It's official. Artificial intelligence has become commonplace.

Once reserved only for researchers and venture companies, it it is now accessible to all types of organizations and everyday consumers. It powers content and image creation, customer service, marketing personalization and, yes, even mechanical bees that pollinate plants. And this is just the beginning of it.

AI's growing capabilities have quickly moved it from a buzzword to the top of businesses' to-do lists.

But there is no shortcut to it implementing AI in your business. Artificial intelligence is more than just another platform in your technology stack – it's the technology that can completely redefine how your company operates and does business. This requires a complete organizational change.

AI is here to stay, but before businesses can fully immerse themselves in all it has to offer, they need to make sure their organizations and employees are ready for it. This includes retraining of employeescentralizing company data and getting teams comfortable with AI, among other things.

Here are three ways to prepare your business for an AI future.

1. Make sure your data is ready for AI

Organizations today have hundreds of thousands of data points. Think sales numbers, engagement with prospects, marketing statistics and more. The problem, however, lies in who has access to this data.

Most data within organizations is shared between teams and executives – the sales team only has access to sales data, the marketing team to marketing data, and so on. And for teams with access to data – it's distributed across different channels and tools. For example, the marketing team must check each individual platform they use (eg HubSpot, Google Ads, social media channels) for data and manually bring it together to understand the big picture.

All this means that if employees can't even access their data easy, how is AI supposed to be? Without data, AI cannot function.

Before companies can begin their AI journey, they need to centralize their data. A place where all of a company's data – or performance, profitability, people and process metrics – live and can be accessed by any employee.

Companies that centralize their data will see benefits beyond AI. With data now in the hands of every employee, they will increasingly look to it to make business decisions – rather than relying on their gut or guessing what is right.

Connected: Artificial Intelligence May Not Take Your Job, But Someone Using AI Probably Will – Here's Why.

2. Be transparent about the role of AI in the workplace

While AI may be widespread, there is much we still don't know about it. This, understandably, can cause some discomfort to employees.

Because it is still a new, developing technology, educating employees about AI and being transparent about how it will be used in the organization is important.

Inevitably there will be employees who think that implementing AI means they are out of their job – but that's not the case.

Artificial intelligence can help end manual and time-consuming tasks that employees are responsible for every day, so employees can focus on more strategic and creative tasks. AI is not taking over their job – it's quite the opposite: AI is increasing their role.

An ongoing conversation with employees about AI and how technology will evolve is crucial to the success of AI in the workplace. This will help employees understand the rationale behind the technology and get them excited about its potential.

3. Take it step by step with AI

It's easy to get excited by AI and its capabilities. There are so many potential in AI and its impact on your business – it's tempting to want to apply it as much as possible to every area of ​​business. But don't get in over your head.

Start small with AI and then grow from there. There are new skills that employees need to learn and tools to get on board with, not to mention learning about AI in the workplace in general.

Introduce AI to small parts of a project instead of having it automatically take on a task. This will not only give employees time to learn how to use the technology, but it will also make them comfortable enough with it to know that it is there to help you – not to take about their work.

Beyond getting employees involved in technology and getting them comfortable with it, it's critical to ensure that AI drives the success you want within the organization. There may be technology that doesn't work well for specific organizations, and that's okay, but it's best to understand that before you shift every aspect of your business to include AI.

Try introducing AI to specific departments or tasks for a few months and monitor the success. If it's working, expand your work with AI. If it isn't, it might be time to go back to the drawing board.