Avoiding the AI Hype Trap: How EA can turn AI into a true Business Asset

Enterprise Architecture (EA) provides a structured approach to integrating AI effectively within a company, ensuring it complements existing frameworks rather than becoming a misused resource. Paul Estrach, Product Marketing Director at MEGA International, interviewed Samuel Holcman, Managing Director of the Enterprise Architecture Center of Excellence (EACOE), to share their insights on how EA can successfully guide AI to become a powerful asset, leveraging and amplifying business strengths.

The AI Hype Trap and the Power of Enterprise Architecture (EA)

The current AI hype encourages enterprises and employees to work faster to deliver better results. The benefits of using an AI engine to achieve these results include:

• Enhanced decision-making
• Cost savings
• Improved product quality
• Timesaving
• Better work structure
• Effective fraud detection
• Value demonstration

But what if the data supplying those results is unreliable? What if AI isn´t being used to maximum potential within the enterprise structure and is making ‘fool’s gold’ promises? 

If the quality of the data used to train the AI model is inferior, then the results will be too.

Beyond the Hype: Understanding AI’s Limits to Prevent Critical Errors

In the race to keep up with competitors, there is a danger that enterprises are using AI without exploiting its full benefits. The speed at which data is processed often renders it unreliable. We expect AI to give us answers immediately, which can lead to inaccurate results.

There is also the risk of ‘AI hallucination’ – incorrect and misleading results as the model bases its answers on probability, rather than facts. An AI system can only identify patterns and work with the algorithms provided. If the data is complex, AI may not recognize the subtleties or make accurate connections between data pieces.

This can result in false information which can have grave consequences, in particular for industries such as healthcare, technology, and the legal profession.

Potential scenarios could be:

• Misleading statistics during a pandemic, affecting a person's decision to be vaccinated
• Data inaccuracy on climate change and weather patterns, such as hurricane landfall predictions
• Driverless cars causing accidents (a prime example of this is the numerous Tesla crashes while on autopilot)
• Incorrect data misrepresenting legal cases

Each of these situations has the potential to cause serious harm and could result in massive fines and potential imprisonment.

This is one of the reasons why it is important to avoid the AI trap and fully understand how it should work to achieve positive results.

Beyond One-Size-Fits-All: Tailoring AI with Enterprise Architecture

Avoiding the temptation to implement AI without comprehending its role is essential. EA has the power to unlock the mystery of AI and drive its success as a tool within an organization.

Many enterprises feel pressured to keep up, fearing they’ll fall behind competitors. This urgency has fueled demand for generic AI solutions, which vendors often market to organizations eager for quick wins. While the promise of rapid implementation and immediate productivity gains is enticing, these “one-size-fits-all” AI models rarely meet expectations. For AI to be effective, it must be carefully tailored to the specific needs and context of each business.

Therefore, a tailor-made solution is crucial. Within an enterprise there are 4 key data sectors:

1. Internet published data
2. Intellectual property
3. Equal exchange of data
4. Confidential, internal data used in best practices

Each of these sectors has different needs and data requirements, which EA can help to identify. It can be a strategic asset to the introduction of AI. It provides a comprehensive understanding of an organization’s structure, processes, and systems. Without this guiding structure, AI implementation risks being too fast-paced and generating inaccurate results.

The Role of the Enterprise Architect in integrating AI

The Enterprise Architect offers a rational overview of the overall organization, i.e. the processes, enterprise-specific competitive data, and the IT systems that support its business model. They can provide a contextual view of which operations and applications are using and transforming the data.

This cross-functional vision permits them to pinpoint where and how AI can be incorporated as a tool to promote the enterprise’s competitive edge. One instance of this is to establish data governance frameworks to avoid misuse.

Allowing the EA model to lead the transformation can result in a logical procedure that harnesses the value of AI by:

• Determining the goals
• Identifying the data needed to reach those goals
• Processing the data using AI

This avoids the “one-size-fits-all” pitfall, ensuring that AI solutions are tailored to the specific needs of the enterprise, rather than adopting off-the-shelf models that may not offer the right approach.

EA ensures that AI is used with a clear focus on strategic business goals, providing a measured and data-driven path to success.

Challenges and Solutions for EA in the AI Age

It is essential to understand the limitations of AI before implementing it in business practices. Whilst offering a valuable innovative tool, AI brings several challenges for EA in today’s business environment.

One key challenge is the temptation to adopt AI without a clear understanding of how it fits within the organization’s larger configuration.

Businesses are often under pressure to follow trends and competitors to implement AI quickly, leading to poor quality results. This "horde mentality," where enterprises rush to embrace AI technology without understanding how to maximize its potential, does not offer a competitive edge.

An example of adopting a concept because ‘everyone else is doing it’ can be seen in the term ‘Agile Marketing’. ‘Agile’ was the marketing buzzword for several decades. Similar to AI, agile became a hyped-up philosophy that spread rapidly. In August 2024, the agile inventor Scott Ambler acknowledged the demise of his own product: “Agile isn’t dead, but the agile gold rush is, and it isn’t coming back.”

At the time, everyone believed the hype and people became ‘agile certified’. Similarly, today companies are offering AI certification. Even the EITCA (European Information Technologies Certification Academy) is offering a certificate.

A primary challenge for enterprises today is ensuring strategic alignment between AI initiatives and broader business objectives. To achieve this, Enterprise Architecture (EA) practices must be guided by a clear business vision.

However, even in 2024, some organizations still maintain a technology-centric approach within EA, limiting their ability to achieve true strategic alignment. According to a 2022 survey by the ESG Institute, 46% of EA practices in the U.S. and Europe remain focused exclusively on technology.

The solution is the education of stakeholders at all levels of the organization on the value of leading with EA.

The Negative Impact of Poor Data Quality

Another challenge is data quality and governance. AI’s effectiveness depends heavily on the quality and visibility of the data it processes. Even the most advanced AI processing model can deliver inaccurate results, leading to serious consequences such as financial losses or reputation damage.

To avoid this pitfall, stringent regulations must be considered. For instance, GDPR emphasizes data protection, requiring strict security measures and, in many cases, anonymization of personal data. Anonymized data is more challenging for AI to analyze.

Failing to address GDPR requirements can lead to regulatory penalties and reputational risks. If data is of poor quality, inconsistent, or flawed, it is more likely to harm than benefit an enterprise.

Improving data visibility through EA can help solve these issues, to deliver a successful solution that maximizes the use of quality data.

AI as an Empowering Tool for Enterprise Architects

EA is crucial for successful AI adoption, but AI can also enhance EA's effectiveness. In 2024, one of EA’s biggest challenges remains demonstrating its value and managing the growing volume of demands without additional resources. Enterprise architects are often overwhelmed with tasks. When used effectively, AI can be an empowering tool to enhance decision-making, collaboration, and innovation.

The key is understanding that AI does not replace EA, but rather acts as a tool within the EA structure. The human influence of an Enterprise Architect has the ability to judge and apply expert knowledge to a situation.

Here are some examples of AI enhancing EA:

• Automating data collection and consolidation
• Enabling rapid model generation, allowing architects to focus on strategic insights
• Offering tools for industry benchmarking and personalized recommendations

This amplifies EA's strategic impact, making it faster and more effective in driving organizational value.

Using EA and AI to demonstrate value

AI can empower enterprise architects by facilitating better collaboration, improving operational efficiency, and providing more accurate metrics for assessing the impact of business decisions.

For instance, organizations can use EA to determine the real cost-benefit of AI implementation, such as outsourcing tasks or automating processes. Through precise measurement, EA allows enterprises to avoid costly mistakes and ensure that AI delivers tangible results.

EA is a key driver in avoiding the AI trap within an enterprise. While AI is a powerful tool, it requires training and customization by EA to ensure that its implementation is both strategic and aligned with the long-term goals of the organization.

It’s time for organizations to rethink their approach and determine how to avoid the lure of AI to make informed choices and instead use EA to lead change.

Key takeaways

• Employing EA to ensure successful AI adoption opens up several possibilities for enterprises that want to maintain a competitive advantage.
• EA ensures the strategic alignment of business priorities and AI project implementation.
• AI can empower EA to operate more efficiently and effectively, creating a mutually beneficial cycle that drives innovation and business success.

About the experts

Samuel B. (Sam) Holcman is the Chairman of the Pinnacle Business Group, Inc., the Managing Director of the Enterprise Architecture Center Of Excellence (EACOE), and the Business Architecture Center Of Excellence (BACOE), and the President of the Zachman Institute for Framework Advancement (ZIFA). Mr. Holcman is considered one of the world’s foremost experts in Enterprise Architecture and Business Architecture.
Enterprise Architecture Center Of Excellence (EACOE) is the leading training, consulting, and practitioner-certification organization in Enterprise Architecture.  Services are available to support the development of business and technology plans, ranging from Business wide plans to program specific plans.  These services analyze the business unit or program organization and develop strategies and plans for systems and technologies that support the organization's business objectives.  The Enterprise Framework for Enterprise Architecture guides the Enterprise architecture activities. EACOE.org

Paul Estrach is Product Marketing Director at MEGA International, with over 15 years of experience in the Enterprise Architecture practice. Before this role, he worked with many organizations on their transformation projects, from process optimization to the evolution of their information systems, first as consultant then as Services Director for over 7 years.