Originally published by the NBJ
By Nikki Ross – Reporter, Nashville Business Journal (Aug 22, 2024)
Finding the right artificial intelligence company to partner with is serious business.
Not all companies selling AI products, tools and services will be the right fit. While an application may seem cool, the main questions companies should be asking are: “Does it help people, does it solve a problem and does it help the company reach its goals?”
“The reality is a lot of executives know they need to invest in AI,” said Matt Cybulsky, practice leader for healthcare AI and value-based care innovation for LBMC. “There’s a lot of monkey see, monkey do in the market.”
Thought leaders Cybulsky and Charlie Apigian, leader of data and AI strategy, were recently added to LBMC’s consulting and business intelligence practice. LBMC is the largest technology services firm in Nashville, according to Business Journal Research, and the second-largest accounting firm. The firm has approximately 10,000 clients across a range of industries including healthcare, manufacturing, technology and private equity.
With the explosion of generative AI in the business world over past few years, many new companies are popping up claiming they will help improve business with their AI software, product or service. But Apigian and Cybulsky said not all companies are treated equally.
“Right now, people are spending a lot of money on things that aren’t going to produce,” Apigian said.
In fact, there are several red flags to watch out for, according to the experts.
Every company will have to embrace AI, according to Apigian, but in order to do so, it will need to have its data in order, a strategy, a governance plan, is ethical and it needs to make sense.
“I do think that if there’s any executive team that isn’t sitting back in their boardroom and saying … where can we use this, then they’re going to be looking for work probably in the next couple of years,” Cybulsky said.
