Artificial intelligence (AI) has tremendous value in business transformation precisely because of its imperfection. Discover how you can empower your transformations with AI.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is vital for driving modern business transformation, but not for the reasons you’d think. The value of AI for business transformation is actually in the fact that AI isn’t computer-precise in its accuracy.
Holistic business transformation means adapting both your enterprise technology to the latest bleeding-edge innovations, and also conducting change management to adapt your processes and teams to the new technology. AI is useful for the former in taking over laborious manual tasks, but it’s in the latter area that AI is truly beneficial.
In his seminal work on artificial intelligence, Computing Machinery And Intelligence, Alan Turing posited that artificial intelligence wasn’t characterized by accuracy, but by the ability to imitate human beings. This is why AI recommendations can serve to better predict the behavior of your employees by emulating human preferences, rather than simply going by the data.
To find out more about the value of AI in business transformation, download our report, co-authored with Oxford Economics and SAP Signavio:
REPORT: The Estimation Game - What Do Business Transformations Really Cost?
Alan Turing’s Imitation Game
The value of artificial intelligence (AI) for business transformation lies precisely in its ability to replicate humanity rather than its accuracy. This was identified in the very first conceptions of the technology, long before it became a reality.
Alan Turing was an English mathematician credited with being the father of theoretical computer science. In his 1950 paper, Computing Machinery And Intelligence, he first formulated the standard for AI as being human emulation, rather than advanced thought.
Turing discussed a popular party game at the time, known as the Imitation Game. In the game, a man and a woman would hide in separate other rooms and a player would pass written notes back and forth, attempting to determine which gender was in which room based on their written answers alone.
Turing postulated a similar Imitation Game whereby a human and a computer would provide answers to questions that would be written out on paper. If the player was unable to determine which room contained the computer from the answers, then the computer could be said to possess artificial intelligence.
This is the basis for our modern large language models (LLMs), which power tools like ChatGPT and DeepSeek. Their intention is not to always provide the correct answer to prompts, but to provide answers that are indistinguishable from ones a human might give.
AI’s Perfect Imperfection
Artificial intelligence (AI) drives business transformation precisely because it offers answers that would pass Turing’s Imitation Game, rather than strictly the right ones based on the data. This, of course, is counter-intuitive.
It sounds like we’re suggesting that AI makes the wrong choices, but “wrong” is a very human metric. If you make use of a computer algorithm that works strictly based upon data, it can be very easy to miss the human element.
Choosing a new architecture and processes for your transformed business based solely on performance data can miss user preference. Choosing a tool with a high technical fit for your organization, but a low functional fit for the needs of your employees who will use it, is not going to be a popular choice.
By imitating the responses of human beings, AI can recommend tools and processes that your employees would choose. Rather than selecting based purely on numeric values like cost, AI can recommend an architecture that will benefit the real people who make up your organization, by imitating their preferences.
This is the true value of AI over traditional computers: the ability to make a human choice over one that strictly makes sense based on numbers. This is only the beginning for the value of AI in business transformation, however.
The Value Of AI For Business Transformation
Artificial intelligence (AI) drives business transformation in several ways. Its support works in both the mindless, day-to-day tasks, and also in creative decision-making.
AI can examine your entire architecture, both your application portfolio and your business processes, then deliver insights that go beyond simple data. This saves you the work of researching your entire architecture and AI can do it in a fraction of the time.
On the other hand, once you have the information, AI can make creative recommendations that take into account human emotional needs. Of course, AI will always need your oversight and guardrails for creative decisions, but the ability to approve a premade recommendation rather than having to assess all the options is a game changer.
Even better, AI can help you as you progress with your business transformation. Automatically documenting your transformation and tracking it against your key performance indicators (KPIs) ensures that you retain oversight of your transformation and can prove your return on investment (ROI).
AI acts like a digital assistant, supporting you with recommendations and help with day-to-day tasks throughout your transformation. This allows you to focus on deriving value and leading your team.
Still, the greatest value of AI in business transformation could be the way it can accurately predict the outcomes. By taking into account both the raw data and the human element, AI can give you an accurate accounting of the risks involved.
The Estimation Game
We titled the business transformation white paper we co-created with SAP Signavio and Oxford Economics, The Estimation Game. This is both in reference to the value of Turing’s contribution to modern artificial intelligence (AI), and also AI’s key benefit for transformation: risk calculation.
AI’s advanced modelling capabilities can take into account all your data about your enterprise infrastructure, and add a human state of mind. Putting all this information together, it can make accurate predictions about the outcomes of your transformation, and just what level of risk is involved.
This ensures that you can go into your transformation fully prepared for whatever happens. Not to mention, you can use it to create a business case for the transformation that covers any questions your leadership may have.
By processing far more data than a human mind could consider, but retaining a human perspective, AI can offer you a true model of your current and target state. All you need is the right toolset to bring together all your architecture data into one place and properly leverage AI to derive the human-like insight you need.
Empower Business Transformation With SAP LeanIX
Artificial intelligence (AI) drives business transformation across four key areas:
- People
- Processes
- Applications
- Data
To map your business processes, SAP Signavio has the best-of-breed capabilities you need to perform discovery and map your processes across your organization. Meanwhile, SAP LeanIX can explore and model your entire application portfolio across your on-premise and cloud estate.
Both tools have advanced, built-in AI capabilities to support you with the heavy admin burden involved in any transformation. Their AI will also offer recommendations for creative decisions that could revolutionize your estate.
As to the remaining two options, people and data, they can be handled by WalkMe’s advanced training capabilities, and Collibra’s intelligent data governance platform, respectively. Both of which integrate with SAP LeanIX and Signavio.
To find out more about the value of AI in business transformation, download our report, co-authored with Oxford Economics and SAP Signavio:
