Where AI is being used today
Over the past month, our focus has been on a practical question:
“Where is AI actually being used in information management – and how do we move from individual tasks to something more valuable?"
Our poll, interviews and September Community session show that AI is already being applied across a wide range of information management activities.
Information teams are using AI for search and retrieval, summarisation and analysis, current awareness, categorisation, contract review, usage analysis, subscription management and user support.
You can see a summary of our research findings in the blog post "AI use cases in information management – where are we today?".
Moving from tasks to workflows
One finding stands out:
"Most AI use is still focused on individual tasks rather than connected workflows or end-to-end processes."
That is not necessarily a problem. In fact, the AI tasks that are already working can provide a very practical starting point for the next stage.
Our new report, "AI use cases in information management – from tasks to workflows", identifies four actions:
- Start with work already being done, rather than a list of possible AI technologies.
- Look immediately before and after an existing AI task, to identify where AI could support the next step.
- Prioritise recurring work, where improvements can accumulate over time.
- Consider feasibility from the beginning - particularly access, licensing, governance, reliability and integration.
The aim is not maximum automation. It is to identify where AI can make an existing process better, and then build from there.
As the report puts it, the next step is often to "connect rather than leap" – extending what already works, rather than immediately trying to automate an entire process.
From use cases to implementation
This leads directly into our October focus.
This month's Community session will be much more hands-on: "From AI use cases to implementation" (22nd October).
We'll take real use cases, and work through what it would take to implement them in practice – we'll look at the process, available tools and solution options, governance and organisational considerations, and lessons from organisations already putting AI into practice.
The objective is to move beyond discussing what AI could do, and get closer to how you would actually make a useful AI-supported workflow work in your organisation.
Register now.
