"Keep Pace" with Industry AI Use Cases
A key resource for your AI Education
In my last blog entry - You can’t know everything, but you need to know something - I explored one of the biggest challenges people face when starting their AI journey: where do I even begin?
While there are many possible starting points, the goal isn’t to dive into the technology itself - it is to understand the AI ecosystem and where AI is already being used in your industry.
This approach provides insight into where AI is gaining traction, offers essential context, reduces information overload and gives you a practical foundation to build on. This post is about how to actually do that.
Once Upon a Time
Once upon a time, technology evolved slowly - and companies were cautious about sharing what they were doing with it.
If you were lucky, you might find a brief mention in a trade publication. If you were really lucky, you could get a vendor reference call - carefully orchestrated and almost always wrapped in a non-disclosure agreement. Information was tightly controlled, and competitive advantage often depended on secrecy.
That world no longer exists.
Workforces are more mobile. Innovation cycles are shorter. And the fear of “giving too much away” has largely been replaced by the need to attract talent, partners, and customers. As a result, information asymmetry - once the norm - is rapidly disappearing.
Sharing Is Caring
Today - sharing is the rule, not the exception.
Organizations are far more open about how they’re experimenting with AI - what’s working, what’s not and where they’re placing their bets. For anyone trying to understand AI’s real-world impact - this is incredibly good news.
A great example is this Google resource outlining 1,001 real-world generative AI use cases from leading organizations:
At first glance, that list can be overwhelming - and that’s okay. You are not meant to absorb all 1,001 examples. Instead, use it as a pattern-spotting exercise:
Which use cases show up repeatedly?
Which ones align with your role or function?
Which ones surprise you - or challenge your assumptions?
This is how you begin to see where AI is gaining traction in practice, not just in headlines.
But Wait - There’s More!
Think of these “use cases” as your starting point - not the destination.
If you look closely at the Google examples, you will notice they don’t go into much detail. That’s intentional. Their value is in showing what organizations are doing - not how they’re doing it.
With a use case in hand, you now have a focus on what to search for!
In a post I wrote last November, I described an approach for using ChatGPT to inspect a public company’s annual 10-K filings with the goal of uncovering AI initiatives the company explicitly called out. Using that same approach, you can go a step further - querying disclosures for clues about specific technologies, including the use of AI agents.
The deeper you look, the clearer the picture becomes.
The Takeaway
You don’t need to know everything about AI.
But you do need to understand where it’s showing up, how it’s being discussed and why it matters in your corner of the world.
The challenge today isn’t access to information - it’s knowing where to look, and how to connect the dots.
How can I help you “Keep Pace” with AI and Intelligent Agents?
With the rapid evolution of AI, a strong AI governance function is mandatory. I offer a range of consulting, governance and architecture services designed to help organizations successfully achieve their AI Goals.
I also host a free weekly webinar every Sunday at 9:00 AM EST, where I break down the week’s most important AI news and articles—and discuss what they mean for you and your business.
The webinar streams LIVE on the following sites:
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And the history (and playlists) of previous videos is available at:
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