Joining Cindi today is Bernard Marr, internationally bestselling author, futurist, and keynote speaker. He advises and coaches many of the world’s best-known organizations and was voted by LinkedIn as one of the top five business influencers in the world and the number-one influencer in the UK. On this episode, Bernard and Cindi discuss why businesses should treat AI as a focused strategy rather than a resource-draining experiment, five ways to determine how to implement AI as a strategy that addresses the needs of your business, and overcoming a company culture's resistance to change. They also talk about how to ensure that AI augments rather than replaces humans and what it means to nowcast versus forecast in a post-pandemic world. Key Takeaways: Use AI as a strategy, not an experiment. AI should be applied strategically to the needs of your business, not treated as an experiment. Here, Bernard presents five lenses that will help you determine how AI can be focused appropriately. Don't reinvent the wheel. Chances are pretty good there's an existing AI tool -- from Salesforce, Oracle, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, etc. -- that will suit the needs of your company without having to invest the time, energy, and money to start from scratch. Overcoming a company culture's resistance to change. What it takes to get the top levels of your organization aware of what AI is capable of doing for the business, and communicating to all levels that it's a tool for augmenting -- not replacing -- human staff. More About Bernard: Bernard Marr is a futurist, big data expert, storyteller, visionary, keynote speaker, and strategic business and technology advisor to companies and governments. He advises and coaches many of the world’s best-known organizations, helping them improve their business performance, use data more intelligently, and understand the implications of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, blockchains, and the Internet of Things. LinkedIn has ranked Bernard as one of the world’s top five business influencers. He is a frequent contributor to the World Economic Forum and writes a regular column for Forbes. Every day Bernard actively engages his 1.5 million social media followers and shares content that reaches millions of readers. -- The Data Chief is presented by our friends at ThoughtSpot. Searching through your company’s data for insights doesn’t have to be complicated. With ThoughtSpot, anyone in your organization can easily answer their own data questions, find the facts, and make better, faster decisions. Learn more at thoughtspot.com.  --  For full show notes and more, go to thedatachief.com.