization built the technology infrastructure and chosen the right tools and components to properly train, implement, and manage its AI models and solutions throughout their life cycles?
Human Resources
How is your organization meeting the challenge of developing, acquiring, and transforming the skills needed to integrate AI into its operations and managing the change that this integration brings?
Governance
What mechanisms (technological components, policies, or processes) does your organization use to frame its AI activities, coordinate them, and ensure that AI is implemented in a safe, robust, and responsible manner?
1. Exploration
Your organization is learning about AI. You are working to identify the most promising use cases based on the business context in which you operate. You are investigating the value that AI could potentially bring to your kind of organization.
2. Experimentation
Your organization is carrying out proofs of concept and experiments to measure what AI can do for you in practice. You are able to achieve limited AI implementation and integration.
3. Formalization
Your organization now has one or more AI solutions in production. This requires significant effort and the return on investment remains low. However, you anticipate that this performance will improve in the future.
4. Optimization
Your organization is able to quickly put new AI solutions into production and scale them up efficiently, so they generate stable, positive benefits.
5. Transformation
Your organization uses AI in its operations in many critical areas. AI gives you a competitive advantage. You are a true vector of innovation and transformation.
The Artificial Intelligence Maturity Assessment Framework and its accompanying online assessment tool are an adaptation of the AI Maturity Framework developed in 2019-2020 by Element AI. The Framework was designed based on the results of a survey of approximately 200 senior leaders of organizations, most of which were North American.
The Framework and the Assessment Tool have been updated by the Forum IA Quebec, in partnership with the Institut intelligence and Data (IID) at Université Laval, to better reflect the reality of Quebec organizations. The update focused first on improving the recommendations offered to organizations in order to prompt them into action and then consisted in developing an online tool able to measure how AI maturity of Quebec organizations evolves over time.
The project leveraged IID’s experience in supporting businesses in their adoption of AI and incorporated the valuable learnings that the Forum IA Quebec has gained through its discussions with AI solution and service providers, small and medium-sized businesses interested in adopting AI, AI ecosystem supporting organizations, as well as research and technology transfer institutions across Quebec. The Framework and Assessment Tool have also been reviewed and validated by several members of the AI ecosystem, including Mila, IVADO, CRIM and Productique Québec. The assessment tool has also undergone review and auditing by several members of the AI ecosystem, including Mila, IVADO, CRIM and Productique Québec.
Acknowledgments
Forum IA Québec would like to thank Pierre Prévot and Julien Laumonier, researchers at the Institute Intelligence and Data (IID), for their contribution to the Framework and Assessment Tool’s update. We also extend our thanks to ServiceNow (who acquired Element AI in 2020) for enabling the adaptation of the Element AI Maturity Framework and to all those who volunteered their time to review the final content.
