How to measure the impact of AI on your business
Whether it’s automating manual tasks, uncovering insights from vast datasets, or optimizing operational processes, artificial intelligence (AI) has changed the way your team works. You might even have an enterprise AI strategy in place, but how do you know you’re getting a return on the investment (ROI)?
To answer this question, you need to understand how (and why) to measure the impact of AI on your business.
Understanding the ROI of AI
While the potential benefits of AI are undeniable, accurately measuring its impact on your operations is crucial to:
- Provide clarity on whether AI investments are delivering the expected returns and where adjustments may be needed
- Identify areas of improvement and optimization, ensuring that AI initiatives align with strategic goals
- Foster accountability and transparency within organizations, facilitating informed decision-making and resource allocation
Types of impact you’ll see from AI
Let’s break down the impact of artificial intelligence into direct and indirect, tangible and intangible types of ROI.
| Type of AI ROI | Description | Example |
| Direct impact | Improvements in key performance indicators (KPIs) such as revenue growth, cost reduction, and customer satisfaction | A retail company implementing AI-powered personalized recommendation systems may experience a direct increase in sales revenue due to higher conversion rates and customer engagement |
| Indirect impact | Less immediately observable, often resulting from secondary or long-term effects of AI implementation | A manufacturer using AI for predictive maintenance may indirectly reduce downtime and extend equipment lifespan, leading to long-term cost savings and efficiency gains |
| Tangible impact | Expressed in monetary terms or numerical metrics, making ROI easier to assess and track | An e-commerce platform using AI-driven inventory management can reduce excess stock and minimize storage costs, which are reflected in financial reports |
| Intangible impact | More qualitative in nature and may encompass factors such as customer experience, enhanced brand loyalty, or strategic advantage in the market | A financial services firm deploying AI-powered chatbots can improve customer experience and satisfaction, fostering greater brand loyalty and perceived value |
The takeaway here is that you’ll need to go beyond quantifiable metrics to fully understand how AI impacts your business.
Measuring the AI impact on your operations
Get a comprehensive picture of how AI is affecting your business and make data-driven decisions about your future investments. Here’s how.
1. Align your AI goals and KPIs
Start by defining what success looks like for your AI project. Are you aiming to boost sales, improve productivity, or enhance customer service? Aligning your AI initiatives with these goals allows you to choose the most relevant AI metrics for measurement.
2. Consider your team’s experience with AI
According to an IDC study, 84% of organizations are already using or exploring AI. Still, you need a more granular picture of how your team uses AI in their tasks. You don’t want to discover that your AI investments are not yielding results simply because your workforce hasn’t embraced the technology.
Conduct surveys before and after AI implementation to understand how employees perceive the changes. Ask about workload, collaboration opportunities, skill development, and overall satisfaction with AI in the workplace. You can even leverage AI tools to identify positive or negative sentiments regarding this technology.
Analyze this data to identify any challenges or resistance and to tailor training programs that enhance their comfort and proficiency with AI. This understanding will help you create a supportive environment that fosters effective enterprise AI adoption and maximizes the benefits of your initiatives.
3. Track operational efficiency and financial metrics
Here are critical areas you could focus on:
- Assess whether AI efforts in targeted marketing or upselling lead to actual revenue growth. Let’s say you’re using AI to provide custom product recommendations to your customers based on previous purchases. You can measure the impact of AI by analyzing metrics such as the increase in conversion rates and the frequency of repeat purchases. Additionally, comparing the revenue generated before and after implementing AI-driven recommendations provides an indication of the AI’s effectiveness in driving sales growth.
- Measure changes in process times, error rates, and resource utilization before and after AI implementation. According to a study published in the National Bureau of Economic Research, customer support agents using AI to guide their conversations experienced a 14% boost in issues resolved per hour, demonstrating the tangible impact of AI on productivity.
- Track cost savings from reduced labor or operational expenses resulting from the use of AI.McKinsey says that marketing and sales teams are at the forefront of AI adoption. IT decision-makers expect that the greatest positive impact from using AI will show up in the augmentation of content creation, according to a Box-sponsored IDC report. By increasing the volume of content produced over a set period or reducing the time taken to create content, you’re able to scale operations and reduce labor costs associated with manual tasks.
4. Monitor customer satisfaction
AI-powered solutions enhance customer experiences by delivering personalized interactions, resolving queries more effectively, and anticipating customer needs. To measure the impact of these initiatives, track metrics like response times and resolution rates. Also, assess improvements in customer satisfaction metrics, such as net promoter score (NPS), retention rates, and feedback scores.
You can also look at the impact of AI on the quality of your organization’s offerings. In fact, in a PwC survey with CEOs, 61% said they expect AI to improve the quality of their products and services.
Realize the business impact of AI with Box
With Box AI, you can make the most out of your enterprise content to:
- Create meeting agendas
- Draft emails, marketing collateral, and more
- Get answers and generate copy from Box Hubs content
- Summarize documents
- Uncover key takeaways from files
With these content AI use cases, you boost your team’s productivity — all while retaining the same enterprise-grade security, compliance, and privacy standards you know and trust with Box.
Ready to explore the transformative impact of Box AI on your businesses? Reach out today.
While we maintain our steadfast commitment to offering products and services with best-in-class privacy, security, and compliance, the information provided in this blog post is not intended to constitute legal advice. We strongly encourage prospective and current customers to perform their own due diligence when assessing compliance with applicable laws.