What is your first step in modernizing IT with AI?

Anahita Tafvizi

Chief Data & AI Officer · Snowflake

Build unified data governance

Anahita Tafvizi says to build unified data governance, because without a data foundation and trusted answers AI can just scale your chaos across the company.

Brennan Baybeck

SVP & CISO - Customer Success Services · Oracle

Establish governance

Brennan Baybeck says the first step is to establish governance, calling it foundational and critical because he still sees customers lacking strong governance for AI services and functions.

Mandy Andress

CISO · Elastic

Get an inventory of AI usage

Mandy Andress says the first focus should be getting an inventory and handle on AI usage across the organization, because without clarity on where it's used and to what objectives, it's much harder to put controls and structure around it.

The answer starts at 15:01.

Paul McDonagh-Smith

Visiting Senior Lecturer (IT Group and Executive Education) · Mit Sloan School Of Management

Define the problem

Paul McDonagh-Smith says to calm down, step back and break down what you're framing into its parts—to find where AI can reasonably, safely and sensibly be used and where it can't.

The answer starts at 0:21.

CP

Conny Ploth

AI Transformation Vice President, Global Data & AI · Santander

Fix the process

Conny Ploth says you need to fix the process first before adding AI, because putting an AI layer on a messy process just speeds up inefficiencies rather than resolving their root cause.

The answer starts at 4:45.

Scot Burdette

Global Division CIO, Measurement and Analytics · Abb

Take inventory

Scot Burdette says you have to start with an inventory to understand what you have and what might be missing. Once you see what's missing, he says, you prioritize it.

Kevin Lee

Chief Technology Officer & Key Pursuits Leader · Nice

Choose the right use case

Kevin Lee says companies should start by choosing the right use case, because if it doesn’t meet the needed compliance and enterprise scale, it will stall and be abandoned.