🇬🇧 What’s the right way to measure AI impact?

Catalina Panoiu, Global Senior Innovation Manager at CMS Legal and previously responsible for innovation and AI at companies including Coca-Cola Europacific Partners and Hyundai, joins us in this episode to discuss how companies can measure the real impact of AI.

Many organizations are investing heavily in AI, launching pilots and introducing new tools. But one key question often remains unanswered: What measurable business impact did these initiatives actually create? We discuss why usage metrics such as logins, token consumption or active users reveal very little about the true value of AI, and why companies should define the business problem they want to solve before starting an initiative.

We also look at which KPIs are useful for AI projects and why they need to differ depending on the use case. Catalina discusses areas such as customer experience, efficiency, quality and capability development, and explains why not every impact can be isolated perfectly while companies still need clear objectives and meaningful benchmarks.

Another focus is ownership. Who should be responsible for measuring and improving the ROI of AI initiatives? What roles should the C-level, business units, innovation, IT and learning & development play? And why are AI transformations less likely to succeed when they are treated purely as technology projects?

We also discuss what companies should do when results fall short of expectations. Why does missing a KPI not necessarily mean that the technology has failed? How can organizations distinguish between technical limitations, insufficient training, unrealistic expectations and adoption problems? And why can it be more useful to manage AI initiatives as a portfolio instead of evaluating every project in isolation?

Finally, we look at the next stage of AI adoption: What changes when AI is no longer treated as an individual tool, but becomes part of everyday workflows? What role will process redesign and AI enablement play? And why could this determine which companies ultimately turn their AI investments into sustainable competitive advantage?

Guest:

Catalina Panoiu, Global Senior Innovation Manager at CMS Legal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catalina-panoiu/

Host:

Frederik Görtelmeyer, Co-Founder of Zapdeck, an AI operating system for creating presentations: https://www.linkedin.com/in/goertelmeyer/