Design Your First AI Pilot for Your Business

Kenneth Lowe

Author, Speaker, Innovation Strategist

Design an AI Pilot to Deliver Value

You’ll learn how to avoid the common assumptions that cause many technology pilots to fail.

In the course, we’ll walk step by step through the process of taking one meaningful AI idea or opportunity from your business and turning it into a pilot designed to test whether it can create real business value.

We’ll work through how to define the business problem, set a clear objective, and create a testable hypothesis for what you expect AI to improve.

You’ll learn how to scope the pilot so it is small enough to control but challenging enough to expose hidden constraints, weak assumptions, process gaps, and real operating conditions.

We’ll also cover key questions around data, people, vendors, risk, security, and human review so you can identify what must be resolved before launch and what should be tested during the pilot.

Finally, you’ll define how the pilot will be evaluated and what would cause you to stop, revise, or expand it.

You’ll leave with a practical pilot plan you can use to move forward.

What you’ll learn

You'll go from a rough idea to a clear plan for how to implement your pilot, evaluate the results, and move forward.

Identify the specific process, task, or workflow you want to improve, the current friction, who is affected, and the change desired.
You’ll understand the scope, what business changes may be necessary, and how you’ll need to adapt as you learn from the pilot.

Use a proven framework to plan for each element of your pilot in advance.
Document your expectations and strategy in advance.

You'll set scope and activity to match what you can actually implement.
You'll define in advance what you expect to learn, and how it will help you to achieve your desired outcomes.

Workshop agenda

Define the business scenario
Clarify the process or workflow you want to improve, the current friction, who is affected, and what a better outcome should look like.
Set pilot objectives and hypothesis
Define what you expect AI to change, what value the pilot should test, and the assumptions that must hold for the idea to work.
Design the pilot scope and implementation
Decide what is in and out, who will participate, what AI tools will be used, what conditions should be tested, and where the pilot should deliberately push boundaries.
Plan for risks, constraints, and readiness
Identify what must be resolved before launch, what can be tested during the pilot, and where data, people, vendors, controls, or outside expertise may matter.
Build the evaluation and launch plan
Define what evidence you will collect, how you will judge the results, and what needs to happen to launch, revise, expand, or stop the pilot.