This article explores how businesses can drive measurable growth with AI by focusing on three practical pathways: supercharging people’s productivity, enhancing decision-making, and scaling operations intelligently. It also outlines the importance of aligning AI tools with strategy, managing cultural change, and balancing opportunity with risk for lasting impact.
Reading time: 5 minutes
Every business we support that’s serious about growth is looking at ways to leverage AI. There are real opportunities even at this early stage for businesses that want to grow faster, smarter and with more impact, as well as more efficiently.
There’s also a real risk of ‘AI fever’ inspiring vague, sloppy growth plans that mistake hype for realistic and accessible business opportunity.
Cutting through that to real growth is vital, and in every sector we’re finding that true potential in three main areas:
All three make powerful use of the objectivity & speed of AI to build new growth engines and adapt them quickly to stay ahead when conditions worsen. We’re recommending they’re a great starting point for companies who want AI power behind their growth.
AI is an umbrella term. It covers different technologies that do different things. An important starting point is matching the tool to the use case to avoid wasting effort in the long term.
GenAI is often what people are referring to when they say ‘AI’, but it goes far beyond chatbots. Technologies within AI include:
Like with all good tools, adoption is key. AI should not only be the preserve of top (or technical) teams in organisations and ‘pushed down’ to everyone else. The best applications will be found and fine-tuned by those closest to the work. Whichever combination of AI technologies organisations take, managing the culture of change is critical, as well as empowering colleagues to embrace, and not fear, AI.
The following examples show some benefits and risks of using AI to drive growth. Both sides need to be weighed up to ensure the initiative is right for your organisation, something Q5 supports clients through.
Many organisations spend huge amounts of time on repetitive, low-value tasks. Smart organisations identify those tasks and make AI do the heavy lifting. At Moorfields Eye Hospital, for example, AI reviews thousands of retinal scans and flags potentially urgent cases by applying agreed criteria. The specialists can then prioritise more complex diagnoses where their expertise adds most value.
This approach is faster and cheaper, resulting in reduced patient backlogs and quicker diagnoses. The risk is accuracy. If the AI misses something or has biased training data, the result could be harmful. That is why the decision about what to replace with AI needs to be made carefully.
At Q5, we can help you assess these trade-offs and decide which processes are safe to automate and which should be protected.
Forget replacing people and instead supercharge their productivity, help them work faster, and deliver better results. Reporters at The New York Times and other news publishers now use AI to scan and summarise thousands of pages of material. The AI handles the heavy processing, while journalists apply the nuance, context, and storytelling.
Higher quality and faster turnaround investigations that would have taken weeks can now be completed in days. The risk comes if organisations fail to invest in workforce skills and culture and staff do not know how to use AI effectively, or if guardrails are not in place, quality and trust can suffer.
Q5 helps you understand the work your organisation does and where your best assets, your people, are best placed focusing their time.
Most organisations already sit on valuable data on their assets. AI helps you make these assets work harder. Airlines have used AI to analyse flight data and suggest smarter routes and improve operational processes. The result has been millions saved in fuel costs and reductions in emissions.
The risk is that if data is poor or does not cover the right asset base, the recommendations will not unlock the promised business growth. In all cases, people must be confident that AI is supporting rather than undermining their judgment and AI as a decision-support, not replacement tool.
Q5 helps you identify which assets matter most and get your foundations right. With clean data and the right processes, AI can deliver measurable asset value. We work with you to ensure AI enhances your assets instead of adding complexity or confusion.
AI will drive growth – but not on its own. Leaders need to choose carefully: which processes to replace, where to empower people, and which assets to enhance. Every decision should be linked to long-term strategy and be based on a clear understanding of the value and risk trade-off.
At Q5, we work with clients to make those choices deliberately. We focus on clarity, culture, and measurable results. If you’d like to explore what this could look like for your business, then get in touch.
Principal Consultant
Senior Consultant
by 