Mark Kelly
Founder, AI Ireland
For the past seven years, I’ve had the incredible opportunity to speak with over 750 AI pioneers across Europe and the US — everyone from nimble startup founders to the Head of AI at NASA.
Founding AI Ireland and personally reviewing 650 applications for our AI Awards has given me an unparalleled view of the innovation happening right here on the island. Through all these experiences — connecting global insights with local realities — one powerful pattern became undeniable: market leaders treat AI not as a standalone product, but as the foundational operating system of their business.
Embedding an AI-first mindset across
your people, processes, products,
experimentation and data strategy is
what will ultimately define market leadership.
The AI-first success formula
As co-founder of an AI staffing firm, I have a unique vantage point, witnessing both the executive vision and the ground-level talent required for effective implementation. The companies achieving breakaway success consistently apply an ‘AI-First’ formula built on five core pillars:
- People: Forward-thinking organisations cultivate widespread AI literacy. This isn’t just about hiring data scientists; it’s about training existing staff in crucial skills like prompt engineering — the art of communicating effectively with tools like ChatGPT. Using a simple framework (Define Persona, provide Context, issue a clear Command, specify Format) can yield dramatically better results from generative AI, unlocking productivity across roles.
- Process: AI-First companies relentlessly pursue operational efficiency. They embed AI to automate workflows, shorten meeting times, enhance decision-making and even handle complex tasks like negotiation.
- Product: These firms don’t just use AI internally; they integrate it directly into their offerings. This means creating smarter products, personalising customer journeys at scale and embedding intelligence to remove friction and add value at critical touchpoints.
- Experimentation (play): Crucially, leading companies foster a culture of safe experimentation. They create environments where teams can rapidly test hypotheses and prototype AI-driven ideas, turning concepts into functional applications in days or even hours, not months. This accelerates learning and innovation.
- Proprietary data and insights: Finally, they meticulously capture and structure their unique data: customer feedback, operational metrics and internal knowledge. This proprietary data becomes a defensible asset, feeding smarter AI models and creating compounding advantages. AI is treated as a cross-functional, strategic capability — not a departmental silo.
Start small and think strategically
For business leaders wondering where to begin, the advice is straightforward: start small, but start strategically. Encourage your teams (and yourself) to use AI tools for five minutes each day to enhance specific tasks. Host informal ‘lunch and learn’ sessions. Share useful prompts and discoveries internally. The technology will continue its rapid evolution, but embedding an AI-first mindset across your people, processes, products, experimentation and data strategy is what will ultimately define market leadership.
