Plan your first AI implementation around one useful outcome

Define an outcome someone can judge

“Introduce AI” is not a delivery scope. “Help the service team prepare a source-backed response for a recurring request” is closer. Name the user, the task and the boundary of responsibility.

Record the existing completion time and quality before setting a target. Include the time spent checking and correcting outputs so the comparison reflects the whole job.

Check the foundation before the model

Identify data owners, source systems, approved documents and access rules. Confirm that the information exists and is usable. If a procedure is inconsistent or undocumented, the team may need to fix it before expecting an agent to apply it.

List the integrations and the operations required in each system. Read access, draft creation and transaction posting should be considered separately.

Define an evaluation plan

Collect representative cases and agree expected results with business owners. Include unusual inputs, missing evidence, restricted data, integration failures and requests beyond scope.

Choose measures appropriate to the task: supported-answer quality, successful completion, review time, cost per completed request and escalation quality. Agree the conditions for progressing from pilot to release.

Budget for the complete service

Model expected request volume and the work performed per request. Include platform licensing or usage, model calls, retrieval and storage, integrations, monitoring, maintenance and human review. Microsoft product billing depends on the chosen configuration; verify current terms before approving a budget.

Use pilot measurements to refine the estimate. Do not assume a fixed saving from an illustrative use case or a vendor demonstration.

Plan operation and ownership

Assign a business owner and a technical support route. Define how you update sources, review failures, test changes and pause consequential actions if quality drops. Record the permitted actions and how they can be revoked.

A pilot becomes a service when someone owns its operation. Document the review cadence and how users report incorrect or unhelpful results.

Write a one-page starting brief

Include the task, users, baseline, sources, permitted actions, reviewer, success measures, budget assumptions and release criteria. Use that brief to select the smallest useful pilot. A discovery conversation should clarify those choices before committing to a wider rollout.