From Hype to Real Value

At HiQ, Sofie Perslow and her team work to break this trend. The key is to start small, but with the right structure.

“We often tell our clients: choose an area that really matters. A bottleneck in customer service, a heavy process in back office, or a recurring error that creates rework. If you apply AI there, the value becomes visible right away,” she says.

MIT’s report points to the same pattern: the biggest returns are not found in sales and marketing – where much of today’s AI budgets are spent – but in back office and administrative processes that are repetitive and resource-intensive.

“It may not be as glamorous as building new automated sales tools or generating marketing material, but this is where companies can first and foremost free up resources and strengthen competitiveness in a real way,” says Sofie.

How to Become One of the Five Percent

What separates the winners from the rest? According to Sofie, it comes down to five things:

1. Focus on what you want to achieve, then choose technology, method, and tools accordingly – measure and follow up.
2. Integrate AI into workflows; AI that’s used daily makes a difference, not experiments in the lab.
3. Build partnerships; invest in proven solutions and bring in experts rather than reinventing the wheel.
4. Do the groundwork properly. Without good, accessible data and clear processes, success is unlikely.
5. Start small and test where you can create value, then scale up to make a real impact.

“With this approach, we see that even large organizations can succeed in AI transformation and increase their chances of being among the winners,” says Sofie.