The Track
A Section Blog

7 hard-won lessons from deploying AI at scale

Meet your professor: Emerging tech and AI consultant, Elizabeth Shaw
Elizabeth Shaw has worked in emerging tech for nearly 25 years at companies including Gartner, Sephora, and Forrester. Now, she’s your new guest lecturer in Section’s AI Crash Course.

Why most organizations aren’t ready to deploy AI
In September, we re-ran our AI Proficiency Survey to over 5,000 knowledge workers across the US, UK, and Canada. Our biggest takeaway: The knowledge workforce is vastly unprepared for an AI-augmented future.

How the Royal Family’s AI-powered mental health agent overcame privacy concerns
Most orgs feel unready for the challenges that Gen AI brings to risk management. Yet many AI applications will have to navigate the line between user value and user privacy. So we sat down with specialist, Brian Kolodny, to understand how he traversed matters of privacy when building a mental health bot for the Royal Family’s foundation.

Our Guide to Building Enterprise AI Applications
Every company needs to be thinking about where AI slots into their product or service, but all the noise and hype makes it hard to determine what a valuable vs. novel use case looks like. Machine & Partners’ Ed Ortega is sharing 2 frameworks to narrow down your laundry list of AI ideas.

How to know if NFTs are right for your business
Pop quiz. When you hear the word NFT, do you think:
💪 I know exactly what an NFT is and how to use it for my business
🤔 I think I understand what NFTs are, but I have no clue if they’re relevant to me
🤢 Argh! I should know what NFTs are, but thinking about them makes my head hurt
If you answered the latter two options, you’re not alone. Don’t worry – we sat down with NYU Stern Professor Sabrina Howell to simplify it for you.

Self-assessment: Does your team trust you?
I’m sure you’ve had a manager you didn’t trust.
Maybe that manager said she valued your time – but then canceled your 1:1 at the last minute because she just had to run out and get a smoothie.
Maybe he called you out in front of the team for a mistake he made. (Truly an unforgivable offense).
Whatever it was, you know that once trust is lost, it’s hard to get back...

Build, Buy, or Wait: The Leader’s Guide to AI Adoption
Edmundo Ortega spends all day rethinking a company’s core workflows with AI. So we asked him when companies should build custom AI solutions and when they should buy off-the-shelf. That’s when he introduced a third option – neither.

EY's Global Head of AI: Don’t rush to prove AI ROI
If you feel like you’re falling behind because you haven’t figured out how to make a bulletproof investment in AI, read on for John Thompson’s take on why you actually need to slow down and stop sweating the ROI.