Author: Daniyal Shahrokhian

Intro

I learned most of what I know from random people on the internet. So this is me giving back, a digital playbook packed with stuff that might actually help someone out there.

I’ve run 100+ interviews with companies over the last couple of years. What came out of all that is a simple playbook for finding and launching AI pilots inside your business, without the need for external AI consultants.

In this playbook, you’ll learn:

1. The 30-minute course that gets non-technical stakeholders fluent in Machine Learning
2. How to run AI brainstorming sessions
3. How to validate AI-problem fit before you build
4. Tools for shipping blitz pilots in under 3 weeks

Alright, that’s enough talking. Let’s jump into it.

Teaching AI to Stakeholders

At first, my role in AI Transformation looked like “go deep, map processes, spot opportunities, propose tech…”, which is easy when you explore one department, but it doesn’t scale when you try to help across the company with a tiny team. You can burn weeks just learning how individual contributors from one team do their jobs, which is the opposite of fast iteration and quick wins.

Product 101 says understand problems, then build, and never “do what the customer says”. What I propose here is an alternative, faster path: teach the basics, co-create, then execute.

My (subjective) experience taught me that I was much more successful when I:

1. Spend 30 minutes teaching Machine Learning basics to non-technical stakeholders
2. Brainstorm with them which areas could be either improved or automated with the use of AI
3. Co-create the solution with them, sharing the “product maker” hat

Why this works:

• It’s faster to level up stakeholders on simple ML concepts than to learn every nuance of their day-to-day job.