Alex Honey, senior consultant, strategy and change, at Prosperity 24/7, looks at how organisations can assess the everupdating tools provided by AI
LAST month, we introduced the ADAPT framework as a practical way to help organisations approach AI with purpose and confidence. This month, we turn to the first element: “A for Awareness.” This is about understanding which developments matter, how they could affect your organisation and when it is time to act.
AI news can feel like a WhatsApp group that pings every ten minutes. A new model arrives. Someone shares a video. Someone else insists an AI agent could now run your business, presumably while you relax on the beach at St Brelade. AI is being promoted, blamed and occasionally renamed in a constant whirl of news and noise.
Being aware of AI is not about knowing everything. To keep up with it is a full-time job, and nobody is paying you to do it. It is about recognising the major changes, when and how they could reach your organisation, and what evidence would tell you it is time to respond.
At Prosperity 24/7, we use an AI awareness radar to help us make that distinction. You can create one for your organisation too. Developments with clear potential impact on your organisation go near the centre, those worth watching sit further out, and leave announcements that have no obvious bearing on your work on the outer ring.
The trick is to understand and plot capabilities, not tools. “Copilot” is a product name. “Working through a task by planning steps and using other tools” is a capability. The name on the box may change; what matters is what the technology can do and whether that is useful to you.
Take a real example. The latest AI tools don’t just answer questions; they are built to work through multi-step tasks: read an enquiry, check it against your policies, gather the right documents and draft a reply. Most Jersey organisations run on exactly these processes, whether that’s client onboarding, supplier due diligence or month-end reporting. That puts the capability near the centre. Video generation may be remarkable, but if you have no use for it, leave it on the outer ring along with the robot dogs.
Your radar should also cover how others’ use of AI affects you: customers researching you with AI assistants, more bots visiting your website and more convincing AI-enabled phishing.
A development near the centre of the radar does not mean “deploy it now”. It means “try it”. Pick one process, one small team and give it a few weeks. Decide in advance what good looks like (time saved, errors caught, a draft your staff would actually send), use realistic but non-sensitive data, and note the risks you would need to manage. Then find out whether the promise holds up.
Ethan Mollick, co-author of a Harvard study of AI use at Boston Consulting Group, explains it this way: “On some tasks AI is immensely powerful, and on others it fails completely or subtly. And, unless you use AI a lot, you won’t know which is which.” He calls this AI’s “jagged frontier”. An article will alert you to a change. A demonstration will show you what is possible. Only a test in your own setting will tell you what is useful.
When the next AI announcement arrives, ask three questions: Is it a real change? Could it affect your organisation? Is it ready to use? If the answers look promising, talk to us. At Prosperity 24/7, we can demonstrate what the capability can do and help your team test whether it works in your setting.
You do not need to answer every ping in that WhatsApp group, but when one lands near the centre of your radar, take the time to reply. The rest can wait. Now, where’s that mute button?
