How to Seamlessly Integrate Generative AI into Your Existing Business Processes

If there’s one surefire prediction we’d make for the future, it’s this: AI technology is here to stay — and it will only become more advanced. At this point, most small- to medium-sized business owners know why they should be implementing GenAI, but the question we get most often is how to implement it in the least disruptive way.

Five best practices to guide your organization through implementing GenAI

Below, we’ve laid out a list of five best practices to guide your organization through implementing GenAI so you can capitalize on its benefits without derailing your day-to-day operations.

 

Scaling IT Infrastructure to Meet Growing Business Needs

Establish Clear Objectives

To get the most value from integrating GenAI into your business, you need to start with the following question: What problems are you trying to solve with AI? Understanding your challenges and critical needs will make it easier to identify where GenAI can be of use and provide you with the most value. It’s the foundation that allows you to build out a road map that aligns with your business’s larger strategic goals.

Having specific objectives in place will also help you establish measurable outcomes from the outset, and allocate your resources (time, money, and people) more efficiently for minimal business disruption.

Ensuring Continuous Operations and Minimized Downtime

Choose the Right AI Tools to Fit Your Business Objectives

According to a 2024 survey conducted by McKinsey & Company, 67% of businesses surveyed plan to invest more in AI over the next three years. The supply of AI tools and capabilities continues to increase to meet the demand of more businesses adopting GenAI at an increasingly rapid pace. With more tools on the market, it’s more important than ever to do your research to choose tools that align with your needs once you’ve established your objectives.

When choosing which tools to use, you’ll also want to consider existing integrations to ensure they’ll play well with your tech stack and current platforms. If you’re overwhelmed with all the options, working with a trusted partner with deep expertise in Generative AI, like Innovative Solutions, can simplify the process. At Innovative, we offer helpful services and products like Tailwinds SaaS, a platform specifically designed to help product teams, technical teams, and business leaders streamline their approach to GenAI implementations. Tailwinds offers out-of-the-box integration with leading GenAI partners like Amazon Bedrock and industry-leading chat interfaces, including IBM’s watson.x assistant.

According to a 2024 survey conducted by McKinsey & Company, 67% of businesses surveyed plan to invest more in AI over the next three years

Maintaining High Security Standards

Prepare and Refine Your Data

Whether you’re working with a partner on a GenAI solution, or striking out into the world of AI on your own, you’ll want to gather and refine the business data you have that is relevant to the tasks you want to automate. Depending on your industry vertical and GenAI use case, this could include: historical sales data, operational data like supply chain information, product and services data like descriptions or customer feedback, or employee performance reviews and team productivity data.

Having your data prepared in advance has several advantages, including:

  • Improved AI model accuracy: The output you get from your AI tools will match the input of data. In other words, poor data quality will lead to poor results.
  • Aligning AI with your business objectives: This is another reason why it’s crucial to understand your goals from the outset, so you can pull together the data that matches your objectives, and train your AI tool with the correct data to get outputs that help you meet your goals.
  • Reduced bias and ethical AI practices: By preparing your data in advance, you’ll be able to minimize any potential bias that may exist. For businesses in industries like healthcare, for example, that may deal with sensitive patient information, eliminating bias and ensuring your AI model is producing accurate information is non-negotiable.

Managing IT Costs Efficiently

Test Your GenAI Solution on a Small Scale With a POC

As with most new processes and tools, testing your GenAI solution on a small scale first with a Proof of Concept (POC) allows you to work out any hiccups and minimize risk in advance. A POC also makes it possible to collect valuable feedback early on to understand your solution’s impact and ROI value — a must if you’re also in a position where you need to convince internal stakeholders and get the support you need for integration. Starting small is key to minimizing unnecessary disruptions and helps ensure a smooth transition once you scale.

Humach, a privately held CX solutions provider for companies seeking exceptional customer experiences, is a prime example of the benefits of starting with a POC. With our Tailwinds SaaS platform, Humach was able to rapidly POC their ideas, and quickly identify the value AI would have for their business. As a result, they’ve already seen an 18% increase in customer satisfaction and a 20% increase in call automation efficiency.

Keeping Up with Technological Advancements

Train, Scale, and Optimize

Once you have validated your POC, and you’re ready to scale, you’ll need to train any internal team members using your new GenAI solution, so they know how to collaborate with it effectively. If your team understands its functionality, you’ll be enabling them to leverage all features and capabilities right out of the gate, maximizing efficiency and productivity and mitigating any unnecessary errors or misuse. Training also supports the improvement of your solution. A trained team can provide valuable feedback on performance and identify where changes need to be made.

GenAI isn’t a “set it and forget it” type of technology. As GenAI evolves, and you continue scaling your solution’s capabilities, you’ll want to be measuring and optimizing performance along the way. Doing so ensures that your solution remains a tool that adds value to your business as it grows. Regularly monitoring your solution’s performance will also help you catch any errors before they become more significant issues that could hinder operations. A GenAI solution optimized to grow and evolve with your business will continue providing the ROI you set out to secure in the first place.

Engage a Partner to Bring Your Ideal GenAI Tool to Life

As a business owner, we know your time is valuable (and limited). As a small to medium-sized business or start-up, we also understand that your internal resources can be limited. If all of the steps above make sense, but you know you don’t have the time or resources to spend on walking through the process alone, an experienced partner can help. Engaging with a team of dedicated experts will make your GenAI vision a reality — and give you the competitive edge you need in a world where AI capabilities are evolving at a breathtaking pace.

At Innovative Solutions, we’ve evolved along with the companies we’ve helped for over three decades, gaining deep expertise in Generative AI, Machine Learning, Data and Analytics, Cloud Modernization, Cloud Migrations, and Managed Cloud Services. We’ve mastered the science of meeting people where they are with the tech-driven solutions they need.

With Tailwinds, we’re giving businesses like yours the confidence to grow in the cloud with Generative AI. Learn how we can help you take the next step on your GenAI journey.

Learn More about Innovative Tailwinds SaaS

Have a Question? Contact us today.


Turning GenAI POCs from Months to Minutes

In the rapidly evolving landscape of Generative AI, technical leaders face a common challenge: “how do we quickly validate AI ideas without over-investing resources?” The time it takes to create proofs of concept (POCs) often hinders innovation, leaving many potentially groundbreaking ideas unexplored. But what if there was a way to dramatically accelerate this process? That’s why we built Tailwinds, a game-changing platform that enables Product teams, Technical teams, and business leaders to redefine their approach to GenAI implementations.

The GenAI Challenge: Speed to Innovation

In today’s fast-paced tech environment, the ability to rapidly ideate, prototype, and validate GenAI solutions can make or break a company’s competitive edge.  Traditional approaches to POC development often involve:

  • Extensive coding and infrastructure setup
  • Integration challenges with existing systems
  • Time-consuming data preparation and model training
  • Significant resource allocation, both in terms of personnel and budget

These factors can stretch POC timelines from weeks to months, delaying critical decision-making and potentially missing market opportunities.

Your FastTrack to GenAI Innovation

Tailwinds is designed to eliminate these bottlenecks, offering a platform that empowers teams to build, test, and iterate on GenAI ideas at unprecedented speed.

Visual Workflow Builder

Visual Workflow Builder

At the heart of Tailwinds is an intuitive, drag-and-drop interface that allows even non-AI experts to design complex GenAI workflows. This visual approach to AI development democratizes the process, enabling cross-functional teams to collaborate effectively on POC creation.

Industry-Specific Templates

Industry-Specific Templates

Recognizing that different sectors have unique AI needs, Tailwinds comes pre-loaded with a variety of industry-specific templates.

For healthcare organizations, this might include:

  • Patient data analysis workflows
  • Medical document processing pipelines
  • Clinical trial matching tools

Similarly, financial services firms can leverage templates for:

  • Risk assessment analysis
  • Fraud detection systems
  • Personalized financial advice generators

These templates serve as starting points, dramatically reducing the time needed to get a working POC up and running.

Seamless Integration with Leading GenAI Tools

Seamless Integration with Leading GenAI Tools

Tailwinds isn’t just another siloed tool in your tech stack. It’s designed to play well with others, offering out-of-the-box integrations with key GenAI partners such as:

  • Amazon Bedrock & Bedrock Knowledge Bases for access to the best foundation models
  • Best-in-class vector databases from companies like Weaviate and Pinecone
  • Premade-integration templates with industry leading chat interfaces such as Amazon Lex and watsonx.assistant

This ecosystem approach ensures that your team can use the best tools for each specific task without the headache of complex integrations.

Real-World Impact: The Humach Success Story

The power of Innovative Tailwinds is already being realized by forward-thinking companies. Humach’s testimonial underscores the tangible benefits of rapid GenAI prototyping:

  • Improved customer experiences
  • Operational efficiencies
  • Clear business value

Humach

“Tailwinds has been an incredible tool for our organization, enabling our team to rapidly POC new ideas, validate concepts, and identify the business value of AI quickly. Our work with Innovative has led to an 18% increase in overall customer satisfaction, and a 20% increase in call automation efficiency.”

– Bruce Sharpe, CPO, Humach

From POC to Production

As technical leaders, your journey doesn’t end with a successful POC. That’s why Tailwinds is designed to scale with your needs. The same platform that allows for rapid prototyping can be used to refine and expand your GenAI solutions as they move towards production.  This continuity ensures that the insights and workflows developed during the POC phase aren’t lost in translation, streamlining the path from idea to implementation.

Embrace the Future of GenAI Innovation

In a world where AI capabilities are evolving daily, the ability to quickly test and implement new ideas is more than a competitive advantage—it’s a necessity. Tailwinds offers technical leaders the tools to stay at the forefront of this AI revolution, turning months of development into days of innovation.

Want to learn more? Contact us today.


How Generative AI Positions Your SMB for Sustainable Growth

Generative AI (GenAI) is a powerful tool for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and startups.

It has the power to provide businesses with increased revenue, cost reduction, cycle time improvement via automation, and better-quality products and services to create a competitive advantage. However, as a leader with your business’s success on the line, it’s understandable if you’re wondering where to start with this new technology and how to harness its power to grow your business.

Whether you’re an AI enthusiast seeking to better understand the positive impact of implementing GenAI on your business or a skeptic still trying to decide whether it’s a worthwhile investment, let us ease your mind. We’ll explore the benefits of this technology and uncover how real-world businesses like yours have already adopted it and found success.

 

Why Now Is the Time for Your Business to Implement GenAI

As the saying goes, there’s no time like the present — and that couldn’t be more true when it comes to adopting GenAI. Since ChatGPT came onto the scene in 2022, AI has grabbed attention on a global scale, and it hasn’t given up the spotlight since.

According to an October 2023 poll of over 1,400 executives conducted by Gartner, Inc., 45% confirmed that they are testing out GenAI solutions, and 10% had already put GenAI into production. These results marked a rapid increase from an earlier poll conducted in March of 2023, when only 15% reported testing GenAI in their businesses. An increase in positive sentiment accompanies the increased implementation of GenAI: 78% of those respondents believe that the benefits of investing in GenAI outweigh the risks.

The economic impact of GenAI isn’t slowing down anytime soon, either. In its 2023 report, McKinsey projected 6.1 to 7.9 trillion dollars being added annually to the global economy. In addition, one-third of the organizations they polled reported already using GenAI in at least one business function with plans to expand further. The overarching message? Get on board or risk being left behind by your competition.

 

How Does Generative AI Benefit SMBs and Startups?

Before you invest in GenAI, you may wonder, “How can I utilize GenAI to have the most significant impact on my business?” The short answer is, “however you need or want to.” As AI technology evolves, so do its capabilities and its flexibility. But we realize that’s an overarching statement to make. Let’s get more specific.

Optimize Your Business’s Productivity and Efficiency

Optimize Your Business’s Productivity and Efficiency

Automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks, reducing errors and increasing efficiency. Another bonus? By relieving your employees of these often mind-numbing tasks, you’re allowing them to focus on more rewarding and creative work, boosting both morale and productivity.

Decrease Costs and Increase Profitability

Decrease Costs and Increase Profitability

Increasing efficiency by automating routine tasks and processes reduces both labor costs and operating costs. A reduction in costs allows you to reallocate your resources into more strategic investments, leading to increased profitability.

Make Critical Business Decisions Based on Data-Backed Insights

Make Critical Business Decisions Based on Data-Backed Insights

Optimize resource allocation by using GenAI’s ability to analyze large amounts of data quickly. More accurately identify trends and opportunities to invest in and forecast demand for your products and services. Gain a competitive advantage in your market by using the insights you gain to uncover opportunities for innovation and improvement that set you apart from your competition.

Gain Customer Trust and Boost Brand Loyalty

Gain Customer Trust and Boost Brand Loyalty

Create personalized customer interactions through tailored recommendations based on historical data. Provide more comprehensive customer support with GenAI-powered chatbots that eliminate wait times and quickly give your customers the information they’re looking for —increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Provide Your Business With Flexible Solutions

Provide Your Business With Flexible Solutions

For SMBs and start-ups that typically have more limited in-house resources, the complexity of GenAI technology and the rate at which it’s evolving may feel overwhelming. However, its evolution has brought more intuitive ways to integrate it into your business operations. Adopting GenAI has become easier than ever thanks to fully managed, cloud-based GenAI services, like those offered through Amazon Web Services (AWS). This includes our Innovative Tailwinds offering, an AI acceleration solution that runs on Amazon Bedrock and integrates watsonx, IBM’s AI and data platform, and large learning language models (LLMs) Anthropic and Cohere.

Successful, Real-World Use Cases of GenAI in Action

At Innovative Solutions, we’ve helped numerous organizations seamlessly integrate GenAI into their workflows using Innovative Tailwinds to create customized solutions. GenAI’s industry applications are virtually limitless: Our customers span multiple industries, including health tech, fintech, manufacturing, SaaS, and more.

Preverity
Preverity is an established leader in malpractice risk analytics. The organization wanted to improve its risk management and patient safety products further to provide unparalleled risk insights to its hospital and insurance partners. Implementing GenAI has allowed Preverity to take its risk measurement and development process to the next level, increasing speed, providing deeper insights, and driving more client efficiency.

By deploying Tailwinds, Preverity has achieved:

  • 90% faster risk measurement development via automation
  • Projected $100k in annual savings

Avannis
Avannis is committed to enhancing the banking experience via customer engagement surveys. The company manually reviewed over 20,000 surveys each month, and needed a way to automate the process that would help it scale more efficiently. Innovative worked with Avannis to leverage a GenAI solution for automation, built on Innovative Tailwinds and Amazon Bedrock. This solution enabled a faster and more accurate survey analysis.

Thanks to this solution, Avannis has:

  • Projected an annual savings of $54,000 through reduced manual labor
  • Experienced improved staff morale with employees able to turn their attention to more engaging and valuable tasks
  • Increased scalability now that it can scale its operations without increasing staff and costs

Macstadium
MacStadium, partnered with Innovative to streamline the implementation of their Orka platform and enhance customer satisfaction. The resulting solution, powered by IBM watsonx assistant and Amazon Bedrock, was dubbed “Mac.” Mac is a highly sophisticated AI assistant platform specialized in Orka that integrates with MacStadium’s existing system and knowledge base to facilitate improved customer service.

The implementation of Mac has resulted in:

  • A 30% increase in staff efficiency with its enablement of quicker and more effective customer interactions
  • A 25% reduction in customer support queries with more first-contact resolutions
  • Enhanced service implementation speed, contributing to increased customer loyalty and overall business growth

AI Is Now Table Stakes — Don’t Risk Getting Left Behind

Generative AI is no longer just a technological innovation — it has now become a strategic necessity for SMBs and startups aiming to achieve sustainable growth. Businesses that are implementing AI solutions are gaining a distinct advantage over those that aren’t. The real-world evidence paints a clear picture: from boosting productivity and efficiency to enhancing customer service and enabling cost-effective scalability, GenAI offers a multitude of benefits that business leaders can’t ignore.

As an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner with over 30 years of technology experience, and a launch partner for the AWS Generative AI Competency, Innovative Solutions has mastered the science of meeting people where they are with the tech-driven solutions they need. Take the next step on your GenAI journey, and learn more about our GenAI offerings.

About Innovative Tailwinds

Want to learn more? Contact us today.


Innovative Solutions and IBM Collaborate to Bring IBM Software to Customers via AWS Marketplace

Innovative Solutions to open new office in Boca Raton, Florida with professionals skilled in watsonx to support expanded collaboration

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (May 6, 2024) – Innovative Solutions today announced an expansion of its collaboration with IBM to bring Generative AI (GenAI) solutions, AI-infused managed security services, and an AI-infused observability platform for cloud-based applications and businesses to customers. Available on AWS Marketplace, customers can more easily access offerings developed by Innovative Solutions that embed IBM technology such as watsonx, IBM’s AI and data platform with AI assistants, to help modernize their business.

Through this expanded collaboration, Innovative Solutions will work with IBM to deepen its expertise and skills on watsonx to help scale AI adoption among small businesses (SMBs). Innovative Solutions also plans to open a second headquarters in Boca Raton, Florida on May 1, 2024 and is projected to add up to one hundred new jobs by 2026 with emphasis on SMB digital transformation. “Our services combine best-in-class software from IBM with best-in-class cloud infrastructure from AWS, providing real-time value that can’t be found anywhere else,” says Justin Copie, CEO of Innovative Solutions. “We’re already based on the East Coast, and are excited to bring more jobs to Boca Raton, which has a rich history in technology.”

“In selecting Boca Raton as the location for this corporate headquarters, Innovative Solutions joins more than 500 other corporate headquarters in the county, strategically aligning itself with Palm Beach County’s thriving tech sector comprised of 2,000 technology companies. Positioned within the evolving landscape of artificial intelligence, we anticipate Innovative Solutions with long-term growth and innovation from its new location in Boca Raton,” said Kelly Smallridge, President and CEO, Business Development Board of Palm Beach County (BDB).

The core products Innovative Solutions will focus on for SMB clients include:
Innovative TailwindsInnovative Tailwinds, designed to help organizations rapidly drive business efficiency and growth through Generative AI technologies with IBM watsonx, as well as Amazon Bedrock, Anthropic, and Cohere. Learn More
Managed Security ServicesInnovative Managed Security Services, leveraging IBM security technology deployed on AWS infrastructure such as EKS, EC2, and purchased through the AWS Marketplace. Learn More
Innovative MAPInnovative MAP, leveraging IBM Instana and AWS data transfer and migrations technologies, to monitor and effectively manage workloads as they move onto AWS. Learn More
Managed Cloud ServicesManaged Cloud Services to help customers with Infrastructure Observability using IBM Instana, supported by access to expert engineers — discounted on AWS services. Learn More

MacStadium Logo

MacStadium, a private cloud services provider and SaaS leader that delivers cloud solutions to simplify Mac for business, recently partnered with Innovative Solutions to build and test a new virtual assistant enabled by IBM watsonx Assistant and underpinned by Amazon Bedrock.

“The IBM and AWS collaboration offered a unique combination of leading AI, cloud, infrastructure and open-source technologies that enabled us to scale AI workloads quickly. With our new AI Assistant, we will be able to have an ‘expert’ available to help developers in the moment they need it. Early implementation has led to an increase in staff efficiency and enhanced implementation speed, and we’re excited to continue to scale how we embed AI across our operations,” explains Chris Chapman, Chief Technology Officer at MacStadium.

“Enterprises of all sizes are searching for impactful and trustworthy AI-powered solutions to help modernize their business,” said David La Rose, general manager, IBM Ecosystem, Sell. “Through our collaboration with Innovative Solutions, we’re helping develop the deep expertise of a trusted partner to scale adoption of watsonx on the AWS Marketplace and our portfolio of AI and hybrid cloud offerings with clients on multiple environments. It’s a prime example of meeting clients where they are through the power of the IBM Ecosystem.”

As Innovative continues to focus on providing the best customer outcomes, it all comes down to keeping customer needs at the forefront and finding solutions to meet those needs. “Collaborating with IBM and AWS helps us flip the script on managed services, giving our customers the power of IBM watsonx AI and data platform and AWS AI in a highly secure, managed way that allows them to expedite their growth,” says Copie.

About Innovative Solutions

Innovative believes that every company will become a technology company, and we’re here to help. Recognized as an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner. With an army of cloud experts and the Innovative Cloud Runbook utilizing leading cloud technologies, Innovative gives businesses of every size the confidence to grow in the cloud with generative AI, application modernization, cloud migrations, AWS cloud hosting and resale, managed cloud services, cloud cost optimization, cloud security monitoring, and IT consulting.

Want to learn more? Contact us today.


How companies are using Innovative Tailwinds to enable their businesses with Generative AI Technologies

Many SMBs and Startups are partnering with Innovative Solutions to leverage their expertise in generative AI.  Innovative Tailwinds enables businesses to develop applications using techniques like large language models, computer vision, and predictive analytics to automate processes and create new value for customers.

Innovative Tailwinds

Download

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.